question: Walter Matthau does a nice job as Mr. Wilson, but Dennis the Menace follows the Home Alone formula far too closely.

numbered reviews: 1. But it's all far too flabby, with lengthy setups that seem to go on forever. Some judicious editing to tighten up the film could have made all the difference in the overall pacing.
2. A movie that makes you leave the theatre with thoughts of having yourself, and your neighbors, spayed is not a good thing.
3. John Hughes' vision of Dennis is much more menacing than Ketcham's fans and parents of small children might reasonably expect.
4. A smooth blend of sentiment and slapstick.
5. Its unholy mixture of peppy sadism and pious, self-righteous sentiment comes straight from Hughes' crabbed cinematic heart.
6. Very young children may find the numskull, by-the-numbers gags here amusing, but teens will consider this kids' stuff and adults will be pained.
7. Why, oh dear lord, why?!?
8. How to turn an innocuous comic strip into an obnoxious movie.
9. Someone ought to pay for this.
10. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Castle try hard to re-create a kind of timeless, idealized comic-strip atmosphere, but except for the performances of Lea Thompson and Robert Stanton... nobody in the movie seems in touch with the nature of the comedy.


question: It isn't as compelling on the screen as it was on the stage, but Carnage makes up for its flaws with Polanski's smooth direction and assured performances from Winslet and Foster.

numbered reviews: 1. What leaves me deeply uncomfortable is the purely cinematic postscript Polanski tacks on to Yasmina Reza's play... It suggests that any moral outrage that erupts over a wrongdoing is wasted energy and anger...
2. Sharply written and smartly directed, this is an enjoyable, blackly comic drama with terrific performances from all four leads, though it's also something of a one-joke movie.
3. Totally overrated- just like the play.
4. Though repetitious, this photographed play is brutal, witty, funny and scary.
5. A taut, laugh-out-loud comedy with four powerhouse performances.
6. Involving portrait of two couples meeting to smooth out the rough edges of a mutual problem who wind up letting loose all the anger, disappointment, and hatred inside themselves.
7. This brutally edgy, biting comedy is slick, simmering and scathing - with a suitably ironic conclusion.
8. Yes, this is an adaptation of one of those plays where loathsome well-to-do socialites of various flavors come together to methodically reveal just how loathsome they are.
9. In the mayhem-for-minutes stakes, few films can dream to live up to the sheer economy of Roman Polanski's deliciously acid-tongued 79-minute chamber piece.
10. A vast improvement over its source material. The movie is tighter, less literal/pretentious in its staging, and--most importantly for a comedy--funnier...Christoph Waltz is a particular standout. One of the ten best films of 2011.


question: Plumbing the depths of tragedy without succuming to melodrama, Chang-dong Lee's Secret Sunshine is a grueling, albeit moving, piece of beautifully acted cinema.

numbered reviews: 1. Can a movie traumatize you in a good way?
2. Even as the film piles awkwardness and suffering upon its character, it never feels exploitative or emotionally manipulative, maintaining a restrained tone entirely devoid of melodrama.
3. It is unlikely you are going to see a more palpable portrayal of grief this year than Jeon Do-yeon's magnificent perfomance as Shin-ae in this Korean drama of the heart.
4. A secular hymn to the small triumphs and cavernous tragedies of the everyday, and to our awesome ability to cope.
5. Perfect for those wishing to enjoy a nice traumatizing time at the movies.
6. This exploration of grief in contemporary South Korea plods along adequately and intelligently.
7. Secret Sunshine is a frequently beautiful film with a cold, dark heart.
8. Brilliantly written, acted and directed, this is a work that evokes the Russian novel despite being a Korean film. Treats larger questions of life and death in the serious manner that they deserve.
9. [S]low portrait of damaged woman struggling against community expectations reveals universality [in] extraordinary Do-yeon who dramatically shifts gears again [and again].
10. An exemplary examination of coping that expands to entail questions of morality, absolution and faith.


question: Tokyo Story is a Yasujiro Ozu masterpiece whose rewarding complexity has lost none of its power more than half a century on.

numbered reviews:
1. The already towering reputation of this film and its director continues only to grow.
2. Anyone can relate to those moments when the calm is broken by the undercurrents of anguish, disappointment and resentment that run through every family.
3. One of the most quietly powerful studies of the gradual and inevitable erosion of the family in a rapidly changing world.
4. Ozu's style is one based on restriction, rigor, and repetition, which paradoxically expands his emotional meanings.
5. constantly bursts with life and meaning, despite the fact that very little happens in the conventional narrative sense
6. One of the great classics of world cinema.
7. It ennobles the cinema. It says, yes, a movie can help us make small steps against our imperfections.
8. Rife with a pervasive sense of loss, Tokyo story offers little comfort and promises great sorrow. This is a profoundly moving film.
9. This very well might be the best film ever made.
10. Examines the same themes as films like Ordinary People and American Beauty, for example. And both of those look clumsy and derivative in comparison!