31 quotes
This film Phantom takes everything that's wrong with Broadway and puts it on the big screen in a gaudy splat.
Review of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
It would be destined for the trash heap of Shakespeare adaptations, if not for its female lead, and its heart, 17-year-old Claire Danes.
Review of William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996)
The bigger question to ask about 300 is why, for a supposedly rousing tale of heroism, it's so curiously unaffecting.
Review of 300 (2007)
This sprawling epic is as lively as a natural history museum diorama.
While 9 Songs is sexually explicit in the basic sense, its directness is what's most fascinating, and ultimately most moving, about it.
Review of 9 Songs (2005)
Batman Begins leaks existential phoniness from the first frame.
Review of Batman Begins (2005)
It's mournful and troubling in a way that goes beyond ordinary movie manipulation. It burns clean.
Review of Cast Away (2000)
Monster is a compassionate picture without any obvious agenda. And it's effective precisely because it's not a polemic.
Review of Monster (2003)
It's impossible to tell what's going on at any given moment in Tomb of the Dragon Emperor; it's even harder to care about being able to tell.
Review of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)
I can't remember ever feeling so glad that a movie was finally over. [Director George] Lucas may have held my imagination hostage for two hours, but reclaiming it afterward wasn't hard at all.
Review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
Who would have thought that [director] Cameron Crowe had a movie as bad as Vanilla Sky in him? It's a punishing picture, a betrayal of everything that Crowe has proved he knows how to do right.
Review of Vanilla Sky (2001)
The scariest thing in it may be the way the clock radio has a way of turning itself on, loudly, of its own accord. The song is always the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun." Now that's horror.
Review of 1408 (2007)
Pan's Labyrinth works on so many levels that it seems to change shape even as you watch it. It is, at times, a joyless picture, and its pall of sadness can begin to weigh you down.
Review of Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
There are epic impulses everywhere you look in There Will Be Blood; what's missing is character development, focused storytelling and, most significantly (apart from that terrific opening sequence), any sense of raw, intuitive drama.
Review of There Will Be Blood (2007)
Everything about Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, from its toy-box colors to its superb, hyper-animated Danny Elfman score to the butch-waxed hairdo and wooden-puppet walk of its star and mastermind is pure pleasure.
Review of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)
It's possible [director Jody] Hill has a style, of sorts. But he doesn't work from the heart, or from the gut, as a good comedy director generally needs to. He operates from one guiding question: "How disturbing can we make this shit?"
Review of Observe and Report (2009)
The most interesting character here is an animal, a sturdy-looking white and black bulldog, who appears throughout the movie, angel style, to speak the truth -- silently. In this load of mind-bendy bushwa, he's the only thing worth watching, or listening to.
Review of The Number 23 (2007)
I suspect this picture is pretty close to what fans were hoping for, and for their sake, I'm glad it's markedly better than the two that preceded it. But Revenge of the Sith is still crap.
Review of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
It's time to start recognizing that not all escapist entertainment is created equal. And that some of it isn't even entertainment. Miss March is, to use the vernacular of the escapist moviegoer, the biggest pile of crap I've seen in ages.
Review of Miss March (2009)
We've moved away from being a culture of people who think about movies to one made up of people who believe that spouting a list of preferences is the same as registering an opinion.