David Ansen

Fascinating but repetitious, Better Living Through Circuitry nevertheless does a good job describing the scene.

Everyone will be tickled pink by this sleek Mike Nichols remake.

The astonishing thing about Alex Cox's mesmerizing movie is that it makes no attempt to conceal how boringly self-destructive its punk lovers were, yet it still holds us fascinated to its preordinated conclusion. [27 Oct 1986, p.103]

The considerable virtues of THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN reflect the temperament of its author and star, Alan Alda. Decency, dependability, cozy sexuality: these are the qualities Alda projects as the star of TV's "M*A*S*H," and they are the underpinings of this intelligent, beautifully acted cautionary tale about the conflict between the siren call of success and the responsibilities of a private life. [27 Aug 1979, p.62]

If this gives the impression that The Star Chamber is a contemplative movie, forget it. It's a social tract in the classic Hollywood style -- viscera first. The issues are laid out in the most hyperbolic fashion and resolved by sheer melodrama -- a wild chase, a race against the clock, a shoot-out. On these gut-level terms, The Star Chamber is utterly gripping. Supported by an excellent cast and very stylish cinematography, Hyams sustains the tension from start to finish, no matter how preposterous the plotting becomes. [15 Aug 1983, p.64]

Ron Howard, directing from a witty script by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and Bruce Jay Friedman, has fashioned an enchanting piece of fluff -- a romantic comedy that is truly romantic and truly comic, a deft blend of hip satire and fairy-tale charm. Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah have a lot to do with that charm. [12 Mar 1984, p.89]

Screenwriters Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon have devised some lovely and hilarious variations on Rodgers’s irresistible premise.

Mingling reality and fantasy, Forster has given us a luminous, touching meditation on life and art.

It's these well-lived-with characters who make The Four Seasons a pleasure to watch, and the actors obviously relish their parts. [25 May 1981, p.74]

It's hands down the funniest of the year, both pushing the boundaries of bad taste and exploring how those boundaries keep shifting.

Joanou has an intricate, beautifully built script to work from (David Rabe did a lot of uncredited rewriting) and he unfolds his charged story of violence, fratricide, and betrayal with masterly assurance. [17 Sep 1990, p.54]

Octopussy, the 13th of the Bond adventures and the sixth to star Roger Moore, isn't as exhilarating as "The Spy Who Loved Me". But it's the most enjoyable since then, in large part because it's not trying to be the ultimate anything. [13 June 1983, p.77]

That's the paradox that makes this parade of folly so much fun: it feels as if everyone involved is having a high old time, and their enthusiasm is contagious.

Though it lacks "Wallace and Gromit"'s charm, its mile-a-minute inventiveness is impressive.

Over the Edge is a rabble-rouser--and a good, tough, darkly funny movie to boot. [28 Dec 1981, p.65]

Though some of the violence is nastier than it needs to be and the obligatory climactic melee, complete with choppers, skidding trucks and explosions, overstays its welcome, The Long Kiss Goodnight stays fun because it plays its heroine's split personality for laughs, not trauma.

A shameless crowd-pleaser.

The gift of this charming, low-key excursion is more intangible, yet you may find that its surprisingly complex moods linger with a bittersweet afterglow. [28 Feb 1983, p.79]

Unlike many dramas of middle-class family wreckage, which tilt toward soapoperatic revelations, The Ice Storm is told from an ironic, almost meditative distance that gives the movie its paradoxical power.

The beauty and scale of Miyazaki's vision shines through.

The film is a class-act thriller, a fiendishly efficient example of emotional manipulation. But that's not all. With Jane Fonda heading the cast, it couldn't help but be a thriller with a very large social conscience, activated, of course, to warn against the dangers of nuclear power. As such, the movie is both ferociously effective and decidedly facile. Director James Bridge's suspense film is the most potent blend of tract and trash since the underrated "Three Days of the Condor." [19 March 1979, p.103]

It might, however, have been a greater film if its villain were as compelling as its flawed hero. Williams is effectively creepy, but next to Pacino’s rich, multileveled portrait he seems one-note, and one we’ve seen before.

Take the movie's first words to heart: watch closely. You'll be well rewarded.

The uncontestable triumph of Goblet of Fire, however, is Brendan Gleeson's Alastor (Mad-Eye) Moody, the grizzled new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Ferocious and sometimes creepily funny, Bully is a raunchy suburban "Crime and Punishment."

A Single Man's sleek surface may go against Isherwood's crisp, understated prose, yet the story's beating, wounded heart and its spiky intelligence still come through, personified in Firth's moving, eloquently internalized performance.

Cute, anthropomorphic animals, old-fashioned American rural locales and alternating doses of sentimentality and scares firmly place The Fox and the Hound in the classic Disney mold. [13 July 1981, p.81]

Luke has real movie-star power. He's enormously sympathetic, but this moving, well-crafted movie, written by Shawn Slovo, mercifully doesn't turn him into a plaster saint.