The scariest thing in it may be the way the clock radio has a way of turning itself on, loudly, of its own accord. The song is always the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun." Now that's horror.

Monster is a compassionate picture without any obvious agenda. And it's effective precisely because it's not a polemic.

We've moved away from being a culture of people who think about movies to one made up of people who believe that spouting a list of preferences is the same as registering an opinion.

I can't remember ever feeling so glad that a movie was finally over. [Director George] Lucas may have held my imagination hostage for two hours, but reclaiming it afterward wasn't hard at all.

It's time to start recognizing that not all escapist entertainment is created equal. And that some of it isn't even entertainment. "Miss March" is, to use the vernacular of the escapist moviegoer, the biggest pile of crap I've seen in ages.

You can talk film theory till you're blue in the face, but in the end, the thing that may haunt you most about a movie is a pair of eyes.

There are epic impulses everywhere you look in There Will Be Blood; what's missing is character development, focused storytelling and, most significantly (apart from that terrific opening sequence), any sense of raw, intuitive drama.