question: Jungle Fever finds Spike Lee tackling timely sociopolitical themes in typically provocative style, even if the result is sometimes ambitious to a fault.

numbered reviews: 1. Brilliant when it examines the people who surround his feverish couple, but uncertain when it comes to the lovers themselves.
2. There's no question that this is Lee's most ambitious and successful work so far, but it will be nice if, in the future, he has enough confidence in his story to let down even more of his affectations.
3. I believe that Lee has some interesting things to say about it, but he gets too weighted down by the dubiousness of it all.
4. The result, for the most part, is a provocative, quintessentially Spike symphony.
5. Lee is never content to show one side of the picture and he attempts to address issues that he's not even convinced he's on the wrong side of.
6. It's uneven, but its best moments -- such as Samuel L Jackson's performance -- are amongst Lee's finest achievements on film.
7. Includes a number of memorable set pieces, most notably a visit to a crack den which, accompanied by the epic sound of Stevie Wonder's "Living In The City," is simply unforgettable.
8. Always provocative.
9. Lee brings a shotgun to a knife fight, but his visual energy is undeniably effective, spraying the screen with venom and appalling realities, with most of the feature locked in confessional mode.
10. Snipes, it's clear, is a major actor.


question: John Boorman's operatic, opulent take on the legend of King Arthur is visually remarkable, and features strong performances from an all-star lineup of British thespians.

numbered reviews: 1. What a wondrous vision Excalibur is! And what a mess.
2. Visually striking.
3. Exquisite, a near-perfect blend of action, romance, fantasy and philosophy, finely acted and beautifully filmed by director John Boorman and cinematographer Alex Thomson.
4. Few directors have the visual imagination of John Boorman.
5. John Boorman's magnificent and magical Excalibur is, to my mind, the greatest and the richest of screen incarnation of the oft-told tale.
6. Epic King Arthur saga with illicit affairs and brutality.
7. For all its audacity, a misguided folly.
8. It's like an excruciating Renaissance festival in a drug fog.
9. One of my favorite films of its year, and far and away my favorite of this type of film. (And, yes, I include Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films in that assessment.)
10. ...romantic and brutal, lyrically beautiful yet grittily realistic.


question: The Age of Adaline ruminates on mortality less compellingly than similarly themed films, but is set apart by memorable performances from Blake Lively and Harrison Ford.

numbered reviews: 1. A middling romance intended as counter-programming before a summer of world-savers and life-takers, The Age of Adaline is an adequate way to kill a few mortal hours in the theater for romance fans.
2. "Adaline" Enchants Despite Lack of Chemistry
3. The story itself is hardly epic and certainly isn't romantic, which makes us focus on how ludicrous the whole thing is.
4. Starved of sufficient comedy or drama, "The Age of Adaline" is a pipsqueak.
5. A surprisingly effective fable. Blake Lively is excellent.
6. A preposterous premise treated with great solemnity. Lively shines, though, as does Ford.
7. Plausibility, shmausibility. This is pretty schmaltz done right.
8. Someone should steal this concept and make a decent movie out of it.
9. "The Age of Adaline" works best as a simple story of boy meets girl; girl falls in love; girl mulls whether or not to reveal that she'll stay young forever. Everything else is just a lot of unnecessary noise.
10. As awkward love triangles go, this is second only to the 1989 film Chances Are, where Robert Downey Jr. discovers that in a past life, he was his girlfriend's father. (Gross.)


question: The visual splendor of the movie makes up for the weak story.

numbered reviews:
1. If you loved "Hero" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," then you'll also enjoy the gorgeous "House of Flying Daggers."
2. Scenes of such beauty they stun the senses
3. I'd rather sit through a slide show of scenes from this movie than revisit 99% of the fare churned out by Hollywood
4. Made me long for the days when director Zhang Yimou made intimate movies with emotional depth.
5. A soapy love story that gallops across a snowy Autumn Hallmark card.
6. Les fans du genre ne peuvent qu'ętre ravis, les sceptiques le seront encore davantage. Un drame épique d'arts martiaux réussi n'en demeure pas moins.
7. It's a gorgeous celebration of movement for movement's sake, color for color's sake, and athleticism for athleticism's sake.
8. Zhang Yimou's follow-up to Hero oddly feels more like a warm up.
9. Visually splendid, but anyone demanding more from a film than endless battles against overwhelming odds, fought by fellows who scamper through tree tops, is in for a letdown.
10. Another stunning martial arts masterpiece from Yimou Zhang.