"Sonbert's most recent film refines the premises of his work over the past 15-odd years. His bravura-acrobatic camera and editing style of the '70s pale next to the seemingly effortless spectacle he produces today. ... The film is so dense it's impossible to apprehend it at a single viewing .... It is Sonbert's darkest work." - Amy Taubin, The Village Voice

"THE CUP AND THE LIP is a complex and challenging picture that will stimulate adventurous filmmakers for years to come. ... Although its imagery is too dense, varied and fast-moving to be thoroughly parsed after one viewing, the film appears to be a regretful and perhaps sardonic essay on human frailty - and on the effort to stave off chaos by means of political and religious institutions, which carry their own dangers of social control and mental manipulation." - David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor

Awards and Exhibition: Special Jury Award, Experiments in Form category, SF Int'l Film Festival, 1987; Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1987; Berlin Film Festival, 1987; Salsomaggiore Film Festival, 1987.