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.

This movie would have had a chance of being interesting had it been about Sally Hemmings.

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 only remarkable feature about this otherwise routine movie is that it vilifies two current icons of American life. One is The Internet and the other is The Mall.

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.

One of the most self-in-dulgent, muddled, badly written, vague and pointless exercises in filmmaking I have ever had to sit through.

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.

Most of the movie seems stilted and uncomfortably girdled by efforts to work around the cumbersome Brando, who is shot mostly from above the waist, where the full effects of gravity and avoirdupois do not seem so egregious as they do at belt level.

Lee seems to think that all his major characters are basically good people who deserve another chance, and so for the sake of an inappropriate happy ending, everyone important gets one.

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 trouble comes when Woo's patented - that is, oft-repeated - style overwhelms any hope of discerning story or acting through the haze of burning, crashing, bleeding and exploding.

Leigh plays the tragic and annoying Sadie as if she loved and hated the character simultaneously. And to the degree that this courageous movie succeeds it will elicit the same feelings in the audience.

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.

The Frighteners is a gooey pastiche of Casper, Ghost, Poltergeist, Back to the Future (it's produced by Future director Robert Zemeckis), Ghostbusters, and episodes of Columbo.

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.