Peter Rainer

"Murphy’s characters here seem to personify both his best and worst images of himself, as well as the ways in which blacks traditionally have been caricatured in Hollywood."  

"The impression this movie leaves is profound: Here is an artist who sees things whole."  

"Keaton at times manages to convert Meyers’s penchant for the obvious into something truly funny"  

"The result is perhaps the most elegantly shot, and certainly the most disturbing, of the recent fantasy films."  

"The film should be called 'The Matrix Overloaded' (...) The Wachowskis are immensely talented cyberspace technicians, but they’re not great storytellers"  

"Every generation has to discover the same clichés that were drummed into previous generations, and kids could do worse than to learn them from this film."  

"About a Boy is sophisticated and nuanced, and every character is bursting with emotional contradictions"

"If we later came to realize that movies could be a whole lot better than 'Ben-Hur', that still doesn't detract from the enjoyment the film still provides."  

"What I experienced was a lot of fetid experimental-film folderol perfumed by Chopin nocturnes on the soundtrack"  

"Reportedly, Jonathan Harr’s nonfiction best-seller 'A Civil Action' is being used as a textbook in law schools. The movie that has been made from it is unlikely to be used as a model in film schools."  

"'Smoke' doesn’t go very deep, but it’s pleasantly ruminative (...) a sweet, forlorn little snapshot."  

"[It] is just the beginning of a vast marketing blitz. You can’t avoid the blitz--not unless you live in a convent--but you can duck the movie."  

"Tamra Davis and screenwriters Sandler and Tim Herlihy scatter the bad jokes like fertilizer. Nothing sprouts"  

"Natalie Portman isn’t enough of an actress to unfold Mathilda’s pain (...) It’s a vile little exercise."  

"Without Davidson 'Stargate' might seem clunky and routine, but he gives it a weirdo charge. It may be a lousy movie, but it’s a more enjoyably lousy movie than most."  

"Finney is remarkably good (...) [It] is the kind of material where every emotion is calibrated, every nuance signaled"  

"It’s a psychological thriller without psychological depth (...) McGehee and Siegel have the flair to bring something distinctively new to black comedy once they shake out their art-film kinks"  

"'Blue Chips' should be better than it is (...) But in flashes it makes you realize why you like sports--and sports movies--in the first place."  

"A few shoot-'em-up scenes are stirring, but there’s not much else to relieve a script loaded with cliches"  

"A lullaby for the dysfunctional family generation."