Dave Kehr

Carpenter displays an almost perfect understanding of the mechanics of classical suspense; his style draws equally (and intelligently) from both Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock.

To watch the biggest stars of their time in casual conversation, trading riffs and passing bottles, without benefit of publicists, handlers and security goons is to relive an innocent, anarchic time in the entertainment business when music, not marketing, was at the center of the enterprise.

Dense, contradictory and distressingly honest, Valley of Tears is that rarity among political documentaries: a genuinely thought-provoking film.

This 1971 thriller about a heroin bust is solid, slick filmmaking, full of dirty cops, shrewd operators, and slam-bang action. Friedkin's close study of Raoul Walsh pays off in the justly celebrated chase sequence.

A strange and funny film, smart, complex and difficult to shake.

While it doesn't have the soft-edged sense of wonder that the Travers books have, Walt Disney's 1964 version of the Mary Poppins story does manage to avoid the usual saccharine excesses of his live-action work.

One of the most pleasant foreign films of the year, a funny, graceful and immensely good-natured work.

Experimental in form, it's also open and appealing in its vision of romantic redemption, an avant-garde romp that's also a great date movie. [8 Mar 1996, p.40]

One of Robert Altman's most charming exercises in cabaret humor and off-the-cuff modernism.

Taking off from the format of a typical teenage sex comedy, Brickman deepens the characters and tightens the situations, filming them in a dark, dreamlike style full of sinuous camera movements and surrealistic insinuations. Brickman found a tone I hadn't encountered previously - one of haunting, lyrical satire.

George Cukor gives it the royal treatment with a splendid supporting cast.

One of the most emotionally devastating movies of the decade.

Michael Ritchie keeps his dead-end cynicism in check and produces a genuinely funny comedy about a Little League team managed by a lovably drunken Walter Matthau. Sometimes Ritchie goes too far in avoiding the family-movie cliches the subject invites and indulges in some pointless vulgarity, but all in all, it's one of his best films.

Alan Rudolph redreams the dream of film noir in this dense, beautifully executed, highly stylized romantic fantasy.

A frightening and consistently inventive horror story... It's busy on the surface and empty in the center, but somehow it works.

Wilder trades Cain's sun-rot imagery for conventional film noir stylings, but the atmosphere of sexual entrapment survives.

Donald Sutherland works small and subtly, balancing Jane Fonda's flashy virtuoso technique.

Perhaps Strangers on a Train still hasn't yielded all its secrets.

Homicide isn't easy to take, but its vision is chillingly persuasive. [18 Oct 1991, p.B]

Sid & Nancy is a movie that features head-bashings, drug overdoses, stabbings and a more-or-less constant round of pointless, stupid violence, and yet its most prominent quality is its sweetness. This is a love story--an unlikely, perverse, disturbing love story, but a genuine one.

Delirious in its excess, but never less than ferociously intelligent and operatically emotional, Underground represents one of those rare, exhilarating moments when an outsize artistic vision is fueled by an apparently unlimited budget. Not to be missed.

Lewis's long takes and sure command of film noir staples (shadows, fog, rain-soaked streets) make this a stunning technical achievement, but it's something more--a gangster film that explores the limits of the form with feeling and responsibility.

It's a beautifully proportioned, wonderfully complete movie.

This turned out to be Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate film (1972), though there's no sign of the serenity and settledness that generally mark the end of a career. Frenzy, instead, continues to question and probe, and there is a streak of sheer anger in it that seems shockingly alive.

Irma Vep is a glorious mishmash, like the medium it celebrates.

Charlie, who owes an obvious debt to Chuck Jones' Wile E. Coyote, comes equipped with one of the most expressive faces in cartoon history: Bluth keeps his features-ears, snout, mouth, eyes-in constant flux, a beautiful blend of line and volume that represents the pinnacle of the animator's art. [17 Nov 1989]

After White Hunter there is no doubt that Eastwood is one of our most committed filmmakers, and perhaps our most profoundly introspective. [14 Sep 1990, p.C]

Roemer's comic style draws brilliantly on the '60s vein of twitchy psychological realism first explored by Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and his humor is backed by a fine eye for sociological detail. [16 Feb 1990, p.C]