Bill Cosford

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]

Unlikely as it seems, considering the source, Hope and Glory may be John Boorman's most affecting film. It is surely his most entertaining. [27 Nov 1987, p.D1]

That Burton darkness, gentle and sweet though it may be (he's David Lynch through a Disney looking-glass), was said to be the one element that kept Batman Returns from becoming the most popular movie of all time. Maybe so. But this time, it's simply perfect. [22 Oct 1993, p.G4]

Platoon lacks the sweep, the heroic (and anti-heroic) vision of Apocalypse Now, and it lacks that film's signal strength, which was its evocation of the visceral appeal, the sheer romance of war, at least to those not fighting it. Some of Coppola's images in Apocalypse Now were among the most beautiful in contemporary film. Platoon is merely terrifying. [16 Jan 1987, p.6]

I wish it ended better, but Mortal Thoughts is easily the most interesting movie of the year to date. And it's a throwback to that time at the movies when a single murder was a big deal. Run, don't walk. [19 Apr 1991, p.G5]

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]

Rarely do you see first-rate melodrama welded to first-rate political satire. [13 May 1988, p.D5]

This may be a film for children, but its achievement is no less serious. For only when animation approaches reality this closely does its liberation from reality -- its celebration of a fantasy world in which anything is possible, including talking mice and swashbuckling rats -- have its impact on us. [20 July 1982, p.C6]

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]

Chocolat is as beautiful as it is solemn. It's a meditation on memory and on the nature of innocence in the face of great, irresistible change, but its glory is in the quiet development of its several characters. [12 May 1989, p.5]

Ribald, wry and even, from time to time, suspenseful, The Name of the Rose is actually a movie-movie -- rich in Hollywood convention, dense with images, with muscular performances (the principals play their types to the maximum), with good, old- fashioned movie stuff. Never a dull moment. How very unlikely. [24 Oct 1986, p.D1]

Tootsie is full of good movie writing, and such are its pleasures that you wonder early on why all comedies can't be this good. The problem is that it's hard to do; the trick is that Tootsie makes it look easy. [17 Dec 1982, p.D14]

It throbs with innocence; like prom night itself, it's an instant good memory. And like its creator, the always surprising John Waters, it's sideshow weird. They don't make 'em like this anymore. They never did, either. [6 Apr 1990, p.G5]

Frears displays a complete mastery of the mechanics of a thriller, such that his movie is terrifying even when it pauses for breath. [08 Feb 1985, p.D8]

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]

Frears uses the story of one relationship, intimate but exploitive, to mirror England's racial strife. By turns tender and angry, it's a film of distinctive, commanding voice. [28 Mar 1986, p.D2]

Jaglom isn't the first to suggest that food is at least as powerful as sex when it comes to enhancing life, or screwing it up. But he's the first to bring his giddy blend of documentary and farce to bear on the subject. Mmm-mmm, good. [08 Feb 1991, p.G12]

Trouble in Mind is an earthbound fantasy to match the soaring nightmares of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. It's one man's dream of romance, melodrama, life by street lamp. One surrenders on Rudolph's terms. Surrender is sweet. [21 March 1986, p.D6]

There are times when a B-movie is made so carefully and performed so robustly that the audience wants it to work and goes with it, roots for it; those are the times that directors grope for, even with A-material. The Verdict may be only a B-movie in a three-piece suit, but this is one of those times, and everybody's going to like it. [21 Dec 1982, p.C7]

Even if it were not physically beautiful -- and Ju Dou is as enthralling to look at as any Chinese film the festival has shown -- it would hold you: Its love story is as compelling as its politics, though not nearly so tragic. [05 Feb 1991, p.D8]

Homicide fails, finally. But its early success is so complete that the film is a must-see anyway. It changes the rules for cop movies. And when it is good, it is brilliant. [18 Oct 1991, p.7]

"Ghost movies" have been a Hollywood staple at least since It's a Wonderful Night, and this is one of the better of them. It's a tearjerker, though. Go prepared. [13 Aug 1993, p.G5]

The movie is full of holes, but there's never time to worry about them, and everyone's having too good a time ducking in and out of the subplots anyway. [23 Oct 1987, p.D5]

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]

Nelson is immensely appealing, and Busey plays off him well. The two of them ride around, locked into the wacky feud and having a bit of fun with Old West mythology. The movie is sad, entertaining and often beautiful. [25 Mar 1983, p.C1]

Though Mermaids moves in familiar circles, it tells its story (which is as much about mom's coming of age as the kids') in a nice mix of daft comedy and dramatic set pieces. It's a kind of Terms of Endearment without the tearjerking. [14 Dec 1990, p.G5]

Carpenter creates an atmosphere in Thing; it's a weird one, an odd landscape and clearly alien territory, but it's entertaining nonetheless. And for those who have not been to a creep show in the last couple of years, The Thing has some very nasty surprises. [25 June 1982, p.D1]