Richard Corliss

“From her first superheroine role in 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' - which earned $275 million globally in 2001, back when that was real money - Jolie has been the one actress who can stand up to...”

“Musical chairs or Russian roulette? Sometimes there's as much tense drama in the casting of a Hollywood movie as there is in the finished product.”

“Starring Russell Crowe as the Patron of the First Ark, 'Noah' had affronted some Christian literalists with its giant rock men, its weird visions, and the occasionally dark motives of its pr...”

“Innocent parents might have thought that a musical cartoon version of a fairy tale would be a child's ideal introduction to movie magic. Yet Walt Disney taught moral lessons in the most usef...”

“'The Birth of a Nation' occupies a view of the South not far from Scarlett O'Hara's in 'Gone With the Wind,' and modern audiences have to wrestle with that beloved movie's romanticizing of r...”

“'Under the Skin' is handsome, in a dour way, but inert - a cunning experiment that died in the shooting or on the editing table. You'll want to get the DVD, though, and not just for its stud...”

“Almost any football play, even an off-tackle slant by a running back, offers the balletic beauty of athletic skill and the punishing drama of physical collision.”

“In 'Blade Runner,' the here is quite enough: a vision of dark, cramped, urban squalor. This is Los Angeles in the year 2019, when most of the earth's inhabitants have colonized other planets...”

“The movie truism is that stars play themselves, while actors play other people - troubled or toxic, and memorably strange. By that definition, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who disappeared into th...”

“We all recall what is or was important to us and are astonished when it slips other people's minds. Perhaps we dismiss as irrelevant matters of crucial concern to those we love. That's life...”

“Nixon's shifty eyes and perpetual 5 o'clock shadow made him a natural fit for caricatured villainy.”