question: With Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek has delivered a graceful adaptation that captures the spirit of the Ishiguro novel -- which will be precisely the problem for some viewers.

numbered reviews: 1. Haunting, heartbreaking adaptation of the Ishiguro novel features a superb cast and inspired direction and cinematography...and a unique comingling of genres.
2. If you're overly nervous about knowing anything about the movie, then just know that I recommend the film with one caveat: this movie will not hold your hand. Whatever reactions you have to it will be earned, not spoon-fed.
3. That rare find, a fragile little four-leaf clover of a movie that's emotionally devastating, yet all too easily trampled by cynics.
4. Lugubrious study of the perils of genetic engineering.
5. Pretty, empty, and immediately forgettable.
6. Understated, ethereal British elegance in its style and cinematography ... churlish and unforgiving in love and life, and one of the most discreetly disturbing films you will see.
7. A compelling film which lingers in the memory after viewing.
8. Pragmatic and bound by grim duty drilled into her and her friends, Mulligan's Kathy is a masterclass in contained sadness and nothing less than remarkable.
9. It is a film almost unremittingly hopeless in its cruel finality, packing a crucial emotional punch, ending with a chilling monologue that reminds us of the tale's universality.
10. Deeply moving.


question: Dallas Buyers Club rests squarely on Matthew McConaughey's scrawny shoulders, and he carries the burden gracefully with what might be a career-best performance.

numbered reviews: 1. [Matthew McConaughey's] explosive, unerring portrayal defines what makes an actor great, blazing commitment to a character and the range to make every nuance felt.
2. McConaughey and Leto lost weight in order to show their acting talent in this fact based film.
3. McConaughey's performance is a tour de force.
4. atthew McConaughey haters may finally have to admit defeat ... a jarring reminder of the universal reaction to AIDS in 1985. It also speaks to how far we've come.
5. Leto hasn't had a role this meaty since Requiem for a Dream 13 years ago, although there's no question that this is McConaughey's movie. The actor's been on fire lately, with choice roles in Mud, Magic Mike and more, but this represents a new career best.
6. McConaughey and Leto make "Dallas" one of the Year's Best.
7. McConaughey's nonstop energy and his character's will to survive carries the film, even in its most conventional moments.
8. Dallas Buyers Club is one of the year's best movies and offers proof that Matthew McConaughey's recent acting accolades are not a fluke.
9. The essence of the film is Woodroof and Rayon. Their unlikely friendship is the heart of Dallas Buyers Club, an AIDS drama about tolerance and the ability for even the worst of us to improve our lives and those around us.
10. McConaughey pulls his character's unlikely alliances off with a truthful mix of newfound tolerance and common-sense grit.


question: David Lynch's dreamlike and mysterious Mulholland Drive is a twisty neo-noir with an unconventional structure that features a mesmirizing performance from Naomi Watts as a woman on the dark fringes of Hollywood.

numbered reviews: 1. An extended mood opera, if you want to put an arty label on incoherence.
2. Your friend isn't going to be interested in hearing about your dream, and I can't imagine anyone honestly being interested in watching David Lynch's dream-on-film, either.
3. If you're headed out to the theater and are looking for a bit of mindless Hollywood entertainment, do NOT buy tickets for "Mulholland Drive."
4. Elegantly haunting, assured but still deeply mysterious.
5. Mulholland doesn't wrap things up. But it does give us pieces that fit together into a fascinating, dreamlike puzzle.
6. My initial reaction was a negative one, based primarily on the sheer confusion involved, the inability to make any sense of this mess. But the film has stayed with me and that has softened me a bit.
7. If Lynch's main goal is simply to make the audience feel uneasy and off-balance, he definitely succeeds.
8. Mulholland Drive echoes with the ghosts of Hollywood past.
9. While I occasionally felt a delicious thrill as I swirled through his surreal world, more often I found myself wielding a more impatiently pedestrian 'Huh?'
10. You may walk out of this movie with a headache, you may walk out angry or or you may feel like you've just come back from Oz, but you will not walk out unaffected.


question: A wacky satire on the fashion industry, Zoolander is one of those deliberately dumb comedies that can deliver genuine laughs.

numbered reviews:
1. I'm happy to report that Zoolander does indeed deliver the giggles.
2. Zoolander is sometimes inspired silliness, but silly is all it wants to be.
3. Overall, the movie's dressing-down of the fashion industry is a runway success.
4. If the Malaysians made a comedy about the assassination of the president of the United States because of his opposition to slavery, it would seem approximately as funny to us as Zoolander would seem to them.
5. An irresistibly brainless comedy.
6. Stiller attempts to turn bikini-size material into a maxi-length coat. All that does is create a product full of holes.
7. Zoolander's vain stupidity gets as wearisome on film as such behaviour is in real life.
8. Zoolander's superficial satire is more smarmy than charming.
9. A rare, modern stupid comedy: one that's smart about half the time.
10. Finally points Stiller in the right satirical direction, even though his central topic could just as easily be skewered in 10 minutes.