Bob Graham

The ridiculous complications might have worked if there had been an awareness of how absurd they are.

For quite of few of The Whole Nine Yards, it appears that the most clever thing in the movie is going to be the opening credits, monstrous close-ups of the morning toothbrushing routine.

It is wonderful to see how Sheedy gives shape to this performance -- her eyes, a photographer's eyes, carefully sizing everything up. [18 June 1998, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

If the movie sometimes seems not to come to much either, it does have something to say to those patient enough to stick with it.

Has all the elements of a satisfying movie except knowing when to stop.

It falls short where it counts: In the final confrontation.

Stir of Echoes is much more down and dirty (than "The Sixth Sense"), and the thrills are more visceral.

Connects so often and so persuasively that its shortcomings -- the movie goes slack from time to time -- really don't amount to much.

This is almost Mel Brooks territory: The frontiersmen think the Chinese are Jews, while the white settlers think it's the Crow Indians who are. Whoosh!

It means to be knowing and cynical but is just callow.

It's an audacious little comedy with bursts of hilarity and a certain giddy energy.

Straddles a number of genres -- horror film, lovers on the lam, fairy tale -- and gives them all a cool, knowing spin.

It is well-made in an old-fashioned way, and its straight-arrow lack of cynicism may be old- fashioned as well.

An actors' feast.

Seems it's never going to reach liftoff.

Although it takes something of a slog to get there, this thriller finally comes through where it counts.

When all's said and done, it turns out to be quite sweet-natured. OK. I laughed. So sue me.

A hostage drama that oscillates between soap opera and action flick.

A sly variation on the buddy movie.

The warning against actors playing with dogs or children should be expanded to include men in gorilla suits.

There is a very good movie stuck somewhere on The Thirteenth Floor trying to get out. Too bad this isn't it.

It is not merely a thriller but a shocker. It will separate hard-core Jet Li followers from the fair-weather fans.

It comes down to a pair of appealing performers in a series of bad-relationship skits.

A millennial medley to the max.

It's called One, and the hemorrhaging begins with the so-called story, which doesn't quite add up to one.

When a movie sets out to be awful and achieves its goal, does that make it a success?

The no-sweat clunkiness of the detective plot becomes kind of charming.

Has that Dickensian spirit wherein simple acts of kindness can bring an audience close to tears.

Manages to do the impossible: It makes Lopez bland.

Beatty's "Heaven Can Wait," released in 1978, was a comic fantasy about a near-death experience. This new version is a near-life experience.

This nasty, provocative comedy comes from a play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

In special effects, Lucas has moved a galaxy beyond. In energy, not yet.

No one is likely to claim it's a great, or even good, movie, but it does offer some guilty pleasures.

But the single most compelling performance may belong to Australian actor Guy Pearce.

Is it worth seeing once? Sure.

A viewer may even blink his eyes to be sure the turn of events is actually happening.

A quirky character study of the four-man team, led by Sam Neill as the crew leader who seems surrounded by an aura of sadness but is so dedicated that he's not above lying to Houston to buy time when something goes wrong.

The Coens' plotting, with its suspense and reversals, is a source of amazement and delight.

The belly laughs finally start to come --legitimately.

Beat Takeshi fans wouldn't think of missing this one. Moviegoers who hate violence wouldn't be caught dead at it.

The glossy ensemble cast is consistently interesting.

Neither true believers nor newcomers to the phenomenon will be disappointed.

It is impossible to think of anyone but Costner in this role. His commitment and sincerity are never in doubt.

Curiously enough plays like a 90-minute version of the old television show. That's not necessarily bad.

It is an exceptional accomplishment.

Most of the right laughs in most of the right places and some unexpected ones thrown in.

Slowly unfolding but liberating film, which is also a rare look inside a circumscribed community.

This feast of fantasy is worth it.

The Corruptor' quickly turns into a good bad-cop drama of fascinating moral complexity.

A strange mix of the campy, at least in the English dubbing, and the awesome.

Summoning silliness Roman Polanski salutes and spoofs satanic thrillers .

The most striking effect of the Technicolor process is its subtlety. The viewer is aware of the gradations of flesh tones in Leigh's face and can see the color rise in her cheeks. The exact color of her eyes is a source of fascination (they are gray-blue with flashes of green).

It comes as a bonus that this romantic comedy is one of the rare pictures of its type that actually is about something -- the double-edged sword of celebrity.

Any way you slice it, it is still pointless.

Solondz should have called this one "So-So Storytelling."

This poor excuse for a thriller turns, with a great crunching of gears, into a mess of a buddy comedy. Either way, it misfires.

If this movie ever figured out what it wanted to be when it grows up, it would be a terrific one.

Faye's presence provides an unexpected context for the photographer's circle, where the gay and straight worlds overlap, and adds a delightful dimension to Chop Suey.

A potential problem with the movie is that it can be a challenge watching people hand-wringing over moral decisions. But the acting is so good that it makes it worth sticking with during the slow patches.

The movie lacks the one thing that the classic "Three Musketeers" story can't do without: panache.

The comic drama is refreshingly anti- sentimental but will break your heart anyway.

A crackerjack combination of live action, special effects and recycled footage.

Bride is often cited as Whale's masterpiece, and one of the reasons surely is his intentional lacing of humor throughout that never completely undercuts the horror or pathos.

Tends to be lugubrious.

When the film sticks with the eccentric comedy of a highborn woman attracted to a preoccupied genius, it works splendidly. When it strays into melodrama, it is as ill-equipped as Luzhin.

Wants to be a brightly colored bubble but has trouble getting aloft.

Runs out of ideas long before the projector runs out of film.

Slam, directed by Marc Levin, is schematic but effective as it makes its points about African Americans caught in the Washington, D.C., criminal justice system. It's got a wonderful eye and, for a film, ear.

The comic contrast between the genteel snobbery of von Bulow, a Danish aristocrat, and Dershowitz's dry contempt for his well-tailored client is treated with understated but stinging wit in Nicholas Kazan's brilliant script. [9 Nov 1990]

A surreal comedy about sex that comes as close to charming as Greenaway ever gets.

There may be no more unusual movie around than Vengo.

Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence are back together and give both of their careers some new life in this sentimental comedy.

A very smart noir about gambling, smartly directed by Mike Hodges -- until almost the very end. It craps out in the decisive London casino heist scene.

Chunhyang is an extravagantly beautiful movie that many viewers are going to love and others are not going to be able to sit still for. That's their problem.

A pleasant myth.

This is no-holds-barred filmmaking. Some viewers will find it disgusting. Others will call the director's bluff.

De Palma seems to be trying too hard to make somebody else's great movie, once again an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Would someone please tell this guy to relax?

The last 15 minutes finally get it together for what passes as a movie experience with a considerable "gotcha!" quotient.

Part of the appeal of Topsy-Turvy is its generosity about human folly and shortcomings. Its wistfulness is very touching.

Digs up both laughs and chills from timeworn material.

Delivers a sucker punch to the audience and then pulls the rug out from under it. It is sensational. It is also grimly funny.

If the dialect is hard to comprehend, that soon becomes part of the joke. It's unlikely that even the British audiences who made Lock, Stock a big hit got it all.

It's a kind of "sex, lies and videotape'' in suburbia.

The thriller is populated by the usual dimwits who stumble into horrific situations and don't have the good sense to leave, and it tries to pass off some of the sorriest excuses for zombies ever seen.

Cage gives a performance that invites audiences to lay cynicism aside in a romantic fable.

It's probably pointless to complain when a movie sets out to be stupid and actually is. (And the people who came up with a couple of these ideas think male models are dumb.)

There still is no life on Mars. Red Planet is airless.

The dialogue is loaded with depth charges that take a while to explode beneath the surface.

Cube falls into the dreaded trap of allegory -- aaaaaargh! -- and the clunky dialogue makes a midnight bull session seem brilliant by comparison.

It's good for a few guffaws and chuckles, but in between the screen has a tendency to stretch at the corners and go flat.

Thoroughly engrossing.

A steady undertow of sex gives this French thriller a scintillating surface.

This is a transcendent film, deeply committed and beautifully wrought. It will make anyone who sees it look at the world with new eyes.

Has a saccharine quality but also offers a memorable performance by famed Spanish actor Fernando Fernan Gomez.

Story pitches are made. Coke is snorted. There is lesbian sex. Fellatio. An earthquake. A murder. Just another day in Hollywood.

Don't even try to make any sense of this --none of it elicits a moment of genuine concern.

This lurid thriller comes to life in fits and starts, and then sinks into the bog of its own cleverness once again.

The movie's gimmick for airing the contents of a woman's head is not unlike that used for the dogs and tots in those "Look Who's Talking" movies.