Barbara Shulgasser

The sexual tension and humorous byplay between Leigh and co-star Clark Gable, in the role of gentleman rogue Rhett Butler, was riveting. And so was Leigh's portrayal of a viper trying to consume the good-hearted Ashley Wilkes, embodied by the fine-boned Hungarian-turned-British actor, Leslie Howard.

The film will intoxicate children and charm the parents in their company.

Hoffman proves himself a master of complex scenery, crowd control and graceful direction. He succeeds in making a conspicuously lush and rich movie out of what was reportedly a less than kingly budget.

For all its lazy beauty, the movie is rooted in the personalities of its lead characters and they, unfortunately, are bloodless, affectless, emotionless dopes who turn their considerable lack of scruples on the business of senseless killing, for which they seemingly have no remorse. [13 Feb. 1998]

The animation is dazzling (two-thirds of the movie is set underwater). The love story between mermaid Ariel (the sweet voice of Jodi Benson) and mortal Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes) is fairy-tale wonderful. And there is a slew of terrific side characters that make the movie as entertaining for adults as it is for children.

The movie is magnificent and stunning the way few spectator events are.

The light and heavy flow with equal ease and expertise from McKellen's enchanted kitchen.

It is by far Bogart's most successfully playful role.

Copycat is as steady and reliable as a pulse and as exhilarating as a surge of adrenalin.

Get On the Bus might just be Spike Lee's best work yet.

One is hesitant to praise a movie that takes about an hour to get itself going, but it's important to report that once Out to Sea does get going, it makes you laugh.

Fly Away Home" is directed by Carroll Ballard, who made "The Black Stallion" and "Never Cry Wolf." In other words, it was directed by a filmmaker with talent, taste and subtlety, working from an understated script by Robert Rodat and Vince McKewin.

Franklin juggles it all with wit and style, and suddenly you feel fine that this is only Mosley's first Easy Rawlins novel. Several more are just waiting to be adapted.

In the attempt to rein in a cast playing a great assortment of exaggerated types, Schlesinger (who directed "Midnight Cowboy" and "Marathon Man" ) and Bradbury sometimes lose the tone of the movie.

All the performances are good, the script is subtle and waste-free and Danny Elfman's score is evocative and appropriate, but the direction is what gives the movie its sweep.

The script, by director Richard Kwietnioski and adapted from the Gilbert Adair novel, is poignant and well constructed.

This movie is a pleasure, an entertainment and an admirable artistic achievement.

Delpy and Hawke begin to grow on you and Linklater and his actors achieve a point midway through the film when the characters are so attractive and smart and emotionally daring that you'll be happy to spend the night with them.

While I was watching "Lone Star," I realized that what makes Sayles a good and socially responsible person - his ability to look at one thing a hundred different ways - is exactly what makes him a muddy filmmaker.

Like many French movies, in the retelling this one boils down to an unremittingly silly set of characters and situations.

You find yourself absorbed in simply looking at them to the extent that it's hard to hear what they're saying. It's a nice dilemma for a movie to present.

[Nair's] sure touch with the details of social decorum carries the film through. [14 Feb 1992, p.D3]

On the whole, the movie is a success. I still hope that children and their parents will read this wonderful book together, but it's nice that there's a movie they can see, too.

DeVito, whose singing sounds like a cross between coughing and Jimmy Durante on a good day, is a gruff and lovable mentor with a Brooklyn accent and a New Yorker's intolerance for sentimentality. Egan's Meg is a fiery dame with lots of gall. Tate Donovan gives voice to the adult Hercules, and he is just right as an almost Dudley Doright-ish lug who thinks heroics have more to do with physical daring than with big-heartedness. Alan Mencken's original score is boisterous and hummable, and lyrics by David Zippel perfectly suit the story and Disney's recent style for cleverness.

Mangold's vision is bold. There is nothing cutesy or gimmicky about Heavy, which may be why something in its grimness recalls the work of Ingmar Bergman.

The scenes with Stalin and his frightened underlings, his giddy yes-men tip-toeing around him, are written and directed by Duncan with a grace, agility and comic deftness one rarely is treated to at the movies these days.

Buscemi is after a slice of life with a grown-up slacker. The trouble is that, in the end, this isn't terribly interesting.

Referring to his love of Hollywood musicals and a working-class background that fostered enduring dreams of making movies one day, Varda creates an homage to a filmmaker's imagination. It doesn't hurt that she was also in love with him.