David Ansen

Schrader has never been one to coddle an audience, and this is as uncompromising a vision as he has given us.

In snuggling up so close to his heroine, Mazursky sacrifices some of the wild satrical highs we expect from him - the andante pacing could use a little more allegro (and a little less help from Bill Conti's overdone score). But we are more than rewarded by Muzursky's generosity and insight. He's burrowed deeper into the upper middle-class psyche than ever before, and if it's sometimes uncomfortable there, the unease is one we recognize as our own. [13 Mar 1978, p.75]

He’s (González Iñárritu) conjured up a dark, brutal vision of urban life that sticks to your skin like soot.

Intimate, moving and playful.

A meditation on love, faith and science in the guise of a thriller, the movie's a tad schematic, but thoroughly gripping.

Jarmusch's punk minimalist style, deadpan humor and delicious timing are all his own, and his oddball drifters, whose major goal in life is hanging out, are three slob existential stooges Sam Beckett might envy. You wouldn't choose to hunker down with them in real life, but they're great company on screen. These dead-end kids may be headed nowhere not so fast, but their oddball odyssey is headed straight for cult-movie heaven. [08 Oct 1984, p.87]

The Secret of NIMH is an ambitious and entertaining debut that will delight and terrify kids everywhere. If there are flaws in NIMH they are a product of its ambition: visually, moments when the animation is almost too busy to take in; dramatically, an eclectic and overstuffed plot that threatens the balance of the movie. But better a surfeit than a soporific. [12 July 1982, p.75]

One of the things that makes Signs such a refreshing summer movie is that it goes against almost all the grains of contemporary Hollywood razzle-dazzle filmmaking -- as did “The Sixth Sense.”

She's Gotta Have It, a black-and-white movie made on a shoestring by the 29-year-old black filmmaker Spike Lee, is fresh in both senses of the word -- sassy and original. [08 Sept 1986, p.65]

Manages to be simultaneously subversive and sweet.

A fast and furious feature film that starts at a gallop and never stops to catch its breath. [9 Aug 1993, p.57]

Has a flavor all its own-sweet, whimsical, homegrown. A quirky romantic for the 21st century, July finds humor and magic in places where no one has looked before.

The filmmakers are clearly in awe of the Chicks' fighting spirit. If you think Maines's original Bush remark was disrespectful, wait till you hear what she calls him here. Maines is not ready to make nice, and neither is this riveting documentary.

This true story, deftly embellished by writer Jeremy Brock and directed at a bracing English trot by John Madden, is a splendid showcase for its three superb leads. [28 July, 1997, p. 69]

The film is mostly successful in transporting the viewer to another age: the costumes, the body markings, the fierce Mayan masks, all feel right. And keeping the dialogue in subtitles was a smart move. Even better are the faces, which never fail to fascinate. But for all the anthropological research that went into the movie, what is Apocalypto trying to say?

It’s as formulaic as "The Sum of All Fears," but it feels fresher, hipper, less inflated.

As warm and lived-in as an old pair of boots, The Snapper is an honorable feel-good movie.

A clever, pleasingly sentimental tale of prehistoric times.

The Name of the Rose spins a whopping good tale, a medieval murder mystery that only those with seriously damaged attention spans will find hard to enjoy. [29 Sept 1986, p.63]

Leaner and meaner, "The Road Warrior" had more nonstop thrills. But Miller was right not to try to top that act: he's opted to expand the moral geography of his funk Wasteland. With crazy and beautiful Mel and Tina backed up by a raging gallery of mutant humanity, only a glutton could complain he didn't get his fill. [29 July 1985, p.58]

This is a movie that sticks its political neck out, that throbs with dread, paranoia and outrage, that doesn't coddle the audience by neatly tying things up.

If we must have teen movies, let them all be as sweet and seductive as Sollett's smartly observed romance.

Gloria is pure, unembarrassed jive--a hipster's lark of a movie--and Rowlands give a great jive artist's performance, straight-faced and charged with sly conviction. [06 Oct 1980, p.72]

A premise this preposterous must be carried off with unflappable comic conviction, and Cusack is just the right man for the job.

The juiciest battle here is Spidey vs. Spidey, or, if you prefer, superego vs. id. When Peter starts to go seriously bad, the movie becomes seriously fun.

If Animal House lacks the inspired tastelessness of the Lampoon's High School Yearbrook Parody, this is still low humor of a high order. [7 Aug 1978, p.85]

Let the Right One In unfolds with quiet, masterly assurance.

The Syrian Bride would be an out-and-out comedy were it set anywhere but in the Middle East.

The Coens abhor sentimentality, but behind the comic-book grotesqueries there's a disarming sweetness. Like "Blood Simple," this wild-card comedy knows where it's headed every inch of the way. It's a hoot and a half. [16 March 1987, p.73]

Mamet brings an unusual level of intelligence to this boys'-adventure formula, and an edgy understanding of the ongoing games of one-upmanship men play. After a rocky, dutifully expositional beginning, The Edge turns into an unusually gripping suspense movie, its peril all the more effective for being unfashionably low-tech.

Told from both women's points of view, this fascinating, if sometimes overwrought, tale packs a wallop.

As taut and exciting as many edge-of-your-seat Hollywood escape movies.

Hunter never exploits the material for cheap thrills -- his camera keeps a sober, clear eyed detachment. Detail by appalling detail, he creates a vivid, stunted world where banality and horror intermingle. "I cried when that guy died in Brian's Song," one of the girls says. "You'd figure I'd at least be able to cry for someone I hung around with." Some may gag on this daring, disturbing movie; few will be able to shake it off. [01 June 1987, p.69]

While Whale Rider is a doozy of a female-empowerment fantasy, it’s mercifully free of any feminist smugness.

How you feel about Milk may depend on whether you've seen Rob Epstein's great, Oscar-winning 1984 documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk." Van Sant's movie lacks that film's shattering emotional impact. (Rage is not a color in the director's palette.) For those coming to Milk's story for the first time, however, this will be a rousing experience.

The first hour of Toback's movie bounces and sparkles like a stone skipping on water. Downey is such an ingenuous con man it's impossible not to smile at his chutzpah, and Ringwald reveals a grave, grown-up solidity we haven't seen before. [28 Sept 1987, p.77]

Ulee's Gold possesses an attribute that's increasingly rare in American filmmaking, independent or Hollywood: call it soul.

Roxanne is a charmer. Sweet-spririted, relaxed, it's a sun-dappled romantic comedy that doesn't scream Laugh! [22 June 1987, p.73]

The faces of Noonan and Sillas reflect everything they're feeling. This disquieting duet of high anxiety rests entirely on their shoulders, and they're superb. [12 Sep 1994, p.60]

Everything about Manhattan Murder Mystery (except his recent fondness for the handheld camera) harks back to the earlier, more playful Allen style. Imagine a middle-aged Annie Hall stumbling into a film noir. At first, the whiny badinage seems too familiar--or maybe it's just that nowadays it takes a little time to cast the real Woody out of mind and let the screen persona take over. But the good news is that once the gears of the plot kick in, Allen's expert comic timing proves as beguiling as ever.

Director Kaplan has a generous, open-eyed affection for these quirky, hungry characters that he obviously wants to share. Smart host that he is, he doesn't over sing their praises. You warm to this movie at your own sweet speed. [31 Oct 1983, p.83]

A delirious example of grrrl power, Hong Kong style.

Novelist Andre Dubus's plotting may be too much for a two-hour movie. But the story's details feel fresh. The vivid clarity of the images, the compressed fury of the tale, are impossible to get out of your head.

A smooth mixture of satire and sentiment that owes an obvious debt to "The Apartment," not to mention "Jerry Maguire."

Hamer, a meticulous observer himself, is a minimalist with heart.

Keeps you hanging on every twist and turn of its wilder-than-fiction plot.

Defies all laws of gravity in its pursuit of thrills and laughs—and it's so disarmingly eager to please that only a stone-faced kung fu purist could object.

Lucas manages to turn the audience's familiarity to his advantage: like a jigsaw puzzle whose final form has always been known, the fun is in discovering how the last pieces fit.

Written with an acute ear by Barbara Turner (Leigh's mother) and directed by Ulu Grosbard, it's a resonant, grittily specific film.

Gets a lot of the details right. Outside Providence is a sweet, funny little movie.

Unfaithful shows what a powerful, sexy, smart filmmaker Lyne can be. It’s a shame he substitutes the mechanics of suspense for the real suspense of what goes on between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife.

Suspended between the brutally graphic and flights of lyrical fancy, Pan's Labyrinth unfolds with the confidence of a classical fable, one that paradoxically feels both timeless and startlingly new.

Punchline is never less than compelling, never less than smart. Seltzer and company have made a disturbingly entertaining movie about the manic-depressive world of comedy. [26 Sept 1988, p.58]

This spirited rerun, neatly mixing parody and panache, squeezes a surprising amount of fun out of the old war horse.

Though acid is dropped, groupies are bartered like poker chips and rock-star egos flare like fireworks, what comes through is the relative innocence of that era.

A very stylish and sexy film noir, a tale of obsessive love neatly balanced between exploitation movie and art film. [23 May 1983, p.54]

Despite an overwrought finale, this stylish horror film is genuinely creepy. See it before the inevitable Hollywood remake.

Casualties of War is De Palma's best work in years -- it's powerful, meticulous filmmaking -- yet it may be a movie easier to admire than love. Ultimately the drama seems too cut and dried; Eriksson wrestle with his conscience, but the audience never has to. "Casualties" has the visceral impact of a good movie; it lacks the resonance of a great one.

It pushes the audience's buttons with Pavlovian finesse, manufacturing industrial-strength adrenaline. First-time director Frank Marshall has long been Steven Spielberg's producer, and he's learned the master's lessons well.

As we watch the astonishing NASA footage, they eloquently evoke the optimism, anxiety and excitement of those voyages.

Superman II is a success, a stirring sequel to the smash of '79. Whether you will prefer it to the original is like choosing between root beer and Fresca. They're both bubbly, but the flavor is different. What the follow-up doesn't have is the epic lyricism of Richard Donner's version; it's harder edged, fleeter on its feet, less reverential. [22 June 1981, p.87]

More sweet than savage, this amiable farce creates laughs with old-pro efficiency.

Thanks to the superb cast and Mottola's deft touch, this modest-looking comedy proves quite memorable.

A hilarious, rousing musical comedy set at a summer camp where NOBODY plays sports and EVERYBODY worships Stephen Sondheim.

If you like your summer popcorn movies laced with a little poisoned butter, Gremlins is not to be missed. [18 June 1984, p.90]

A wonderfully quirky cast under Francis Ford Coppola's direction makes this one of the more enjoyable John Grisham movies.

Shankman and his screenwriter, Leslie Dixon, prove you can make a lightweight Broadway musical into big movie fun.

This German movie, with its lush cinematography and lovely score, has the sturdiness of an old-fashioned Hollywood epic. What isn’t Hollywood is Link’s refusal to tell the audience how to feel at every moment.

Where so many comic-book movies feel as disposable as Kleenex, the passionate, uncynical Hulk stamps itself into your memory. Lee’s movies are built to last.

Sleek, moody, violent and romantic, Sharky's Machine is not only the most seductive Burt Reynolds movie in many a moon. Reynolds is turning into a stylish director, and he sets a distinctive tone of languid menace. Though he can be graphically brutal, Reynolds isn't after realism, but a kind of gauzy, slightly baroque romanticism. [28 Dec 1981, p.64]

Nair’s stereotype-shattering movie -- like the polymorphous culture it illuminates -- borrows from Bollywood, Hollywood and cinema verite, and comes up with something exuberantly its own.

Structured like a farce but filmed like a Qaalude dream, this marvelously performed fairy tale packs a lot of style into its minuscule budget. [19 Nov 1984, p.135]

Cusack is a master at playing smart, frazzled, self-flagellating hipsters, and the movie, propelled by his arias of angst, lets him strut his best stuff.

Hilarious, satirical and melancholy, Rudo y Cursi may not go as deep as "Y Tu Mamá También," but it has a similar vivacity. It turns this tale of brotherly bonds and sibling rivalry--a veiled allegory of the Cuarón boys themselves?--into one of the year's most memorable offerings.

In this gorgeously melancholic fresco of love affairs, Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a womanizing pulp-fiction writer in '60s Hong Kong.

Will be remembered as a vintage Rohmer harvest.

As eye-popping as anything Pixar has done. But Cars inspires more admiration than elation. It dazzles even as it disappoints. This time around, John Lasseter and his codirector, the late Joe Ranft, seem more interested in dispensing Life Lessons than showing us a roaring good time.

It’s like a nightmare that follows you around in daylight: you can’t quite decode it, you can’t shake it, you can’t stop turning it over and over in your mind. This is one queasily powerful movie.

Chocolat is a seriocomic plea for tolerance, gift-wrapped in the baby blue colors of a fairy tale and served up with a sybaritic smile.

Like most of this refreshingly subtle film, it's not what you expect, and it's not something you've seen before.

If this Popsicle of a movie melts long before it's over, the first half has more good laughs than all of “Sweethearts.”

As a history lesson (Depression 101), Cinderella Man feels a bit secondhand. As a true-grit tale of redemption, however, it lands one solid body punch after another.

A wonderfully taut cat-and-mouse thriller.

Foxes is a funny, rueful, sexy little movie about coming of age in a junk-food culture. [10 Mar 1980, p.88]

Prelude to a Kiss has made the voyage from Broadway to Hollywood with its literacy, charm and full heart very much intact.

The Yugoslav-born Tesich is a wry romantic, a moonstruck jester, and his tendency toward excess is nicely complemented by Britisher Yates's crisp but delicate professionalism. With a superb cast at their disposal, they've taken a somewhat preposterous film noir plot and enriched it with quirky, meaty characterizations to produce a nervous comedy of menace about class distinctions and romantic and political obsession. [02 Mar 1981, p.81]

Like many of Winterbottom's movies, it falls a step short of its full potential. Its tact is both its strength and its weakness. The climax feels rushed: it's the rare movie these days that feels too short.

Compromising Positions has acting talent to burn and enough drollery to pass the time quite pleasantly. [9 Sept 1985, p.90]

It's a minimalist almost-love story told with epic flourishes.

Only near the end does the mix of melodrama, mush and message get out of hand.

Ultimately achieves that lump in the throat that is the romantic comedy's promised land.

It's strange energy - sexy, morbid, not quite human. There's an awful lot of blood in the movie and a lot of flesh, but there's little flesh and blood. The Fury is the work of a brilliant, droll, sadistic puppeteer. [20 Mar 1978, p.93]

Stillman remains a deftly funny portrait painter of the young, willfully self-involved Anglo-Saxon male.

Director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale assume you've seen the original and are ready to swallow whatever zany time-travel notion they offer. They're not wrong. As unapologetically broad and silly as this sequel it, it's also a good deal of fun, and its relentless velocity is part of the joke. [4 Dec. 1989, p.78]

This is a good introduction to the affable Chan persona. The comedy is broad, the inner-city Americana hilariously off-base, and the English dubbing may prove disconcerting to U.S. audiences. But the cheesiness is part of the fun.

Gordon's back at it in From Beyond, which puts the audience in the same pickle: do I laugh or do I scream? Both. [17 Nov 1986, p.89]

Like a TV movie, Suspect is aggressively and glibly topical, paying lip service to the plight of the homeless and the Vietnam vet. But the cast, which includes John Mahoney, E. Katherine Kerr and Joe Mantegna, is first rate, and the pace rarely flags. Take one salt tablet and enjoy. [26 Oct 1987, p.86]

What first feels like thin skit material gets funnier and sweeter. Damon and Kinnear make a terrific team.