question: Although this action-romance suffers from weak writing and one too many explosions, the chemistry generated by onscreen couple Pitt and Jolie is palpable enough to make this a thoroughly enjoyable summer action flick.

numbered reviews: 1. There are many combustible elements in 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,' but the key players are not among them. ...we're just watching two gorgeous bodies trying to mess each other up.
2. Just about worth seeing for the chemistry between its two stars ... but the overall glossiness is designed to blind you to the fact that there's very little substance here.
3. A one-joke movie.
4. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look like they had a terrific time making Mr. and Mrs. Smith -- but I certainly didn't have a good time watching it. Neither, I suspect, will many of you.
5. A movie so in love with itself it hardly needs us at all.
6. Promises more than it delivers (what film doesn't?), and degenerates badly (and, to my mind, unforgivably) in the second half.
7. The studio must have reasoned that Jolie and Brad Pitt are movie stars, so anything they do would be seen as fun and attractive -- and what could be more fun and attractive than their trying to kill each other and just about everybody else in the movie?
8. A violent romp with no socially redeeming value -- but it's fun and sexy as hell.
9. Mr. & Mrs. Smith will prove a long, hard slog for filmgoers who don't think that simply gazing at Pitt and Jolie constitutes a fun night out.
10. Movie stars trade quips, stuff blows up, audiences go home happy.


question: A passionate and concise cinematic civics lesson, Good Night, And Good Luck has plenty to say about today's political and cultural climate, and its ensemble cast is stellar.

numbered reviews: 1. [A] gripping slice-of-life docudrama.
2. An urgent reminder of an era of honest crusading jurnalism in which information was separated from entertainment, in contrast to the current infotainment and soft news
3. A celebration of journalistic responsibility that speaks eloquently to our current moment.
4. Good night , and goodluck is a stunning, uniquely timely, piece that gloriously interweaves real behind the story stories 'tween Murrow & Senator McCarthy...
5. A travesty.
6. We immediately appreciate Strathairn's focused intensity as Murrow, his slick black hair and the impression of undiluted integrity that he almost startlingly personifies.
7. Clooney's brilliantly orchestrated and seriously respectful movie can be seen as a grim shoulder tap, lamenting the social irresponsibility of what Gore Vidal likes to call the 'United States of Amnesia.'
8. An impressive time capsule, driven by a memorable performance by David Strathairn
9. In ninety-three tight, terrifically exciting minutes, Clooney makes integrity look mighty sexy.
10. Clooney's account of Murrow's historic assaults on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, in 1954, imitates many of Murrow's best qualities.


question: Superbly acted and satisfyingly engaging, Your Sister's Sister subverts rom-com conventions with sensitive direction, an unconventional screenplay, and a big heart.

numbered reviews: 1. "Your Sister's Sister" follows the indie-cinema blueprint to the letter with one exception: One of the film's characters is a lesbian.
2. A funny, small-scale charmer with a trio of dynamite performances.
3. Who are these people, and why are we watching them?
4. The sisters are merely agents in Jack's maturation in what is ultimately a Judd Apatow film on a microbudget.
5. Your Sister's Sister gets it just right, aided by Vince Smith's string--accented musical score and Benjamin Kasulke's luscious cinematography.
6. It's rare to see a movie that throws around this much raw emotion and still gets laughs.
7. This film should come with a warning: don't watch with a sibling. Unless you're up for some knowing elbow-digs.
8. It's small, but not simple. There are three shocking dramatic twists that feel completely earned.
9. In the very best sense, "Your Sister's Sister" almost feels like it's being made up as it goes along: organic, fluent and true.
10. As artificial as a Hollywood rom.com... With a different cast, a bigger budget, and some punched-up dialogue, it might have been made by Judd Apatow.


question: Graceful, complex, and beautifully layered, Fill the Void offers a sympathetic portrait of an insulated culture by exploring universal themes.

numbered reviews:
1. Burshstein has managed a small miracle with his gentle film ... . A movie about matters of faith that manages to be neither condescending nor smug ... a surprisingly accessible and satisfying experience.
2. Eventually reveals itself to be a sort of Jane Austen romance -- a tale of matchmaking and marriage motivated by the ritual and decorum of Haredi Judaism in modern Tel Aviv rather than by the social strictures of 19th-century England.
3. Both accessible and thrilling.
4. Like suffocating beneath a thick layer of protective plastic, Fill the Void feels like slow death.
5. A nuanced kitchen-sink depiction of an Israeli Hassidic community which zeroes in on the dilemma of an 18-year-old girl named Shira.
6. A fascinating and emotionally gripping drama with a sharply written, understated script and a pair of terrific performances from Hadas Yaron and Yiftach Klein.
7. A warm, watchful slant on marital mores in an ultraorthodox Jewish community.
8. With honesty and sensitivity, this Israeli drama takes us into an unfamiliar subcuture, letting us experience aspects of life in an Orthodox Jewish community that we've probably never even imagined before.
9. Although it lacks a little of the emotional heft of Haifaa al-Mansour's work, it's a well acted and delicately told tale.
10. In the end, it's hard to determine whether Burshtein is celebrating or critiquing the insularity and strict traditions of the community that she herself joined in her 20s - but presumably that's part of the point.