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]

The idea, apparently, was to combine elements of E.T., Gremlins and run-of-the-mill slasher films, while keeping the whole thing palatable for pre-teens. Only Steven Spielberg has been able to make this combination work, and even he has had trouble with it; director Stephen Herek, who also worked on the Critters script, is the wrong Steve. [30 Apr 1986, p.C7]

An almost-horror film called The Hunger has in common with Flashdance an apparent obsession with style over other considerations, and the result, though weird, is no more satisfying. [02 May 1983, p.C6]

Like "An Officer and a Gentleman", Top Gun travels a cramped emotional range. The characters don't really change, but have plot devices imposed on them. Unlike its template, however, Top Gun does have a payoff: Maverick and his pals do a lot of flying, and many of the aerial scenes are impressive. [16 May 1986, p.6]

Woody Allen's new movie, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, will not make you cry, as Annie Hall and Manhattan were capable of, and it won't make you cringe, as Stardust Memories almost demanded. It is not screamingly funny, romantically piquant, bitter or even, in most ways, unusual. With the exception of a single recurring image--that of Allen as an amateur inventor of the early 20th Century, flapping about in various homemade flying machines--there is not even anything of the absurd in this film. It's just an engaging Woody Allen movie, in which much of the humor is familiar and the tone is as moistly appealing as the title suggests. [18 July 1982, p.L3]

Unfaithfully Yours turns mildly manic in its last half-hour or so, but it's not enough to redeem that first hour, when Moore and Kinski go through familiar motions in search of something special. For too much of their movie, what they're looking for isn't there. [13 Feb 1984, p.C6]

A decent cast, led by Peter Weller (as the geologist/hero) and Rambo vet Richard Crenna (as Doc), grapples gamely with the script and hauls down the paychecks. [21 Mar 1989, p.C7]

Mostly, though, the movie is a hack sitcom romance in which the big question is how long it will take Tom Selleck to confess his love for Nancy Travis, Mary's mom. [21 Nov 1990, p.D1]

There is something weirdly appealing about Commando and its self-deprecating celebration of violent excess. [16 Oct 1985, p.D5]

That final half-hour bears the scars of frenzied re- editing, and it's still overblown -- purple and heaving. And when Hill loses control, he loses it everywhere. Hill, who usually makes half a good movie, might make a good whole one if he ever stuck to a genre and had some fun. But he doesn't do things simply. More often than not, his movies simply do not work. [24 Apr 1987, p.D1]

What were charming once -- the clumsiness of Uys' style and the crudeness of his effects -- now seem quite tired: After all, he had the budget this time, and he has had six years to learn how to do things. It's as if Uys never quite understood what made The Gods Must Be Crazy so enchanting. [13 Apr 1990, p.G5]

Better Off Dead has the body of a tired teen comedy but the soul of an inspired student film; it's the first movie in a long time to interrupt itself periodically with flights of animated fancy. At one point, romantic foreshadowing is accomplished by a "clay-mation" sequence featuring cheeseburgers in love. At another, a lovesick teen draws a cartoon picture of his faithless girlfriend, and the drawing tells him to get lost. [17 Oct 1985, p.B6]

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]

Giles Walker's direction is TV-slick and the performances predictably smooth. But there is nothing here you haven't seen many, many times before. [12 Nov 1993, p.G18]

The script remains the big problem, however -- all its roots are showing, and they are very old. In Lucy's day, a story like this would end with restoration of the comfy stereotypes -- Dad would get his job back at the plant, enhanced by his new appreciation for what Mom has gone through, and Mom would forsake her business success, more sure than ever that her place is at the sink. That's just what happens in Mr. Mom. In Hollywood, time stands still. [27 Aug 1983, p.5]

Certainly, Lassiter is painless and periodically amusing. And it's so much bigger than TV. [22 Feb 1984, p.B6]

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]

It's a ridiculous story to be sure, filled with holes and not remotely plausible, but director Mark L. Lester knows enough to keep the speed up, and the dumb stuff is flattened by action. It's the kind of movie in which the audience waits happily for the little heroine to be cornered by villains, all to cheer at the inevitable roast. Lester, at least, is stylish enough to get away with it. [12 May 1984, p.C1]

The movie is best when it sends up the whole culture of child stars and commercials -- "I wanna grow artistically," says one well-paid brat. "I wanna work with Michelle Pfeiffer." But it loses its edge, and soon Life With Mikey is awfully close to the thing it sets out to lampoon. [4 June 1993, p.G5]

Williams is wonderful. But though you can see Williams straining and heaving at the traces, working against the confines of a script he could have rewritten between scenes, he makes a character out of it anyway. [18 May 1990, p.G5]

As is usual for this durable genre, victim and villain are well matched. Though House on Sorority Row does not have a single screeching-cat red herring, and though power tools are not employed, it does have a classic of low camp, a scene in which a girl who has just been nearly brained by a falling corpse repairs immediately and alone to her bedroom, where she changes into a baby-doll nightie and stands with her back to an open window. [23 Feb 1983, p.B4]

Honkytonk Man is Clint Eastwood's long, long ramble through the American Southwest in search of period, in search of character, in search of self-control. As a director, at least, he never finds the latter -- among the many things wrong with his latest film is that he apparently could not bring himself to slice away any of the flab. [22 Dec 1982, p.D18]

As played by the sublimely dazed Keanu Reeves (Ted) and Alex Winter (Bill), the boys are appealing at first, but their witlessness wears thin quickly. So, too, the movie. Ignorance may indeed be a happy state, but you wouldn't want to live there, and even this short visit seems much, much too long. The film acknowledges its empty-headedness early, when the boys meet Sock-rates. [20 Feb 1989, p.C-6]

The running character of a dim-bulb scientist of Indian or Pakistani extraction, who is prone to malapropisms, badly accented English and Carson-esque wink-and-giggle innuendo, might not seem offensive in a better film. Here it seems designed only for cheap laughs. The laughs come. They are cheap. [09 May 1986, p.D5]

A thoroughly wholesome, if not particularly entertaining, experience. [17 Jul 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]

It's a handsome period piece and a decent character drama, and it has that Newman performance. But it never has enough bang for the buck, and that's too bad. [20 Oct 1989, p.G11]

Although we see many strange things happen (and some of them are seen through wondrous-looking special effects), we never have a clue as to what's really going on, and why. [24 June 1985, p.B6]