David Ansen

The cruelly funny Margot at the Wedding shares many of the virtues of "Squid"--it's psychologically astute, sociologically dead on, refreshingly unformulaic--but it's a considerably tougher, less ingratiating movie. People who insist on likable, "sympathetic" protagonists may find it a bitter pill to swallow.

Flirts throughout with cliches, and some of the more melodramatic plot devices creak at the joints. Still, the potency of this pop romantic can't be denied. [24 Aug 1987]

This is first-rate, visceral filmmaking, no question: taut, watchful, free of false histrionics, as observant of the fear in the young terrorists' eyes as the hysteria in the passenger cabin, and smart enough to know this material doesn't need to be sensationalized or sentimentalized.

The Lover's rarefied sensibility takes getting used to; once its spell is cast, you won't want to blink.

The screenplay (by Bill Bryden, Steven Phillip Smith, Stacy and James Keach) is basically an assemblage of bits and pieces that doesn't build toward any real emotional payoff. Yet The Long Riders is still the best Western in many years -- it has the laconic elegance of a ritual. [02 Jun 1980, p.87]

Red Dragon is certainly an improvement on “Hannibal.” It has something the Ridley Scott movie didn’t -- a good story -- and it will no doubt keep the franchise rolling in dough.

Day-Lewis, who imbues Jack with a ravaged, Keith Richards charisma, is once again extraordinary.

Dick Tracy is a class act: simple, stylish, sophisticated, sweet.

The Freshman has a preposterous plot even the writer's mother couldn't believe, and it strains and creaks down the runway, but when this baby gets off the ground, we're talking seriously funny.

This vintage movie is just another reminder that when it comes to movie romance, there's nothing more satisfying than a broken heart. [20 Jun 2002]

Malick's magnificent, frustrating epic mixes fact and legend to conjure up a reverie about Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher), her love for Capt. John Smith (Colin Farrell) and her crossing from one culture to another.

Powerful images hook you immediately.

His smart, raunchy movie offers no answers (how could it?), but it poses its questions with painfully hilarious honesty.

A fine, well-groomed entertainment, but the road it takes has already been well paved.

This is a fleet, funny family entertainment that should tickle parents as well as tykes.

When this historical adventure kicks in, it's thrilling in the way old-fashioned epics used to be, but its romanticism has a fierce, violent physicality that gives it a distinctively modern stamp.

Armageddon is as irresistible as it's indefensible.

Quest for Fire is diverting and well made, and kids should love it. Chong is delightful as the first feminist heroine. And as bloody and brutish as the fights are, the film is resoundingly sweet-natured at heart. [15 Feb 1982, p.61]

Saturated with a passion for jazz, "Round Midnight" plays upon the heart as dextrously as Gordon's huge, eloquent hands coax music from the instrument he calls Lady Sweets. [20 Oct 1986, p.78]

A one-of- a-kind horror movie: hilarious, a little scary and strangely poignant. Campbell’s cranky, valiant, sad-sack King is a soulfully funny creation.

The first-time writer-director, Englishman Richard Kwietniowski, has adapted Gilbert Adair's novel with wit, economy and a delicate understanding that the funniest comedies are played with dead seriousness.

The women in this smart, highly entertaining comedy don't pack guns, but relations between the sexes are such that a well-placed knee in the groin can come in handy.

Miller's strength, and his weakness, has always been his tendency to see things in black and white, which is what makes "The Crucible" moving, and also suspect. I recommend Hytner's movie highly, but a part of me resists a work that makes the audience feel as noble in our moral certainty as the characters it invites us to deplore. Some part of its power seems borrowed from the thing it hates.

With honesty, charm and an uncanny sympathy for all its characters, the film takes us deep inside the awkward and exhilarating experience of first love.

Mann, the executive producer of "Miami Vice," can be too stylish for his own good, but the movie holds the viewer all the way to the predictably explosive end. [25 Aug 1986, p.63]

The movie itself, like these guys, is defiantly old school -- confident, relaxed, professional.

With Saraband, the great writer-director has stepped back into the ring for one last epic wrestle with his demons. There is, as always, no easy outcome. But no one ever fought for higher emotional and spiritual stakes.

The movie crackles with the serio-comic tension of thin-skinned New Yorkers thrown together in a crisis.

Like the march itself--which is only briefly glimpsed--Get On the Bus' is conceived as a challenge to black men to take accountability for their lives. A sermon wrapped in a road movie, at its best it can stir the soul.

While the elements in this coming-of-age saga may seem familiar, Eszterhas brings a fresh, immigrant's-eye perspective to his tale.

To blends sentimentality, shoot-outs and cool humor into a bewitchingly entertaining brew.

Narnia, brightly lit and kid-friendly, has an appealingly old-fashioned feel to it. Adamson, codirector of "Shrek," wisely doesn't try to hip-ify the tale, leaving its curious blend of medieval pageantry, Christian fable and children's bedtime story intact.

A cliffhanger with no real ending. When the lights come up, think of it as the start of a six-month intermission. For better and worse, Reloaded leaves you hungry for more.

Slick, gaudily suave guilty pleasure of a movie.

The rage and sadness behind this film -- the first from Afghanistan since the Taliban's fall -- is matched by its artistry.

Downey and Favreau give the movie a quirky flavor it can call its own. For that we can be grateful.

This is not exactly standard children's fare, but kids (and their parents) should be smitten by its wit and wisdom.

Greenaway uses the screen rather like the calligraphers of the story use the body so that the film becomes a kind of visual "pillow book;" a multi-layered series of inscriptions and reflections with almost hypnotic power.

Using shadows and strikingly designed sounds, Pellington skillfully creates an atmosphere of otherworldly, invisible menace. Gere and Linney, both solid, dance around the edges of a romance.

No simple diatribe against capital punishment, it's a strong film, made stronger by two terrific performances.

Thanks to fine acting and its vividly unconventional protagonist, it pumps fresh blood into a conventional formula.

When it catches fire, this great-looking movie offers hilarious diversions.

Smart, informative and lively polemic.

The first test of a horror movie comes not the morning after but in the midst of the onslaught. By these standards, Monkey Shines is a white-knuckle triumph. Romero's film has its lurid, nonsensical lapses, but it touches some deep nerves. It's as unsettling as anything he's done. [08 Aug 1988, p.66]

Raises Hollywood's depiction of war to a new level.

Take this classical-farce premise, put it in the very accomplished hands of the neoclassical director Blake Edwards, and you have yourself a real comedy -not a mere grab bag of gags but a deliciously accelerating divertissement on the theme of role-playing, sexual and otherwise. [22 March 1982, p.84]

Year of the Dragon leaves itself wide open to attack -- it has huge flaws and absurdities -- and Cimino is responsible for most of them. But this revved-up, over-stuffed movie is undeniably alive, teeming with evidence of Cimino's gifts as a filmmaker and his gaffes as a thinker. It's dazzling, and it's dumb. [19 Aug 1985, p.69]

Mann vividly captures the nocturnal pulse of East L.A. in this taut, confined game of cat and mouse. In the homestretch the thrills get too generic and farfetched for their own good. But the first two thirds are a knockout.

This moving, engrossing work shows that Sayles is as valuable a chronicler of our past as he is of our present. [14 Sep 1987, p.82]

A sweet and satisfying fantasy that reinvents the myth of the Fountain of Youth. [24 June 1985, p.70]

Frost/Nixon works even better on screen. Director Ron Howard and Morgan, adapting his own play, have both opened up the tale and, with the power of close-ups, made this duel of wits even more intimate and suspenseful.

The comedy gets better, and more unpredictable, as it goes, and so do the performances.

This movie is about giving us a privileged glimpse of the Stones in action. It's a record of an astonishing musical chemistry that has been evolving, with no signs of calcification, for nearly five decades. As a bonus, there are delicious guest appearances by Buddy Guy and Jack White.

For a movie full of hairraising depictions of wife beating, What's Love Got To Do With It is a rousingly entertaining musical biopic. And that's what a movie about the unstoppable Tina Turner should be: sassy, playful, soulful and triumphant, like Tina herself. [21 Jun 1993, p.66]

[Stillman] has a keen sense of group dynamics and a fine comic ear.

In Lee's understandable eagerness to let a few rays of hope shine, the polemicist trips up the dramatist--movie conventions replace honest observation. But the passion of this raw, mournful urban epic remains, in spite of the false moves. [25 Sep 1995, p.92]

You may not swallow every coincidental encounter and hair's-breadth escape, but this crisp, complex thriller makes you care what happens every moment; Hackman brings such road-worn humanity to his part you may not realize until the end that this Everyman is a Superman in middle-age disguise. [4 Sept 1989, p.68]

[Douglas] is a superb (and underused) comic actor, one who knows that the secret of being funny is never begging for a laugh.

Explores both prepubescent and teen sexuality with an honesty that may make some people uncomfortable, which is a sign of its potency, and a badge of honor.

Juxtaposes beauty and horror to fashion a savage and lyrical cinematic poem.

The nutty thing is, by the end of this jolly, oddly compelling and genuinely suspenseful documentary, the ridiculousness of such notions seems open to genuine debate.

Rocky II may be superfluous, but it works. And it's successful in exactly the same way the original was - as an adroit mixture of grit, guts and treacle that whips the audience into a frenzy of satisfied wish fulfillment. [25 June 1979, p.81]

It's like a spectacular roadside accident: you can't turn away.

A streak of pitch-black humor, some bawdy detours and a touch of sanguine, sun-baked poetry Sam Peckinpah would have liked.

Seabiscuit may be too airbrushed for its own good, but in the end nothing can stop this story from putting a lump in your throat.

Australia is a shameless—and shamelessly entertaining--pastiche. It works because Luhrmann, a true believer in movie-movie magic, stamps it all with the force of his own extravagant, generous personality.

Perfectly reflects the range of this funny, disturbing and complex tale.

Unless you are suitably bent, you might notice that the movie has little continuity and a plot that is no more than a grab bag of familiar Cheech and Chong routines. If you're suitably prepared, probably none of this will matter. There is something irrepressibly good-natured about the peppery Cheech and the zonked-out Chone as they low-ride through East Los Angeles and Tijuana in pursuit of the eternal high... In this funky, slapdash and occasionally very funny movie, dope is not an issue, it's a way of life. [2 Oct 1978, p.86]

This time out the versatile Soderbergh has cast himself as a sleight-of-hand artist. He's made deeper films, but this carefree caper movie is nothing to sneeze at.

Punch-Drunk Love is one dark, strange-tasting sorbet, its sweetness shot through with startling, unexpected flavors. It’s a romantic comedy on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

A rancidly hilarious slice of Americana. [01 Jun 1981, p.91]

Smith startles us with raw emotional honesty.

Jordan is always best on his native Irish turf, and he's in grand mischievous form in this picaresque fable.

Bjork gives what may be the most wrenching performance ever given by someone who has no interest in being an actor.

School Ties doesn't offer much fresh insight on its subject, but it tells its familiar tale well, adapting the straight-forward virtues of '50s storytelling to evoke that mythical era to which Pat Buchanan and friends would like us all to return. Mandel isn't a bludgeoner; his young, fresh cast is mighty good; and, to its credit, the movie resists the impulse to wrap everything up with a smiley ending. Anti-Semitism didn't go away in the '50s; it just lowered its voice for a while.[21 Sept 1992, p.78]

Like the original, Flash Gordon has nothing on its mind but moving its jet-propelled plot from one fairy-tale setting to the next. It's nice to see a movie accomplish exactly what it sets out to do, with wit and spirit to boot. [08 Dec 1980, p.105]

A rousing tale of retribution that ties up the dangling threads with bold melodramatic flourish. [09 Nov 1987, p.77]

Gus Van Sant, working from the tangy, well-written script, gets so much humor, grit and emotional truth out of this tale that the familiar formulas behind it simply fall away.

Turning the pious cliches of World War II melodrama on their heads, Boorman has made his most dizzyingly funny movie, an anarchic celebration of family. The warmth that exudes from these turbulent recollections isn't a sentimental heat but a joyful one: Boorman's eyes see the foibles and betrayals of adult life, the casual savagery of children, and forgive all. It's an idyll set amidst urban rubble. [19 Oct 1987, p.84]

Woody Allen is back in sharp comic form, though it's likely that his abrasive black comedy Deconstructing Harry will alienate as many people as it tickles.

Cobb is a refreshingly spiky antidote to Cataclysm all the Hollywood paeans to the suffering glory of the game. Ty Cobb approached baseball as he approached life: take no prisoners and leave scorched earth behind you. His greatness and his monstrosity can't be untangled. Cobb allows us to honor his achievements, but with no false illusions. It puts the ball in our hands: if this is an American hero, we need to figure out why. [12 Dec 1994, p.72]

For action junkies, The Bourne Ultimatum will be like a hit of pure meth. It's bravura filmmaking in the jittery, handheld, frenetically edited Paul Greengrass style.

Instead of losing myself in the story, I often felt on the outside looking in, appreciating the craftsmanship, but one step removed from the agony on display. Revolutionary Road is impressive, but it feels like a classic encased in amber.

Steven Knight’s smart, if overly plotted, script delivers social insights tautly wrapped in genre thrills.

Every bit as tasteless, irreverent, silly and smart as the Comedy Central cartoon that catapulted creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone into the Hollywood catbird seat.

The secret of their endurance is not just in the grossness of their humor -- though their new film is even funkier and funnier than "Up in Smoke." As flipped out as their patchwork story gets, it always stays in touch with a very specific urban reality, a world where you make jokes out of taking a urine sample to your parole officer and find hilarity in Cheech's pathetic attempt to sing his naive Mexican-American protest song. [11 Aug 1980, p.69]

It’s too early to place Eminem alongside those Hollywood giants (Jimmy Cagney/John Garfield), but the promise is there. He understands the power of being still in front of a camera. Compact, volatile and burningly intense, he’s got charisma to spare.

Zwigoff doesn't hype up the gags, and his deliberately deadpan style gives even farfetched jokes an edge of reality.

What makes The In-Laws so engaging is not simply the escalating madness of Andrew Bergman's story (such whimsy could easily grow tiresome), but the deadpan counterpoint supplied by the two stars, who navigate their way through mounting disasters with an air of hilariously unjustified rationality. Bergman's script was tailor-made for Falk and Arkin, and they make the most of it. [02 Jul 1979, p.68]

A rousingly funny slapstick comedy about the day John, Paul, George and Ringo set off a tidal wave of adolescent hysteria in New York City. Surprisingly, nostalgia accounts for very little of the movie's charm. [01 May 1978, p.91]

This movie has teeth, and it's not afraid to bite. [6 July 1981, p.7]

This hothouse tale of grief, sex and betrayal is told with a cool detachment that renders it commendably unsentimental--and slightly remote.

A dizzying mixture of the sophisticated and the naive, the deft and the clumsy, Bulworth is overstuffed, excessive, erratic -- and essential.

Comic electricity.

The word for The Changeling is chilling. Medak doesn't pummel the audience with gore and Exorcist-type shock tactics. More than once, he raises real goose bumps using nothing more extraordinary than a bouncing rubber ball. [31 Mar 1980, p.82]

As brilliantly shot as it is brutally single-minded, this is a war movie shorn of all its usual accouterments: the battle is the plot.

Lively, likable and refreshingly unsensationalistic about the drugs and sex that come with the territory, this techno-propelled mash note to the rave spirit sticks to the surface.

Lurid, illogical and utterly off-the-wall, this funny-scary exercise in low-budget schlock is a marvelous orgy of cheap thrills, including a supernaturally sinister mortuary, a hideously wriggling severed finger, one furry flying creature, dwarfs from the Undead, and the goriest - indeed the only - blood-sucking flying steel ball in movie history. [16 April 1979, p.86]