question: Epic in length, thrilling to behold, and utterly absorbing, Winter Sleep demands -- and rewards -- viewers' patient attention.

numbered reviews: 1. Winter Sleep is without doubt a formidably achieved, intellectually substantial drama that deals variously with questions of conscience, responsibility and self-deception.
2. A work that rivals great literary masterpieces of years past, especially Chekhov's plays but with the added visual dimension of someone who has a painterly eye. Superlative filmmaking.
3. Nuri Bilge Ceylan again exhibits his gift for making interesting stories out of predetermined plots, locating small eddies of change in the midst of eternally fixed dynamics.
4. This patient, beautiful, painful, engrossing film pits husband and wife against each other and their world in a series of extended conversations/confrontations.
5. [Haluk] Bilginer's [performance] alternates between brooding melancholy and sharp-tongued contemptuousness, failing to reach the tragic dimensions which the writers intended.
6. In a career trajectory that has continually taken him in the direction of more expansive, audacious cinema, this is the filmmaker's most daring and aesthetically ambitious project yet.
7. It's an epic tragedy about life in the Ivory Tower and the inability to understand-much less empathize with-other human beings.
8. "Winter Sleep" won't appeal to action lovers, but if you like endless verbal warfare, this is a joy.
9. While it is no hardship to gaze upon Gökhan Tiryaki's ravishing images of the landscape as its autumnal glow vanishes under an icy crust, there's not much to keep the intellect thrumming over the course of 196 minutes.
10. Winter Sleep has interior views (of Aydin's library, for example) that are so rich in detail that your eye lingers happily no matter how long the shot is held, and exterior views that unfold like a Chinese scroll, and watchful close-ups.


question: Stocked with leading men who look the part but lacking an iota of original plot, Annapolis is merely a watery shadow of superior seafaring military dramas.

numbered reviews: 1. [Franco's] flinty eyes speak volumes in Annapolis, a punchy drama that connects.
2. The Village People's In the Navy video was more convincing.
3. This is the essence of this masculine melodrama -- the boys find themselves reflected elsewhere, and fall in love with themselves.
4. A corny, eighties throwback, with thematic mushiness, regressive sexual politics, and cheesy montages to match.
5. Real-life military trainers -- regardless of gender -- never make you say, 'Wow you're hot!' They make you say, 'I'll do whatever you want, please don't hurt me.'
6. Because the cast is interesting, Annapolis is watchable, but with so many better things in theaters it seems a waste to spend an hour and a half with such mediocrity.
7. Annapolis isn't anything but an over-boiled, corn-fed version of An Officer and a Gentleman.
8. The Patriot Act should be invoked to keep this trite feature from public consumption.
9. take along some Krazy Glue: It's the only thing that will keep your eyes from rolling repeatedly at the hoary cliches and trite situations... take a nap-polis and spare yourself 108 minutes of pure tedium.
10. It's a formula plot, but it's handled with some humor, some heart, and a sure hand on the camera.


question: A brutal, relentlessly grimy shocker with taut performances, slick gore effects, and a haunting finale.

numbered reviews: 1. The most disquieting and powerful Hollywood thriller in years.
2. The real star of Seven, however, is the gloom and doom of the setting: an unidentified blight of a modern city.
3. Fincher handles the violence with sensitivity, announcing its obscenity in spoken analyses and briefly glimpsed post mortem shots, but never showing the murderous acts themselves.
4. If you think you know where the story is going, think again. This movie has an unconventional ending worthy of the anti-hero movies of the Seventies.
5. The filmmakers stick to their vision with such dedication and persistence that something indelible comes across -- something ethically and artistically superior to The Silence of the Lambs that refuses to exploit suffering for fun or entertainment.
6. Fincher and Walker take these hackneyed ingredients, play with them in the context of a brilliantly cohesive plot, and present something consistently fresh -- and very, very dark.
7. So chic, studied and murky it resembles a cross between a Nike commercial and a bad Polish art film.
8. The situation is formulaic, but director David Fincher contrives a stylish, intentionally ugly look that transcends the pulp narrative.
9. Because the movie believes in its mission, the climax is likely to resonate in your head for hours, perhaps days after viewing.
10. Hannibal Lecter, say hello to John Doe.


question: Freedom Writers is a frank, formulaic entry in the inspirational inner-city teacher genre, with an energetic Hilary Swank leading the appealing cast of unknowns.

numbered reviews:
1. This is the kind of film that is aimed at young adults but has such quality that it should appeal to more mature audiences, too.
2. Corny? You bet. And worse when the plot veers into the glitz of a Dangerous Minds and the sappiness of a TV After School Special. But the movie, which Swank helped produce by using her clout as a two-time Oscar winner, gets to you.
3. Retreading familiar territory isn't so bad when you have Hilary Swank as your guide.
4. Our eager-beaver heroine suffers the kids' sarcasm, fails to earn their respect by bringing in a Tupac tape, then wins them over in a crucial scene that, fact-based or not, rings as false as anything in Dangerous Minds.
5. Square, sincere, and proud of it.
6. Despite dubious credibility, it's an entertaining, if misandristic, movie.
7. Freedom Writers will work for viewers with a penchant for this particular subgenre, but others might well find it too much of the same old thing.
8. It doesn't have a catchy hit tune sung by Lulu, but Hillary Swank does a nice take on a dedicated teacher ala To Sir With Love in the engaging Freedom Writers.
9. Jumps out of it's formulamatic "teacher changes lives" theme more than once to present a pleasing and thought provoking film.
10. Hilary Swank delivers as impressive a performance as her Oscar-winning outings in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby.