question: This compassionate portrait of a New York City street vendor is as beautiful as it is melancholy.

numbered reviews: 1. The performances and storyline are pretty perfunctory. But the nocturnal images of Razvi hauling his metallic cart through traffic that barely notices his existence eloquently encapsulate the émigré experience.
2. Elusive and underpowered.
3. Ahmad's concerns -- his sadness and his striving -- become universal. Though his early-morning riser's world is gray and threaded with melancholy, it becomes, in the end, a place we recognize.
4. Free of contrived melodrama and phony suspense, it ennobles the hard work by which its hero earns his daily bread.
5. Unfortunately, the characters are so tediously one dimensional, poorly scripted and amateurishly acted, that the most sympathetic character is a neglected kitten.
6. Man Push Cart is a solemn mood piece that hovers somewhere between bittersweet and despairing.
7. Man Push Cart is likely too slow to pull in much of an audience, but that's a shame, because it has so much empathy for the plight of the lonely.
8. The makers of Man Push Cart seem so dedicated to making a film that defies Hollywood conventions that the finished product lacks enough entertainment value to justify price of admission.
9. Shot in three weeks, Man Push Cart does a fine job of capturing the bitter flavor of Ahmad's life.
10. Michael Simmond's cinematography, especially in scenes of Ahmad muscling his way amid evening traffic and early-morning delivery trucks, is wonderfully true to the moods of a city that never sleeps and seldom nods at the hard work going on before it.


question: MMA star and first-time actress Gina Carano displays ample action-movie chops in Haywire, a fast-paced thriller with a top-notch cast and outstanding direction from Steven Soderbergh.

numbered reviews: 1. Haywire is a tired spy thriller that meshes the three styles of Steven Soderbergh - pop, clinical and indie - into one messy, sometimes dull B-movie.
2. ... we just wait for her to click back into fight mode. Her body language tells us more about her character than any dialogue exchange.
3. Steven Soderbergh devised the film especially for his kickboxing champion leading lady Gina Carano, who kicks her way through a line of leading men, all coming off a poor second best.
4. Gina Carano manages to display swift blows and quick thinking as well as masterful kicks to the guts of her enemies while retaining a sensuality that is just bold and absolutely irresistible.
5. The movie is really only bursting at the seams during its fight scenes. Instead of rapid-fire cutting to accentuate the danger, the camera just stops and pays witness to the action.
6. If you're a fan of the action-thriller genre, Soderbergh superbly nails what thrills it takes for those films to work so well.
7. The film does have style, but unfortunately the focus on that element seems to have come at too much of a cost.
8. [Soderbergh] may be unpredictable but his command of movie making is exhilarating and lord knows he's never dull.
9. It's impressive that something so utterly familiar can feel this refreshing. This is Le Samourai for the Steven Seagal crowd.
10. Haywire is a Bourne Identity-inspired spy vs. spy action flick that isn't quite the kick in the head it should be.


question: Chweneyagae's powerful performance carries this simple yet searing tale of a shantytown teenager's redemption.

numbered reviews: 1. At the heart is a breathtaking performance by South African actor Presley Chweneyagae.
2. The violence makes Tsotsi's character a little more challenging to embrace and makes the transformation tougher to achieve, but it's more rewarding in the long run.
3. This remarkable movie means to shake you, and boy does it ever.
4. The story's lame, condesending objective dictates that bringing-up-baby histrionics will melt the savage beast.
5. While some of the scenes are a bit melodramatic ... [Director] Hood does a terrific job drawing the audience into Tsotsi's world of violence, anger and, eventually, growth and maturation.
6. ...a thug-rehabilitation movie that goes to exaggerated lengths to redeem its criminal antihero.
7. What a simple and yet profound story this is.
8. Tsotsi does more than illustrate African hardships. It's a powerful appeal for us to appreciate the value of every human life, from infants to hardened of criminals.
9. If Hood's direction were anything more than blatantly cruel and crushingly obvious -- or if Chweneyagae were capable of more than one expression -- the film might have a reason for existing.
10. A mixture of thrilling documentary-style realism and Hollywood hokum, Tsotsi leaves you all but tasting the orange dust of Joburg's shantytowns and moved by the harrowing journey Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) is forced to take.


question: Festival Express is a spellbinding documentary that nostalgically chronicles five days in the summer of 1970, when a train full of now- legendary rock perfomers jammed its way across Canada.

numbered reviews:
1. The result is satisfying, anchored by wonderful performances, including an aching rendition of Bob Dylan's 'I Shall Be Released' with Manuel singing and Guy's smoking-hot version of 'Money.'
2. A fascinating time capsule of unseen moments from the 1960s, both the musical ... and the sociological as the cream of the musical counterculture comes face to face with its own greedy, bullying fans.
3. What's most revealing and human about Festival Express are its candid looks at artists bonding aboard the choo-choo.
4. A delirious piece of pop ephemera, a time capsule set on the cusp between the Summer of Love and the Day the Music Died.
5. Joplin lends Festival Express the raw gravitas that pushes the doc into the realm of near-greatness.
6. It emerges as one of the last howls of defiance from the counter-culture decade, made all the more poignant by the fact that many of those involved are no longer around to remember it.
7. It's a fun, 90-minute ride, if little more.
8. A fascinating, fly-on- the-wall (or fly-in-the- dining-car) glimpse of some clearly blotto rock legends talking, singing, hanging out.
9. Joplin lets loose a version of 'Cry Baby' that should stand as one of the great performances in any concert film.
10. From the moment Joplin announces her arrival in the film she holds you rapt under her spell.