Dave Kehr

It is a shock and a pleasure to see an American film that doesn't wallow in complacency, but instead suggests—however fleetingly—that disappointment is also a part of life. Curtis is particularly impressive in the strength and maturity she brings to a role written as pure fantasy.

LaLoggia clearly loves his chosen medium: He has a passion for filmmaking-for ferreting out unusual angles, for planning elaborate camera movements, for designing elaborate special effects-that sometimes leads him way over the top. Yet it's the extravagance of his gestures that gives Lady in White its character and imaginative force. [22 Apr 1988, p.A]

There are still some astonishingly tender moments, including looks exchanged between Swayze and Moore that seem magically divorced from this summer of exploding jets, severed limbs and homicidal children. [13 July 1990, Friday, p.D]

Consistency isn't the chief virtue of Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle, but at its best this ragged satire is bracingly, caustically funny. [27 Mar 1987, p.F-C]

"Dragon" has an appeal beyond the buffs. Beyond the particulars of biography, it's a timeless human story told with heart and verve.

One of the smartest and funniest films of the year, at least for those who care about its subject. Every regular filmgoer should. Through the story of a talented but naive film school graduate (Kevin Bacon`s Nick Chapman) who suddenly becomes the hottest property in Hollywood, Guest assembles a deadly accurate sociology of the contemporary film industry-and its accuracy makes The Big Picture both hilarious and terrifying.

The picture is a rip-roaring melodrama, a tale of lust, murder and revenge, rendered in broad strokes and vibrant hues that make Hollywood Technicolor look almost timid. [12 Apr 1991, p.C]

There is no visible conviction in Penn's staging, but he does have a good time prowling through the cluttered decor (which comes complete with menacing stuffed animals and secret passageways), while coaxing some gaudily entertaining, highly theatrical ham-work from Rubes and McDowell. [06 Feb 1987, p.N]

Like a series pilot, Stand and Deliver has a strong character, a promising situation and not a lot of story-it seems to be setting things up for future episodes.

The surprising emotional amplitude of Stakeout, its generosity and conviction, proves that it's still possible to achieve something of value within the tight formulas of commercial filmmaking. It needn't all be "Cobra" and "Lethal Weapon"--not as long as directors like John Badham can find room to move. [5 Aug 1987, p.C3]

Like any good work of popular culture, Rob Reiner's film of Stephen King's best-selling book Misery functions on more than one level.

A Cry in the Dark has been conceived as a director's film-a movie that works through imagery and narrative rhythm, through visual and aural resonance. But when Streep enters a movie (and it isn't something she can help by now) it immediately becomes an actor's film, a movie about performance-her accent, her gestures, her walk. Meryl Streep upstages Ayers Rock. [11 Nov 1988, p.A]

As a screenplay Tequila Sunrise is a very impressive piece of work. But as a movie, it's knotty and confused. [2 Dec 1988, p.B]

This film contains one of Hitchcock's most famous set pieces—an assassination in the rain—but otherwise remains a second-rate effort, as immensely enjoyable as it is.

The new film is a fast, funny, engagingly unpretentious 88 minutes that, moving between martial-arts dustups and random satirical jibes, achieves a more successful mix of action and humor than the first. There is plenty for adults here as well as children.

Director Robert Zemeckis confronts the oedipal heart of the time-travel genre with this zestfully tasteless 1985 tale.

A hesitant, conservative approach that yields great elegance and a rhythm that carries the viewer along. Yet the film is haunted by a sense of opportunities not taken, of an artist deliberately reining in his artistry. [9 Dec 1987, p.2]

Ousmane Sembene’s 1977 Senegalese film was attacked for daring to depict life in precolonial Africa as something less than paradisiacal.

This is fun but, compared with Kurosawa’s other 60s efforts, relatively slight.

The beauty of Mr. Naderi's filmmaking lies in his combination of acute social observation (with the subway population providing its habitual cross section of New York classes and cultures) and pure, almost mathematical formalism.

It's the best kind of homemade movie, created with skill, modesty and a pleasing awareness of what works in an ultra-low-budget format that tends to be performance and storytelling, rather than visual expressiveness and technical polish.

It is a strange, beautiful, disturbing and at times literally painful work, an original and distinctive expression by a gifted young Philadelphia-based filmmaker who here confirms the talent he displayed in his 2001 film, "A Chronicle of Corpses."

The material makes no demands on the talents of James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich, but they enter gamely into the farcical tone set by director George Marshall.

The director, Ted Kotcheff, does a good job with the violence and suspense, working well with the wide-screen format, and he seems fully aware of the dark, subversive implications of the material, even if the screenplay doesn't allow him to resolve them successfully.

The thematics are rather cloying, but the mood—profoundly relaxed, bemused—eventually conquers.

Using a fly-on-the-wall camera technique that suggests the cinéma vérité documentaries of Frederick Wiseman, Ms. Cammisa and Mr. Fruchtman vividly capture the dynamic of tenderness and rage that characterizes Sister Helen's relationship with the 21 men who live under her roof.