Bill Cosford

After you've seen Dave, go back and watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And be manipulated by a master. [07 May 1993, p.G5]

Ward does manage to pump the film with tension in the climactic, will-the-Indians-beat-the-Yankees sequence, and I found Major League hard to resist in its last 20 minutes or so -- even though it's sappy enough to make Levinson's prettifying of The Natural seem positively dour by contrast. Maybe it's just the season. [7 Apr 1989, p.1]

It's a gentle, occasionally smart little comedy about what happens when three furry spacemen, eager for female companionship after what seems to have been a long voyage from the planet Jhazzala, land in the backyard swimming pool of a recently jilted manicurist in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. [02 June 1989, p.DW5]

Flight of the Navigator is a cheerfully unaccomplished little movie, a kind of E.T. for kids that recalls the Disney live-action films of a generation ago. E.T is not the only movie borrowed from here; there are echoes of Back to the Future and most of the rest of the last decade's science-fiction fantasies, though Flight of the Navigator is generous in acknowledging its sources. It's a happy knockoff. [31 July 1986, p.C5]

This is a B-movie through and through, and no less fun for that. [29 Sep 1989, p.G12]

It helps that Raw Deal works, for a time at least, as a first-rate cop movie. It is violent to excess -- more graphic by far than Stallone's films, and bloodier, too -- but it's a real movie. [07 June 1986, p.D1]

Given the talent involved -- Bigelow, Curtis, Red -- you figure Blue Steel will break out, show something new. Never happens. It's just a tough little thriller with a long string of plot holes. [16 Mar 1990, p.G5]

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]

Jennifer 8 is handsome, dark and menacing, as you'd figure a big-budget whodunit about a serial killer ought to be, but it's also clean out of control. It's one of those thrillers in which the real suspense is over how long it will be before you say, "Oh, come on." [6 Nov 1992, p.G5]

There's good stuff around the edges of the film -- all that word play and all those visual gags demand that you pay attention lest you miss something even in the slow scenes. But at the center, no magic. [01 Aug 1986, p.D1]

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]

What we have here is a story out of early American history as retold by American pulp fiction, staged by a director with a sure touch for melodrama. [25 Sep 1992, p.G5]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]