Bill Cosford

Betsy's Wedding is as "high concept" as they come -- it's all in the title, and once you know the cast, you pretty much know where it's going and how it will go. And still, it's cute, in a forlorn, co-opted sort of way. [22 Jun 1990, p.G5]

So Doc Hollywood is warm and cuddly and not at all loathsome. It is much better suited to television than to the big screen, though it does serve to showcase Warner, who is attractive and engaging. And durn it all, you just can't hate it. [02 Aug 1991, p.G5]

At a little over two hours, Black Rain is a good half-hour too long, and the style gymnastics are eventually wearying. But Scott's work is always fascinating to watch, even as it grinds you down. And Douglas now has something heroic about him that enhances, if it doesn't quite transcend, the plot-by- numbers. It's fun watching the two of them volley. [22 Sep 1989, p.G5]

Rose made the perfectly splendid and terrifying Paperhouse, a film-festival thriller from 1988, which Candyman resembles not at all. Paperhouse scared you because it was quiet and subtle and eerie. Candyman is just Barker stuff -- all hook, no suspense. [19 Oct 1992, p.C6]

Sneakers is tremendously entertaining when the team is working to breach unbreachably secure institutions. [11 Sep 1992, p.G5]

It's not much, Boiling Point. But it's not what you expect, either. At this time of year, when the big news is Indecent Proposal, that's saying something. [19 Apr 1993, p.C5]

The knock on movies like Wildcats used to be that they belong not on the big screen, but on TV. But times have changed. Wildcats isn't good television, either. It's just Goldie Hawn's latest. [10 March 1986, p.C6]

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

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]

The effects are well-made and gruesome; the set is 'used-car tech,' a la Alien -- a space station that looks real and lived- in. Even the music is OK. But good gore only works in movies when the story is good, and this story is stolen, almost scene for scene. [01 Jun 1982, p.C6]

Blake Edwards returned to direct this time, and seems to have made the miscalculation that Benigni could carry the movie. One with less noble lineage, maybe. But the Pink Panther movies, largely because of Edwards' own brilliance at physical comedy, are very hard acts to follow. [01 Sep 1993, p.E3]

There's a crude energy to the opening scenes of this film, suggesting that the director might one day find a trade. The rest of it is the worst kind of trash, being not just vicious but stupid, too. Peter Fonda appears in an expanded walk-on as a pimp, his "special appearance." Fonda, O'Neal, Cara and the aforementioned Blakley; it is a long fall indeed. [6 March 1985, p.5]

Brother's Keeper is fascinating. It doesn't answer all the questions, but it illuminates life in a small, strange and in some ways wonderful place. [16 Nov 1992, p.C3]

Every now and then, there is even a funny line, as when the wife of one officer insists on joining the force herself: "We can wear matching uniforms, share ammo -- everything that makes a marriage work." [24 Mar 1986, p.D7]

No Small Affair, while no big movie, confirms that it is possible to tell a story about a kid in love without depending on the French-tutor contrivance or the girls'-locker- room giggle. [09 Nov 1984, p.C10]

Kudos to the production team for finding a perfect chimp for the lead role. Little Virgil has a look of such perfect solemnity and clearness of intent that not only do we not doubt that he could fly a plane, but we begin to suspect that he could craft a better script as well. [17 Apr 1987, p.D1]

If the idea was merely to make a high-gloss entertainment about the last days of mob glamour, Bugsy succeeds. But it leaves one final question unanswered: So what? [20 Dec 1991, p.G5]

The Hotel New Hampshire, in which John Irving's novel comes to the screen, is such a mess that it does not feel like a film at all. It's a kind of endurance contest, an epic bout with the cutes, in which the audience is made to confront a long, quirky line of performers playing oddball "types," and is then given only a handful of platitudes by which the explain the experience. "Sorrow floats" is the story's most profound statement, though there are others. [3 Apr 1984, p.C5]

When the film isn't borrowing, it's collapsing of its own weight, slight though it may be. [28 Jul 1996, p.B4]

These are things to keep in mind while the movie lumbers along from retread situation to punchleszs comic setup. Pirates looks cheap and runs long; it moves fast only when it is scrabbling for a shred of charm. [18 July 1986, p.D3]

Campion tells this longish story with a reverent touch and a painterly eye, tipping over into artiness only occasionally. [20 Sep 1991, p.G5]

Minimalist, yes; post-modern self-conscious, to a fault. But giddy, fanciful and at times simply obvious. [21 Nov 1986, p.D10]

Uncle Fester, missing for 25 years, has mysteriously returned -- isn't enough to drive the picture. It's all one note, really. Lovely note. But just the one. [22 Nov 1991, p.G10]

Whoopi Goldberg gives a first-rate performance in Clara's Heart, enough to atone for the sins of her Fatal Beauty period. But it's nifty work in a lost cause. The movie is sickly sweet, shot through with the kind of confectioner's sentiment that Hollywood used to crank out on assembly lines until the formula slid into disuse. [21 Oct 1988, p.E10]

Navy Seals is all action, no talk, and it never slows down enough to let you see how dumb it is. But the sudden lack of enemies in a world gone crazily, treacherously peaceful is a problem for Hollywood. [20 July 1990, p.G5]

Beauty and the Beast is so funny, exciting and suspenseful that its obvious moral (appearance can mean nothing; it's what's inside that counts) is engaging rather than perfunctory. [22 Nov 1991, p.G11]

The story was adapted by Laura Esquivel from her novel, a bestseller in Mexico. Arau, the actor turned filmmaker, tells the story with the equivalent of a saucier's night out -- the film is physically lovely, and never so sumptuous as when it is concentrating on Tita's creations in and out of the kitchen. [02 Apr 1993, p.G4]

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]

Its situation and its sight gags are marvelous, recalling the best of Spielberg's 1941. But like that movie, The Money Pit is disconnected; pieces seem missing, and subplots seem to have been abandoned in a rush. [28 Mar 1986, p.D5]

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

At several points, Strange Brew is so unhinged that it works -- when it looks as if Hosehead the skunk/dog will be late for Oktoberfest, he jumps into the air and flies there -- but as Bob and Doug seem to concede in the film's opening, they are simply not interesting enough to carry a movie. Neither is anyone else involved, and there you are: small beer. [29 Aug 1983, p.C6]

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]

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]

It is a masterpiece of design. The animated backgrounds are voluptuously illustrated, and the action often proceeds at dizzying speed, while an elaborate fabric of subtle visual cues steer the narrative. [25 Nov 1992, p.E1]

Implausibly, irretrievably boring -- an affront to its undemanding genre. [28 March 1983, p.C6]

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]

Real Men is too goofy for its own good, but not nearly funny enough. [21 Oct 1987, p.D5]

Best of all, though, Part Deux lampoons the cinema of cheerful ultraviolence without mercy. You've probably seen the coming-attractions trailer in which Topper, having emptied his quiver, uses a live chicken as an arrow. The film tops that easily a few scenes later, when Topper's gun jams and he simply throws a handful of cartridges at some bad guys, all of whom are instantly slain. This is the genuine article: good spoof, no prisoners. [21 May 1993, p.5]

The Year of the Dragon is full of florid language, saddled with Cimino's bogus insights and no more true to Chinatown than Heaven's Gate was to the prairie. But The Year of the Dragon is also robust and fast, violent and alive. There's an uneasy sense of the spurious about Cimino's art, but that's what he's making nonetheless. This is either a ya-hoo's delight or the best gangster fantasy since Once Upon a Time in America (long version); maybe it's both. [16 Aug 1985, p.D1]

SpaceCamp is perfectly harmless and perfectly dull, but it comes at a time when NASA could use an esteem booster. For all those who get just a touch queasy at the Top Gun lesson, in which shooting down planes in peacetime is presented as role-model behavior, SpaceCamp offers a nonviolent corrective. [6 June 1986, p.D6]

It's hard to figure how the combination of director Carl Reiner, comedian John Candy and a movie with the title Summer Rental could come to nothing. [10 Aug 1985, p.D7]

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]

Sounds like Dirty Harry, looks like Dirty Harry, plays like Dirty Harry. The big difference is that Norris is not so mean as Eastwood, nor so interesting. Eastwood's Harry is flawed, even philosophical in his grumpy way; Norris' Sarge is just a nice guy who can kill you a hundred different ways. [06 May 1985, p.B6]

Cage plays his part in exactly the mode of the maimed swain of Moonstruck -- his voice is flat, his jaw slack, his eyes glazed over. He knows it's junk, and he just can't help himself. [26 May 1990, p.E1]

The good-heartedness and skill of Ron Howard, director, have become something to be reckoned with. Cocoon, for all its failures -- and its dependence on hokey effects is a major one -- suggests that Spielberg is not alone out there. [21 June 1985, p.C1]

"Overworked" is the word for much of the movie. The Mean Season has the feel of a project much tinkered with, so that it seems both laborious and scattered. For a melodrama it moves too slowly, and for a thriller it is too obvious; you can see the seams, see the film's gears move when its works should be invisible. [15 Feb 1985, p.D1]

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]

here are strange sensibilities at work here, yes. Just not working hard enough. [23 July 1993, p.G7]

The film sequences of Earth from orbit, of the moon from the lunar lander, then of Earth again are breathtaking. They're disquieting, too -- the feeling of remoteness seems to boil up from the moon's surface as the explorers hop and stumble about in the lunar dust. You get that sense, during these best moments in the film, of the remarkable achievement it was. The thrill is back, in other words. [1 June 1990, p.G9]

These are small subjects here, and intimate ones, and they are handled with great warmth. [27 May 1982, p.B5]

Obsession is central to the film's thesis, such as it is. The characters don't converse so much as hold forth, and Greenaway presents the landmark buildings of Rome tableaux with a devotion that seems quite fierce. Dennehy is eye-rolling good as the tormented Kracklite. But what does it all mean? [20 Nov 1987, p.D6]

In the spirit of The Howling and a half- dozen imitators since, My Science Project is salted with in- jokes and sly gags about its subject, beginning with a reference to The Time Machine and extending to far more subtle clues. John Stockwell, as Harlan the hero, is at least as interesting as the rest of the generation of teen-throb actors already widely referred to as the brat pack. [13 Aug 1985, p.B13]

My Chauffeur has moments of pure daffiness, unhinged stuff. But it is also the most ineptly made comedy in years, so badly made that it is ultimately unwatchable. [20 March 1986, p.B6]

Glory leaves you with not just the sense of its characters' triumph over injustice, but their destruction by the very system that empowered them to begin with. There's no escaping that story, either -- even if Glory doesn't really tell it. [12 Jan 1990, p.G5]

Hackman, with the force of his inelegant personality and his gift for dramatic understatement, makes it go. He has saved a lot of movies, and this is one. [25 Aug 1989, p.G5]

The movie never feels as strong as its ideas. It has a kind of movie-of-the-week gloss to it -- no weight, no power, all going-through-the-motions. There are a couple of reasons for this, and both involve Hoffman in the title role. [02 Oct 1992, p.G5]

There's a lightheartedness to the film that belies its genre, however. As one of the dimmer of the dwindling party says, after the body count has reached three, "You gotta look on the bright side of things." April Fool's Day eventually does, but the mild satisfaction of its climactic twist does not redeem the tedium of the first 88 minutes. [29 Mar 1986, p.B4]

It's about a weird little kid, and it's an engaging mix. It is successful in recreating the frissons of adolescence and in slapping the myths around. The film also sports an ending that is pure tearjerker, but at least it earns the mush. [2 Apr 1986, p.D6]

Director Daniel Petrie Jr. does a journeyman job, though he lets the air out of the thing at the end. [26 Apr 1991, p.G5]

The Hitcher has a certain weight. It's not junk, and Harmon is neither a hack nor a beginner just taking his genre shot. His movie is arresting in surprising places, and it never really lets us off the hook. There's something here worth seeing, and something about Harmon as well. What will he do next, and can he top this? [27 Feb 1986, p.8]

Midler sweeps into scenes with divine force, and Tomlin plays off her co-star with a barrage of comic nuance. Tomlin is playing parts, Midler is plying shtick, and it's wonderful. [10 Jun 1988, p.D1]

Applegate is fun to watch; I'll bet she can act, though nothing here tests her. Stephen Herek may even be able to direct. But on this evidence, who could tell? [08 June 1991, p.E5]

And because it is less bound by formula -- less stupid, if that can be comprehended -- than Porky's, Screwballs is funnier. That is not saying much, but Screwballs was not conceived as a film for scholarly inquiry. If you like naked women posing as high-school cheerleaders, your moment has arrived.

Chuck Norris, whose action dramas are often unintentionally funny, edges into spoof territory with Firewalker, and the result is inadvertently dull. It's a curious cycle, a kind of primordial rhythm of bad moviemaking.[2 Dec 1986, p.B4]

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]