Roger Ebert

What sets this film above so many movies about animals is that it's about a dog who is realistic in every aspect.

A cheerful comedy with just enough dark moments to create the illusion it's really about something.

The Samaritan isn't a great noir, but it's true to the tradition and gives Samuel L. Jackson one of his best recent roles.

The nicest touch is that Battleship has an honest-to-God third act, instead of just settling for nonstop fireballs and explosions, as Bay likes to do. I don't want to spoil it for you. Let's say the Greatest Generation still has the right stuff and leave it at that.

The Dictator is funny, in addition to being obscene, disgusting, scatological, vulgar, crude and so on.

The Sound of My Voice never precisely declares whether her story is true. Without going into detail, I can say that the film never precisely declares anything to be true.

It's not often a thriller keeps me wound up as well as Headhunters did. I knew I was being manipulated and didn't care. It was a pleasure to see how well it was being done.

Ansiedad is a smart charmer, and well-played by Cierra Ramirez, she should really be above this sort of thing - above the whole movie, really.

Here is a film that begins with merciless comic savagery and descends into merely merciless savagery. But wow, what an opening.

It offers wonderful things, but they aren't what's important. It's as if Burton directed at arm's length, unwilling to find juice in the story.

Surviving Progress is a bright, entertaining (!), coherent argument in favor of these principles I have simplified so briefly. It's self-evident and tells the truth.

A movie like Keyhole plays like a fever dream using the elements of film noir but restlessly rearranging them in an attempt to force sense out of them. You have the elements lined up against the wall, and in some mercurial way, they slip free and attack you from behind.

I had to forget what I knew about Black. He creates this character out of thin air, it's like nothing he's done before, and it proves that an actor can be a miraculous thing in the right role.

We suspect that the film will be about their various problems and that the hotel will not be as advertised. What we may not expect is what a charming, funny and heartwarming movie this is, a smoothly crafted entertainment that makes good use of seven superb veterans.

When I see these six together, I can't help thinking of the champions at the Westminster Dog Show. You have breeds that seem completely different from one another (Labradors, poodles, boxers, Dalmatians), and yet they're all champions.

It is depressing to reflect on the wealth of talent that conspired to make this inert and listless movie.

A film like this would have little chance without the right casting, and James Rolleston is so right as Boy, it's difficult to imagine anyone else.

One of the qualities of Monsieur Lazhar is that it has no simple questions and simple answers. Its purpose is to present us with a situation, explore the people involved and show us a man who is dealing with his own deep hurts.

There are elements of comedy here, and some very low-key slapstick, but the film is respectful to the Catholic Church and the papacy and takes no cheap shots.

When I heard that John Cusack had been cast for this film, it sounded like good news: I could imagine him as Poe, tortured and brilliant, lashing out at a cruel world. But that isn't the historical Poe the movie has in mind. It is a melodramatic Poe, calling for the gifts of Nicolas Cage.

Marley, an ambitious and comprehensive film, does what is probably the best possible job of documenting an important life.

The result is a tiresome exercise that circles at great length through various prefabricated stories defined by the advice each couple needs (or doesn't need).

Fake It So Real filled me with affection for its down-and-out heroes, a group of semi-pro wrestlers in Lincolnton, N.C.

What a courageous first feature this is, a film that sidesteps shopworn stereotypes and tells a quiet, firm, deeply humanist story about doing the right thing. It is a film that avoids any message or statement and simply shows us, with infinite sympathy, how the life of a completely original character can help us lead our own.

The Lady is more professional but, for me, "They Call It Myanmar" is more useful. Lieberman answers questions that Besson does not think to ask.

The Lucky One is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling.

This is not a perfect movie; it's so ragged, it's practically constructed of loose ends. But it's exciting because it ventures so far off the map.

The plot, in short, is underwhelming. It merely follows the reporters as the screenplay serves them the solution to their case on a silver platter. Yet curiously, Deadline flows right along.