Bill Cosford

The film is all very wistful, and at its best moments has an exquisite mystery to it, the lure of the memory play. And even when it isn't working, there's Turner to watch. That's something. [10 Oct 1986, p.D1]

The movie takes you over, shakes you for a couple of hours and then turns you back out into the street, limp. You've grown to know a lot about its characters. But when you think about them, you realize that you don't want to know this much. They're hollow men, on both sides. [15 Aug 1986, p.D1]

So Woody Allen has turned nostalgic for at least a movie. He remembers the old days. He knows it's a cliche to think of those old days, whenever they were, as simpler, sweeter times. But Allen can turn the cliche on its head, and convince us that they were indeed, if not more innocent, more interesting times. And not just for him. [30 Jan 1987, p.D1]

Nearly everything that is right about Smooth Talk would have been impossible to obtain by conventional Hollywood film- manufacture. The film's appeal, including that of the performances, is in nuance and intermediate shades. That appeal is considerable, another reminder of the possibilities of the American independent film. [25 Apr 1986, p.D1]

Imagine for a moment Lord of the Rings peformed by puppets and hydraulically operated monsters against a background of realistic fantasy, and you have an idea of The Dark Crystal. It's the kind of film that children may take for granted, but that adults are transfixed by; there is much oohing and aahing in the seats. [20 Dec 1982, p.B8]

To the extent that it has a serious theme, the film is about the tug of mortality and the demands it makes on simple humanity -- courage, selflessness, the sharing of wisdom. There's not enough of this, not by far. But it's something. The rest of Cocoon -- The Return is hash. [23 Nov 1988, p.D1]

There's nothing wrong with remaking a classic, of course. But the movies aren't theater, where the relative economies of scale can mean countless versions of one good play. The movies are more rare -- so much money, so few chances. Sinise and Malkovich used this chance to remind us how good the story is, and in the process showed us how good they can be. I'm not sure we needed the reminder in the first case, and the second is hardly a revelation. [16 Oct 1992, p.G5]

Scorsese and Zimmerman seem to be building on Andy Warhol's proclamations about the nature of celebrity. What they've added is the sourness of it and the pointlessness, and their King of Comedy, for a while darkly funny, winds up being terribly sad. It's the most unpleasant fine film in years. [20 Mar 1983, p.L1]

It's beautiful, too. Westerns just don't work without scenery, and Bruce Surtees, the cinematographer, shoots postcards. [28 June 1985, p.1]

What Hunter does is to re-create, starting from the moments after the crime has been committed, the milieu in which its horrifying aftermath might plausibly have taken place. Without violence or suspense, River's Edge is horrifying. [29 May 1987, p.D5]

It is shameless, and I have the feeling that it is not always wholly honest with us or with its subjects. But it is so well made that we are compelled to forgive its sins. Only a cynic could deny its appeal. [22 Mar 1985, p.D10]

Though Polyester is mild for John Waters, it remains a film not for everyone. But it is a satire of an energy and breadth rarely seen on today's screens. It is recommended, but only for the strong. [03 Dec 1982, p.D1]

The whole thing means to come down to big, round tears and mass sniffles, but though Spielberg invokes as many golden-era cliches as he can recall, he never gets the romance really working. It's tough being compared to Spielberg, and perhaps unfair if you happen to be Spielberg, but this is easily his least substantial film to date. Some tears, yes. No sparks. [22 Dec. 1989, p.G5]

Miami Blues is a neat little trick -- funny, tough, scary. This hurts to say, but it wouldn't be so bad to see a Hoke Moseley sequel. [20 Apr 1990, p.G5]

An object lesson in wasting a talented comedian. The film is so far off base that Candy winds up an action hero, and his co- star, Eugene Levy (who was even weaselier on SCTV) gets the girl. [15 Aug 1986, p.D2]

JFK is staggering in its power. [20 Dec 1991, p.5]

It's good work in aid of very little. Smithereens is often fascinating, but it is never satisfying. And by the end, when Wren seems about to be billed for her sins, it's hard to care much one way or another. [28 May 1983, p.D7]

Schepisi and his writers don't get what they should have from the business of traumatic culture shock; they spend too much time on twaddle. [13 Apr 1984, p.D1]

It's a movie of surpassing flatness, all surface, all monotone. Pace? It's as if the director, Alan J. Pakula, had dialed in half speed on the first day of shooting and never checked the throttle again. [27 July 1990, p.G5]

Planes, Trains and Automobiles is the movie equivalent of a tired stand-up comic's air-travel routine. It strikes some resonant chords indeed, but it never quite leaves the ground, either. And given the stars here, that's a real bungle. [25 Nov 1987, p.D1]

It's a troubling movie, and there's something old-fashioned about its mechanics as drama, but Spottiswoode forces us to look at the humanity under duress behind all those back-of-the-book war stories. That in itself is enough. [22 Oct 1983, p.D7]

Two energetic and wonderfully physical comedians, each among the best of his generation. But in their movie, The Toy, they do not amount to much. Pryor seems unhappy about some of his lines and situations, and well he might. It's hard to know just what Gleason thinks, as he is able to deliver even atrocious dialogue with a misanthropic zest that is always appealing, but he has a right to be embarrassed, too. [20 Dec 1982, p.B7]

At its heart, however, Soul Man is a one-gag story propelled by sitcom material; there are times you'd swear you were watching Lucy. And because the filmmakers really aren't up to their premise, the movie ends on a note of forced harmony that's enough to make the blood run cold. It's a reminder that even good white liberals still aren't sure how to act around black people. Which, come to think of it, would make a fine, socially "relevant" comedy. Perhaps Hollywood will make it someday. [27 Oct 1986, p.C4]

It's too civilized by half and never quite funny enough. [31 Jan 1986, p.D1]

You will not necessarily know any more about life after the film is done, but you'll have killed a couple of hours painlessly, and you will have laughed a lot. [18 Apr 1984, p.C6]

It's genuinely terrifying, as scary as it is unexpected. [22 May 1987, p.D5]

Footloose is for an audience that wants something easy to think about, a conflict in which the two sides are easy to distinguish and an "enemy" who is easy to look down upon. It's for the folks who like to skip dinner and go right to the cream- filled finale, and though not quite evil, it's as silly as can be. [1 Mar 1984, p.D12]

The director was Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), about whom people have been using the word "potential" for a decade or so. Trapped inside Real Genius, there's a real director trying to get out. [7 Aug 1985, p.D5]

F/X doesn't have the surprises when it needs them. [8 Feb 1986, p.C7]

This is what we call a movie-movie, a movie that throws nuance and self-consciousness and artiness to the wind and concentrates on the slam-bam. It's richly entertaining, it's big, it moves fast. [10 Aug 1984, p.C1]

There's power in this story, even if much of it does owe to a greatly sentimentalized time rather than to genuine virtue. In its new, leaner version, Ward's film does seem twitchy at times -- we're not always sure how the characters got to where they are, emotionally or physically. But it's sweet, too. [14 May 1993, p.G4]

The film isn't perfect. Seidelman is still pretty much brand-new at this, and there are times when the movie seems about to slip through her fingers, run off into the streets and flow farther, irretrievably, downtown. And the ending has the patness of a studio contrivance; one guesses that had Seidelman been in complete control, something more ambiguous might have resulted. Still, what fun: Good, and good for you, too. Hollywood reaches out and gives someone with talent a chance to make something genuine and offbeat. It's a great system. [01 Apr 1985, p.C4]

Damage is the kind of film that reminds us what Hollywood still cannot do. There aren't many kinds of movies that Americans don't make better than anyone else, but Malle shows us again that when it comes to murmurs of the heart, we still have a way to go. Be careful with this one: It will break your heart. [22 Jan 1993, p.G5]

If anything, the 1983 To Be or Not to Be is more tasteless, while a great deal less engaging, than the original. [16 Dec 1983, p.E20]

Testament is determinedly apolitical and wholly unsensational. It is propaganda in the best sense, a cry for life. And it is no fun at all. [09 Nov 1983, p.B6]

One of the two flirtations is appealing -- Alda and Keaton tryst briefly, harmlessly, in one of the film's best scenes. The other, which asks us to believe that Huston finds Allen darned near irresistible, is more troublesome. On the other hand, it's Woody Allen's movie, and he gets to do what he wants; this time, apparently, he wants to dream. We go along, those of us who like him, because he's still funny and he's still smart. As for Manhattan Murder Mystery -- he has been funnier, and smarter. [20 Aug 1993, p.5]

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the dopiest and most congenial in the series, an indication that the producers have at last acknowledged that what they're dealing with is not science fiction or adventure, but a kind of cosmic fluke. [27 Nov. 1986, p.F1]

Splash is funny and gentle and quite entertaining, and there isn't a cynical moment in it. And unlikely as this may sound, Splash suggests that we had better keep an eye on Ron Howard, director. He is something special, too. [12 Mar 1984, p.C6]

There's not a dull moment in the thing, and it's dumb as dirt. But who can resist? It's the ultimate guilty pleasure, the kind of movie that in years to come, when they're chronicling the decline of our culture, will turn up as an exhibit. [23 Nov 1990, p.G5]

Newell never gets the movie to soar as fairy tale, which is quite clearly what it means to be. And so this fantasy is at its best when it's down and dirty. And that's odd. [17 Sep 1993, p.G4]

But whether even kids will be able to take The Outsiders seriously is a hard question. Whether by fidelity to his source or by director's embellishments, Coppola has come up with a story about tough kids who appreciate sunsets and recite Robert Frost from memory, about members of a mid-American urban underclass who ponder their situations with the dispassionate acumen of sociologists. The Outsiders is about "greasers" who are not greasy, and it seems likely that even kids will see through it. [29 March 1983, p.5]

It is a comic love note, a bouquet with a squirt-bulb, a joyful romance in which the message seems to be: Laugh all you want, pal, just don't go home alone. [24 Dec 1982, p.D2]

The whole four hours or so of the two films is as handsome a package as France has produced in years. [30 Dec 1987, p.D6]

Carpenter keeps it sweet. This means muting his fabled skills as an "action" director in favor of plumbing the cutes, and it means that Starman isn't the grown-up entertainment that it could have been. But it's not your everyday romance, either, and it's hard to hate. [14 Dec 1984, p.18]

Barfly is a perfectly incorrigible comedy, a movie of unusual shape and unpredictable moves. [25 Nov 1987, p.D9]

It's as if Dante sought so hard to parrot his producer that he wound up parodying, and all involved should have known better. There's a current of menace to Dante's work that sets him apart from Spielberg, and a measure of innocence in Spielberg's quite apart from anything Dante has done. [8 June 1984, p.1]

It's not very good, but there are redeeming features. [24 Apr 1987, p.D1]

The writing is good and the direction rarely flabby, but the real strength of Buckaroo is in a large and enthusiastic cast, led by Peter Weller, who plays the title character with a perfect deadpan. [11 Aug 1984, p.B7]

G-rated material with the snap of a good story and animated artwork that often sparkles. [01 Dec 1982, p.D6]

In the old days -- when Hollywood knew how to make funny movies, and knew how to make cheap, sentimental potboilers, and knew the difference between the two -- City Slickers would have kept Laurel and Hardy busy for maybe 80 minutes. This version lasts nearly two hours, and the filler is all man-meets-cow, man-loses-cow. [7 June 1991, p.G-5]

Stories by Stephen King are traditionally brought to the screen in the worst possible shape, so it's gratifying to report that Cat's Eye, a King trilogy, is not a terrible movie. It's not going to go down in anyone's annals, either, but it's fun and, if you like cats, ultimately quite gratifying. [17 Apr 1985, p.B5]

Tsui Hark, the director, is apparently one of those filmmakers to whom the screwball comedy is not only still alive, but worthy of an extended salute. [07 Feb 1986, p.D9]

The Madonna that Keshishian has caught on film is as interesting for her ambition -- love me , desire me -- as any other quality. [17 May 1991, p.G5]

John Cassavetes has been making exquisitely personal films -- or agonizingly personal ones, depending on one's tastes -- for years now. Sometimes, they are intimate dramas (Faces, Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence). Sometimes, they are dark comedies in melodramatic dress (Gloria). And sometimes, as in the newly released Big Trouble, they are just a mess. [19 Apr 1986, p.D1]

It's such a pleasure in so many ways that one feels like yelling, "Welcome back." Forget Scarface, all is forgiven. Body Double reminds us what it's like to be in the presence of an original, and that does not happen often at the movies, these days or any days. [27 Oct 1984, p.D1]

Strangely, considering the source, the most appealing aspect of Stakeout is Badham's success with the characters. Dreyfuss and Estevez work well off one another, Stowe and Dreyfuss are a likable couple and there's something approaching depth to most of the people on screen. [7 Aug 1987, p.D5]

This is a weird piece of work, silly and exhilarating. And yes, the sequel's better. [15 Jun 1990, p.10]

As it is, much of this movie is simply incomprehensible, however enthusiastically it was designed and is performed. If it were only a little better, one might even spend some time trying to figure what to make of it. [24 Apr 1985, p.B6]

The Rookie groans loudly and often under the load of its cliches. [07 Dec 1990, p.G11]

Raising Arizona is the best comedy about kidnapping ever made. Small category, admittedly. This is a film that gets a laugh -- legitimate, unqualified, not a sick laugh at all -- out of a running gag in which a baby is left in the middle of an Arizona highway by thugs on the lam. Cars bear down, a "biker from Hell" attacks. How many filmmakers could get away with baby-in-jeopardy jokes? [10 Apr 1987, p.D1]

Slacker is not always so purposefully creepy, but it's often as darkly funny; none of its characters is what you'd call normal, but the film's off-kilter view is such that they seem utterly in tune with their odd lives and odder times. [29 May 1992, p.5]

This is a story about the banality of evil, and it succeeds all too well -- these people are ordinary, and that's what makes them scary. Guncrazy is, finally, a romance, but not before it's tough as nails and terribly knowing. You won't forget it soon. [13 Feb 1993, p.E5]

Like Midnight Express, for which Stone received an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation, Salvador is better movie than document. But if Stone's style is entirely too florid for history, it is grimly arresting by Hollywood standards. Whatever else, Salvador is an original. [9 May 1986, p.D1]

A Dry White Season hits with the force of its convictions, and it hits hard. But it could have been more. [06 Oct 1989, p.G5]

The Cotton Club never seems to go anywhere, so that we are caught up short when it seems to have gotten somewhere. Then it's over, finished in Hines' blaze of glory, and a few minutes later one wonders what one has seen. It's big and colorful and terribly thin. [14 Dec 1984, p.E18]

Otomo's vision is as dark as his palette is vivid. [15 Nov 1991, p.G17]

Except for several scary moments, notably the tarantula assault, Something Wicked is harmless -- but it is never bland. And it has Jason Robards in the pivotal role, the wise but timid father who will have to make his stand. [03 May 1983, p.B7]

Burton is a first-rate stylist, but this time he's actually better at suggesting the inner life of his characters. [19 June 1992, p.G6]

The essence of the movie, and the key to its success, lies in the innocent rhythms of old-fashioned screwball comedy. [21 Sep 1984, p.D1]

Very few moviemakers, I think, could have done the thing quite this well. At the end of Avalon, which is more than two hours long and does not move quickly, the extended and fractious immigrant Krichinsky family has bloomed into fabulous life, the characters deep and rich. [19 Oct 1990, p.G5]

Jarmusch is interesting, and funny, even when he's falling flat. And the real unifying agent here, Tom Waits' determinedly bouncy sound track, is full of perverse whimsy; it works a kind of magic on the film. It's a good thing. Night on Earth much needs the magic. [08 May 1992, p.G5]

Though the charter of the Enterprise charges its crew to "go boldly where no man has gone before," the marketing strategy of Paramount Pictures clearly mandates that the film go quietly in a predictable fashion to a place where the mass audience will feel comfortable. This Star Trek II does, with its familiar faces and lovable homilies. The film seems bound to be one of the summer's big hits. Kids will love it, and dozing adults will at least find it endurable. [5 June 1985, p.C4]

As an older, slightly less athletic but no less Sybaritic Bond (he carries an attache- case sampler of caviar and pate de fois gras), Connery is perfectly suited. [8 Oct 1983, p.C5]

Dick Tracy is light on its feet where Batman clomped and wheezed, and it's fantastic -- that's the word -- where Batman was merely well designed. [15 Jun 1990, p.G5]

It's a bloodless film, however; a spy story that actually drags for long stretches in the middle. And even though it's based on fact, there's rarely any drama in it. These are odd failures. [25 Jan 1985, p.D6]

Volunteers is for the most part so good-natured and eager to please, or at least to solicit laughs, that it may be forgiven many sins. Many of the jokes simply don't work, but in the style forged by Airplane!, Volunteers keeps them coming. Wait long enough, you'll laugh; wait again, you'll laugh again. [16 Aug 1985, p.D1]

There's always something happening at the edges of The Flamingo Kid. And unexpectedly, considering the genre, there's something happening at the center, too. [21 Dec 1984, p.D1]

A lot of the charge, the pow and zap of Earl's life seems to be missing. The performance has but a single note, and after the novelty of Newman as cracker wears off, there's not much else there. [13 Dec 1989, p.D1]

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid thus has considerable appeal to movie buffs for whom the black-and-white semi-classics of an earlier era are familiar treasures. For the rest of us, it is a senior thesis -- variations on a single theme, executed carefully but always to the same effect. [21 May 1982, p.D2]

All the film's energy, and most of its appeal, lie in the scenes in which Williams is talking to his audience, the most singular captive audience in Top 40 history. These moments do ring true, and they have a fine humanity to them. [15 Jan 1988, p.C1]

Haynes is clearly gifted; his film is certainly troubling. But it's also wickedly funny in spots and deft with its lampoon in others. Watch this guy. [06 Sep 1991, p.G10]

FernGully -- The Last Rainforest is pretty much what you'd expect, only better. It's an animated feature aimed straight at kids and bulging with environmental consciousness, well made and just scary enough to get its point across. [10 Apr 1992, p.G5]

The movie comes to rest on Voight and, to a lesser extent, on the views of the train itself, which looks great thundering through the snow. Voight is nearly as impressive in appearance, tricked out with some menacing scars and a gold tooth, and he gives his part a reading quite unlike his previous work. [22 Jan 1986, p.D7]

Radford's 1984 is a time of relentless oppression in every corner of life, and his images -- corroded, soiled, darkly corrupted -- speak of Orwell as eloquently as the characters. [15 Mar 1985, p.D6]

The very premise is a test of one's tolerance for the cutes. The rest of the film is merely strange. [6 Apr 1984, p.D1]

Desert Hearts offers its central romance virtually free of moral clutter. Deitch tries neither to justify her characters' actions nor to place them in the context of the "forbidden"; she deals instead with intimacy, pieces of their lives. [18 Apr 1986, p.D5]

It doesn't ask much of anything except that you come along for the ride. Riding with Byrne is pretty much a hoot. [09 Nov 1986, p.K1]

Alice is certainly handsome to look at, and as usual Allen's camera is placed impeccably -- if he's overrated as a screenwriter, Woody Allen has yet to receive his due as a director. Still, what's wrong with Alice is in the script, and Allen wrote that, too. [25 Jan 1991, p.G5]

The Journey of Natty Gann is one of those dead earnest, richly satisfying "family adventures" with which the Disney name has long been associated, despite the fact that the studio has made very few successful ones. It's the kind of film we think Disney is supposed to make, regardless of whether the studio actually does. [25 Oct 1985, p.C1]

It's a fine ensemble, and one mark of how well it works is that The Breakfast Club leaves the confines of the library only three times, and yet we never feel claustrophobic. We just feel trapped, like the kids. For much of the film, one or the other is speaking of parents as the alien life form they represent -- "When you grow up, your heart dies" is the bitter slogan -- and that feeling of being trapped by youth and yet terrified to leave it informs the movie even at its most raucous. For getting that one element, Hughes deserves a great deal of credit; for getting it into a "grown-up" movie, Hughes deserves more work. [19 Feb 1985, p.C4]

Make no mistake, Racing With the Moon is a modest film; that's one of the reasons it works so well, being a meticulously made miniature. And it's a joy. [28 Mar 1984, p.C7]

White Hunter, Black Heart looks good, but it's as humorless as Eastwood himself increasingly appears to be. [21 Sep 1990, p.G5]

The movie is long and sad, but it also seems small. You get the feeling that, like the lives of its protagonists, it could have been more. [11 Jan 1992, p.E1]

When the action founders on cliches and implausibilities, there are only the characters to fall back on. And this time, they're papier-mache. [13 May 1983, p.C2]

The movie is happy and bright and thoroughly nice, and every now and then it's loud and funny and at least as large as life. And it could have been larger, and better. [22 Feb 1983, p.C5]

When he means to be funny, Balaban has a wicked way about him. When he means to scare, he's just like the rest of the pack. Still, there's something wonderfully subversive at work in Parents. Be warned. [17 March 1989, p.11]

Witless and dull, Penelope Spheeris' feature-length hillbilly saga is the product of no less than four screenwriters. It's scary to think what it might have been like had it been written by only one or two of them -- I mean, what does a half-joke sound like? [15 Oct 1993, p.G5]

Carlito's Way reminds you a little of De Palma's remake of Scarface -- it has that jazzy, coke-frazzled bang and crash to it, the feeling of too many people chasing too many highs. But it's nowhere near as successful. It's not as shocking. It even feels . . . dated. [12 Nov 1993, p.G5]