David Ansen

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]

Thematically, The Krays bites off more than it can chew: It's hungry for significance. But the horror of the twins' tale holds you in its clammy grip: it's a high-class creep show. [26 Nov 1990, p.80]

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension doesn't play it safe. For that alone you may want to bless its demented little heart. Buckaroo Banzai may not work, but that's the risk of high-wire acts. At least it's up there trying. [20 Aug 1984, p.75]

Defies any expectations you bring to it. There are sights in Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's eye-opening documentary that will confirm and confound both right and left.

Black Widow is an honorable attempt to rewire a favorite formula, but it doesn't go far enough. If you're going to play "Persona" games with the film noir, you've got to risk a dive off the deep end. [16 Feb 1987, p.72]

There’s much to argue with, but this unconventional, oddly beautiful film resonates in unexpected ways.

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

Doubt stirs up a lot of stormy theatrical weather, but the stolid transfer from stage to screen does Shanley's play no favors.

Noyce orchestrates the suspense with impressive visual flair, using the constricted setting to great advantage. But an hour into the tale impatience sets in when it becomes clear that neither he nor screen-writer Terry Hayes has anything more in mind than pressing our fear buttons. Ultimately, this is just a waterlogged damsel-in-distress movie. [17 Apr 1989, p.72]

The journey requires patience and the willingness to suspend your expectations of what a Burt-and-Goldie movie ought to be. This is a movie about what happens to a Fun Couple when they're not having fun. [27 Dec 1982, p.61]

Comedy and suspense, satire and shame are all mashed together--with breezy confidence.

It's hard not to be impressed by Kerry's courage and calm leadership--and to wonder if that guy will show up again.

Subtlety is not the draw here: condom jokes and toilet humor alternate with car crashes and machine-gun killings. Yet the movie has a bouncy, comic-book appeal: sadism has rarely been so good-natured. [17 July 1989, p.53]

What keeps this movie honest is the characters, each of them a mass of conflicting instincts, virtues and vices. You know Gonzalez Inarritu comes from outside Hollywood because he doesn't divide the world into heroes and villains.

What keeps you in your seat is the acting. Keener, crisply and coolly playing against type, commands the screen. [24 August 1998, p. 58]

The period details are dryly elegant and painstakingly authentic. Yet the film feels underfed - there's not enough meat on the bones of the plot to warrant such opulence. [30 Jan 1978, p.55]

The comic setup is smart, and the undertone of seriousness makes the first part of "City Slickers" genuinely amusing. But when the movie decides to get seriously serious it wears out its welcome fast. Did we really pay to see a male-sensitivity-training movie on horseback? [24 June 1991, p.60]

A far more accomplished anthology than Creepshow, Cat's Eye assumes an honorable but not exalted position in the multimedia King empire. But expect as many giggles as goose bumps. [06 May 1985, p.73]

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.

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

Whether you regard her as a symptom or a cure for a culture still locked in its eternal battle between the puritanical and the prurient, [Madonna's] out there at the barricades. In Truth or Dare, she's at her button-pushing best.

Gillespie’s movie walks a delicate line through a minefield of potential bad taste. Directed with patient, low-key sensitivity, it never goes for a cheap laugh at its protagonist’s expense.

I might buy Babel if it had any real interest in its characters, but it's too busy moving them around its mechanistic chessboard to explore any nuances or depths.

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.

A delightful surprise... Jewison does his best work in decades. [21 Dec 1987]

Creepily beautiful, acted with relish, Barton Fink is a savagely original work. It lodges in your head like a hatchet. [26 Aug 1991]

There are inspired moments in this edgy, unstable comedy.

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]