David Ansen

The folks who served up this formulaic swill seem to think comedy grants you a free pass from credibility. Our lonely hero's artificial Yuletide enthusiasm is more than odd: it's not recognizably human.

When a director as gifted, personal and eccentric as Peckinpah makes a film as gaseous and ludicrous as this, the temptation is to laugh, but the spectacle of his continuing skid is a sad one. [10 July 1978, p.83]

There's an inspirational, hang-on-to-your-dreams message, but it comes only at the very end of a long, grim, painful journey. Holiday cheer is not what this movie is offering.

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]

if you're trying to make us believe we're watching "reality" by using a faux documentary style, you need actors who never look like they are acting, and this is where Redacted stumbles.

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

This is funny? Yes, as Pryor does it--not as knee-slapping farce, mind you, but as the painful comedy of endured humiliation of which he is the master... But it's high time Pryor stopped redeeming badly made movies and surrounded himself with talents equal to his own. [12 Apr 1982, p.87]

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]

Judd Apatow is making the freshest, most honest mainstream comedies in Hollywood.

You can convince yourself you're having a good time watching Big Business. The idea seems so funny you smile in anticipation of the jokes, but the laughter is strangely tinny. It's a harmless concoction, but so mechanical it vanishes from your head the instant it's over. It should have been so much more. [13 Jun 1988, p.74]

Wouldn't it have been more fascinating if, just once, they had to argue, as all debate teams must, against their own beliefs? That would have really tested these amazing kids' mettle--and the movie's too.

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.

Courtney Love's performance as stripper Althea Leasure is an amazement. Funny, unfettered and almost scarily alive in front of a camera, she's the definition of a "natural."

Schnabel, screenwriter Ronald Harwood and Spielberg's great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski have found a way to take us inside Bauby's mind--his memories, his fantasies, his loves and lusts--transforming a story of physical entrapment and spiritual renewal into exhilarating images.

It's a bravura, all-stops-out, inexhaustibly inventive performance. I don't know how much was improvised, and how much comes from White's sharp screenplay, but Black may never again get a part that displays his mad-dog comic ferocity to such brilliant effect. He, and the movie, kick ass.

Single White Female gives the viewers the adrenaline rush they paid for, but it promised more. The formula betrays the fine work of Leigh and Fonda, whose characters are much too interesting to find themselves stranded in a tony but ultimately tired slasher movie.

Though some viewers are sure to take offense, between the scattered laughs the movie's most remarkable achievement is its run-of-the mill dullness. [10 Nov 1986, p.86]

Reiner has made a very hip, sophisticated sendup, but his affection and feel for life on the road keep the satire friendly. This is surely the funniest movie ever made about rock and roll, and one of the funniest things about it is that it may also be one of the most accurate. [5 March 1984, p.81]

Ameche and Mantegna play off each other with lovely comic finesse. In the old shoeshine man's slightly befuddled dignity and the young hustler's inappropriate bravado, Amechi and Mantegna discover a delightful and touching dance of the Old World and the New. Odd couples are a dime a dozen in movies; these two make Things Change rare coin. [31 Oct 1988, p.72]

Loach hurls us into the fracas, circa 1920, and creates such a vivid sense of the nuts and bolts of guerilla war you almost forget you are watching a period piece. Unlike the epic sweep of Neil Jordan's "Billy Collins," which spoke in a syntax closer to Hollywood's, "The Wind" doesn't paint over its political arguments with a patina of nostalgia.

As the proud, independent young author, Hathaway is both subdued and alluring--it's her most mature performance. The movie goes down easy, but there's a thin line here: is this an homage or a parasite?

Director Donald Wrye handles this chestnut with restraint, scoring points about media madness and the fear of success without getting messagy. [05 Feb 1979, p.79]

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.