question: Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut is both a potent western and a powerful morality tale.

numbered reviews: 1. The film works on three levels: as a visually appealing modern Southwestern saga, as an old-fashioned cowboy story, and as a compelling, slightly troubling look at modern ideas superimposed against an old-fashioned lifestyle.
2. Like Richard Farnsworth, L. Q. Jones or even Steve McQueen in his later performances, Jones' world-weary western masculinity transcends "movie acting."
3. If you've seen and loved Lone Star, you will not want to miss this similar character study and mystery.
4. A beguiling and fast-paced Tex-Mex western saga of transcendent meaning and beauty
5. Tommy Lee Jones makes a sure-handed feature directing debut and gives one of the best performances of his career.
6. Crash by way of Cormac McCarthy.
7. What, exactly, is the devil in Mr. Jones?
8. Tommy Lee Jones' feature directorial debut is probably much as you'd expect: a blast of nostalgia that nonetheless accepts the realities of modernity
9. Begins deep in Peckinpah territory, but soon forges its own unique, queerly beautiful path ... A masterpiece, flat out.
10. At times, Burials seems to be arguing that 'civilization' is a joke and that we're kidding ourselves if we think we believe the world makes sense.


question: After Tiller applies empathy, honesty, and graceful understatement to a discussion that all too often lacks them all.

numbered reviews: 1. It's an in-the-trenches exploration of bravery.
2. "After Tiller" takes the politically divisive, emotionally charged issue of late-term abortions and portrays it with grace, understatement and humanity.
3. "After Tiller" is groundbreaking in giving voice not only to the doctors, but to those who always seem to get overlooked in the high-volume political debate about this topic: the women themselves.
4. Addressing an issue many Americans are uncomfortable with, this informative documentary sheds light and humanity on reproductive rights in this country.
5. After Tiller's greatest failing is the way in which is fails to engage at length how entrenched the stalemate on abortion is.
6. What makes this well-edited film compelling are the stories of the patients and the agonizing moral quandaries that the doctors express in doing their work.
7. A documentary that may infuriate those who find what these doctors do unconscionable, but that provides a rare forum for these dedicated, complex professionals to have their say.
8. Compelling, revealing [its] subjects as sympathetic human beings simply by observing and talking to them about their work and their lives.
9. It's humanizing and heartbreaking.
10. Wrenching yet illuminating. The film reveals the complex circumstances, emotions and practical aspects behind the (third-trimester abortion) procedure.


question: A brutal, often times funny, other times terrifying portrayal of drug addiction in Edinburgh. Not for the faint of heart, but well worth viewing as a realistic and entertaining reminder of the horrors of drug use.

numbered reviews: 1. Wickedly funny, sick, insightful, depressing, dirty, unjudging, awesomely acted and brilliant.
2. Others, if they choose, may praise Trainspotting for its squalor; I prefer to praise it for the invigorating perspectives of a writer and a director with ideas and the ability to convey them.
3. Exuberant and pitiless, profane yet eloquent, flush with the ability to create laughter out of unspeakable situations, "Trainspotting" is a drop-dead look at a dead-end lifestyle that has all the strength of its considerable contradictions.
4. The movie has been attacked as pro-drug and defended as anti-drug, but actually it is simply pragmatic. It knows that addiction leads to an unmanageable, exhausting, intensely uncomfortable daily routine, and it knows that only two things make it bearable
5. This is not dour social realism. It's a shot- from-a-cannon youth movie, with likable young people sticking needles in their arms in working-class Edinburgh.
6. It's Trainspotting, and it's great.
7. Based on Irvine Welsh's novel, this visually rich, culturally allusive film focuses on a small group of friends who are frustrated, rebellious and full of passions.
8. A cocktail of scuzzy charm, nerve and despair that seduces and repulses in nearly equal proportions. It packs a jolt, all right. But it leaves you with a brutal hangover, too.
9. ...rapid-fire youth-culture freak show: random sex, in-your-face scatology, senseless violence and rampant profanity delivered in haggis-thick brogues.
10. This is probably the most honest movie ever made about drug addiction.


question: Claude Lelouch has crafted an engaging thriller about murder and romance with plenty of stylistic panache.

numbered reviews:
1. If this kind of storytelling is your cup of absinthe, Claude Lelouch makes it easy to sip appreciatively.
2. Claude Lelouch has concocted an intriguing brew with Roman de Gare, which only grows in interest and emotional depth as it proceeds.
3. [Lelouch] masterfully switches tone without missing a beat and has truly created a masterpiece that can only get better the more times it's watched.
4. filmmaking for filmmaking's sake.
5. You'll be wondering if you've inadvertently stumbled into a David Mamet movie, it's that well done.
6. Where's Agatha Christie when you need her?
7. Pinon and Dana are so striking together.
8. A glossy, enjoyable thriller that isn't quite as tricky or Hitchcockian as it wants to be, Roman de Gare gets by on high style and nice central performances by rubber-faced Dominique Pinon and Audrey Dana.
9. The problem with Roman de Gare is that the tale grabs you more than the telling.
10. If you're willing to go along with it, as I was, then being manipulated -- or at least actively misled -- becomes a pleasure.