question: Brutal and unflinching, City of Men is both a harrowing look at Brazil's favela life, and a touching tale of youths rushed into adulthood.

numbered reviews: 1. City of Men has the electrically oversaturated style of reality that made City of God such a searing vision of teenage criminal life in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.
2. City of Men tells a multilayered story coherently, with propulsive action and a naturalistic nod to the fact that so much of the world is a violent place.
3. Violence is the overwhelming and viscerally unsettling theme...but the story's subtext is the paternal absence that leads kids to such aggression, not unlike less-developed Hollywood fare.
4. This film isn't as bracingly vibrant as Fernando Meirelles' City of God (2002), which featured many of the same cast and crew. But it's a grippingly entertaining story.
5. City of Men at times seems like City of God-lite, which, mind you, still provides for some heavy moments.
6. Though the histrionics of City of Men are a bit obvious, and it lacks the bravado of City of God, it's ultimately a more rewarding film.
7. Paulo Morelli directs capably, with a heavy dash of MTV-generation flair: hyper-saturated colors, close-ups of skin glittering with sweat, and a constant patter of gunfire that undergirds the soundtrack like a steady heartbeat.
8. A brilliant piece of filmmaking in the way it contrasts the beauty of Rio de Janeiro with the violence that affects the lives of the teens living in the city's favelas.
9. Where City of God was ferocious, grandiose, and glamorous, this movie is modest and intimate, acoustic where the other was desperate to electrify.
10. I wish I hadn't seen the masterpiece City of God before the current City of Men, which is a more conventional story in the same setting. Judged on its own merits, the latter film still makes a considerable emotional impact.


question: Loaded with delightfully unscrupulous characters and and a witty, cynical script, Thank You For Smoking is a sharp satire with a brilliantly smarmy lead performance from Aaron Eckhart.

numbered reviews: 1. In the end, the satire reveals itself as wishful thinking.
2. I'm not ready to celebrate a filmmaker with the 'audacity' to say there's hypocrisy in American social discourse. Does it take daring to cut down these not-so-sacred cows?
3. Intelligent and witty from start to finish and by far the best satire comedy of the year.
4. A smart-aleck satire with something on its mind is always welcome.
5. If anyone tries to tell you that Thank You for Smoking is a scorching satire of Big Tobacco, just tell them, well, that they're blowing smoke.
6. To watch the film is to feel the delicious discomfort of being seduced by a devilish charmer.
7. Funny enough movie but not much there there.
8. A fun, smart film. But you can't help but wish Thank You would bare its fangs a little more.
9. The book had a fearlessness that the movie version so lacks.
10. Enjoyable not only because it shows the duplicity of spinning but because it allows its characters to revel in the joy they experience as contemporary con artists.


question: Gripping, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful, Waiting for Superman is an impassioned indictment of the American school system from An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim.

numbered reviews: 1. Completely engaging and packing a surprising emotional wallop. (Parental Review also Available)
2. Waiting for 'Superman' won't satisfy anyone looking for a five-point plan. (It won't win many fans among teachers' unions, either.) On the other hand, if it's effective filmmaking you're after, look no further.
3. The young students' stories are surely Waiting for 'Superman''s most effective strategy, but it's hard not to wonder at how they are being used in such a slick enterprise.
4. Not only is the film an eye-opening, perfectly put together documentary, it also engages the audiences with spectacular animations and a gripping narrative.
5. Guggenheim's thesis that bad schools create bad neighbourhoods and not vice versa is interesting, if perhaps simplistic.
6. Documentarian Davis Guggenheim petitions the same level of cultural awareness about American education myths as his film "An Inconvenient Truth" delivered regarding Global Warming.
7. Like all good documentaries, "Waiting for Superman" is entertaining and contains just enough suspense to maintain our interest throughout.
8. You leave the film convinced that radical change is necessary but uncomfortable with the closing voice-over that assures you how simple it will be to implement it.
9. It's not the whole picture, but it's a compelling part of it.
10. There is no question that this is compelling viewing, especially considering the largely abstract and policy-driven nature of the crisis.


question: Though it is ultimately somewhat undone by its own lofty ambitions, The Devil's Advocate is a mostly effective blend of supernatural thrills and character exploration.

numbered reviews:
1. A hell of a lot more fun than any film bearing John Grisham's name.
2. [Hackford] seems stuck in a private limbo, unable to decide whether he's making a special-effects flick or a pop-philosophical tract.
3. The worst thing about The Devil's Advocate is how it squanders the little chance that it had to be a truly creepy and engaging film.
4. A literate meditation on human weakness and a hipped-out horror movie all in one.
5. Cackling and leering, Pacino puts on a great show, investing enough in his character to make him evil, but not so much that we think he's truly serious.
6. Although it's nice for a film to be ambitious, there is such a thing as overreaching.
7. The movie's greatest strength is that it becomes more complex and rewarding as it goes along.
8. O espetáculo final compensa.
9. It takes a story this ridiculous to be this good.
10. How often does a film climax in a 15-minute scene of dialogue so provocative that the accompanying special effects can almost be ignored?