Critic consensus:Up the Yangtze is a visually stunning meditation about the changes confronting modern China.

Numbered reviews:1. The most effective scene is Chang's brilliant time-lapsed filming of the Yangtze River rising and engulfing the embankment.
2. An astonishing documentary of culture clash and the erasure of history amid China's economic miracle.
3. Should not be missed.
4. There's plenty for the director to focus on. Examining the dam's environmental impact alone would take another whole movie. Instead, [director] Yung trains his lens mainly on the cultural impact.
5. Visually stunning, this documentary by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang is part travelogue, part social critique of China's economic miracle and the sweeping cultural changes it is forcing in its wake.
6. Chang gracefully juxtaposes the country and the metropolitan to express the knotted-up mixture of anguish, anger, hope, and trepidation of those in the dammed river's wake.
7. This, the film argues, is the way of the future: One form of poverty-stricken squalor replaced by a tackier, more plasticized life of similarly deadend subservience, all in the guise of economic progress.
8. Myth and reality, past and present, tradition and progress go head to head in Yung Chang's remarkable documentary about China's longest river, Up the Yangtze.
9. The tone is finally one of wistful resignation.
10. Up the Yangtze provides a devastating view of top-down, broad-stroke social programs.


Critic consensus:Bill Murray's subtle and understated style complements director Jim Jarmusch's minimalist storytelling in this quirky, but deadpan comedy.

Numbered reviews:1. Don's journey becomes a vision of lost opportunities and paths not taken, and in Murray's hands it is sublime.
2. ...both Jarmusch and Murray ... do what they do best, even if their specialty is starting to feel like spinning wheels.
3. Don's journey peels back the surface of so many American dreams to find them wanting, while Winston, dodging kids and doting on his 'perfect' wife, seems as rich as a king.
4. There's so much going on behind Murray's sad eyes that words aren't necassary. A great performance.
5. Murray has never been more inward and unanimated ... It's a deeply chilled-out performance ... [and] like the rest of the movie, it's worth seeing.
6. Broken Flowers is ultimately more interesting than it is good.
7. It kept me absorbed all the way through, especially the collaboration between acting auteur Bill Murray and Mr. Jarmusch in virtually every frame of the film.
8. It is not an unpleasant way to spend time.
9. ...has a bottomless poignancy that Jarmusch cements in quiet character moments, symbolic imagery and out-of-reach temptations that wiggle effectively into the subconscious.
10. A wholly and ingeniously realized joy.


Critic consensus:POTC: AWE provides the thrilling action scenes, but mixes in too many characters with too many incomprehensible plot threads.

Numbered reviews:
1. A vastly accomplished bit of commercial filmmaking, with all the payoffs and pitfalls that such faint praise implies.
2. A thrill-a-minute extravaganza.
3. The third Pirates has tender moments and smashing ones, and if you fix on Depp, you'll manage fine.
4. At 15 minutes this side of three hours, it's longer than Spider-Man 3 and the last Pirates entry, which were both long enough. These are supposed to be popcorn movies, not Berlin Alexanderplatz.
5. Ultimately the voyage is so choppy and long that into the third hour I found myself yawning, 'Yo-ho-hum and a very sore bum.'
6. As the filmmakers try to wrap up some story lines while introducing others, At World's End buckles from a decided lack of swash.
7. Even longer and less coherent [than Dead Man's Chest]. Consider it a companion piece to the similarly indulgent Spider-Man 3.
8. From the stunning visual effects and well-paced action sequences to the smartly written story, Pirates closes the book on its trilogy (and opens the book on the next batch) far more elegantly and enjoyably than Spider-Man. Who'da thunk?
9. I like my action movies complicated, but At World's End is less a complexity than it is a high seas bazaar with everyone and everything vying for attention. You end up going home with nothing to show for your adventure.
10. Running nearly three hours in length, it continues the pointless excesses of the second film while again entirely missing the romantic charm of the first.