Edward Guthmann

A sweet but curiously unfulfilling story.

Unlike other recent films noirs -- ''The Grifters,'' for example, or ''After Dark, My Sweet,'' both of which were based on Thompson stories -- One False Move lacks style and wit, and doesn't explore its characters beyond their cheap, cruddy exteriors. [24 June 1992, p.E1]

It's beautifully shot by first-time feature director Antoine Fuqua, whose eye for sensual surfaces, deft camera moves and elegant framing was refined with commercials and music videos

For all the deadpan laughs it delivers, Careful is too self-conscious, too stoned on its own invention and technique to merit sustained attention. It's a marvelous conceit, but ultimately a thin one. [08 Oct 1993, p.C3]

Cold Comfort Farm may be hysterically funny to regular readers of Hardy, Lawrence, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, but it won't ring many bells for the rest of us.

Smothers whatever merits it may have had in a rush of bells, whistles, bombast and smoke.

We're left with a metallic aftertaste.

Apart from its cast, however, Gas Food Lodging doesn't have a lot to recommend it. This is true: It's earnest, the milieu it establishes feels authentic, and the three actresses work hard at giving their characters a life...But Anders' inexperience at writing and directing shows. She overloads her film with too many subplots, and consequently loses whatever steam she manages to build up. She introduces too many secondary characters -- two suitors for Nora, one ex-husband, and two boyfriends apiece for each daughter -- but never develops any of them adequately. [9 Sept 1992, p.E3]

Forget Beautiful Girls. The title ought to be "Jerky, Messed- Up Dudes With Nowhere to Go"

I just wish that "Apollo 13" worked better as a movie, and that Howard's threshold for corn, mush and twinkly sentiment weren't so darn wide.

A serious weakness for corn isn't Marshall's only problem. She's got a gift for comedy and she brings out the best in many actors, but she's juggling too many elements here -- baseball, a huge cast, a 1940s milieu -- and never finds a consistently satisfying tone or rhythm. [1 July 1992, p.E1]

Exhilarating but blatantly biased.

Mother is a relationship comedy, like Woody Allen's films, and it screams for the smart, elastic pacing that Allen creates. The situations are funny -- 40- year-old John moves into his old bedroom, goes shopping with Mother, is shocked that she has a boyfriend and occasionally curses and smokes -- but his poor timing flattens most of those scenes.

Naked Lunch will undoubtedly bring pleasure, much of it perverse, to [David Cronenberg]'s many fans - and, simultaneously, confound and repulse a huge chunk of filmgoers. [10 Jan 1992]

Nelson's work is relentless, grueling and courageous. He makes a large blunder in having American actors (David Arquette, Steve Buscemi) play Hungarian Jews with American accents, while Harvey Keitel plays a Nazi officer with a German accent.

Pure of intention and passably diverting, His Secret Life is light, innocuous and unremarkable.

This is pleasant, safe entertainment that ought to appeal to kids younger than 10, especially to girls, with its female-empowerment fantasy.

Sentiment, the kind bordering on schmaltz and easy tears, is found in Shower, a well-meaning generational drama.

The Brady Bunch Movie is fairly innocuous, and ought to satisfy the twenty- and thirtysomethings who grew up on the sitcom. Just one problem: It may be unsporting to point this out, but the whole notion of holding up the Bradys as the ultimate cultural icon of the '70s is basically a lie.

Little rings true in The Commitments. The music, which is never lip-synched, is very good -- especially when Strong, only 16 at the time, belts Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness. But the characters are shrill and two-dimensional, and the performers, most of whom had little or no prior acting experience, are made to look like pro-wrestling buffoons. [16 Aug 1991, p.F1]

What Daylight lacks is the knowledge of its own limitations. The only really hysterical line is delivered by Sly's son, Sage Stallone, who plays one of three young prisoners also stuck in the tunnel...Surrounded by rubble and rising water, he gazes longingly at the 14-year-old Harris and says, "If we don't die in here, I was wondering if I could give you a call. . . ."

A provocative, upsetting film.

One Fine Day is no great shakes, but it avoids being tiresome thanks to the attractiveness of the stars and to a few twists that screenwriters Terrell Seltzer and Ellen Simon offer to differentiate this from other bickering-adversaries-fall-in-love comedies. Both stars also have adorable kids who figure prominently in the plot.

Sinks into melodrama.

Lacks insight and finesse, and feels like a boldfaced Rorschach for Smith's own hang-ups.

Although some of its parts are brilliantly executed and played by a terrific cast, the result is scattered, overamplified and unsatisfying.

A glossy miscalculation.

A dark, unsettling drama from Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone.

It's not a bad film, but Towne and his star, the charismatic Billy Crudup, never fire the imagination in the way their inspirational, respectful biopic is obviously intended to.

The story of an elaborate con game and the wholesale betrayal of an innocent man, it's also an unusually cold film that ends with a feeling of hollow soullessness.

When Ross gets serious and grasps for allegorical import, Pleasantville bogs down in mixed ambitions.

Sexual curiosity is a very dangerous thing in Rain, a dazzling mood piece from New Zealand filmmaker Christine Jeffs.

May provide a service by making gay issues innocuous and funny and more acceptable to a broader audience, but Rudnick's play-it-safe script and Frank Oz's antiseptic direction manage instead to trivialize the subject.

Talky, emphatically unsteamy psychological drama.

Nossiter's premise is good, and he intrigues us with stylish conceits, but he makes a crucial casting error. Alec ought to be someone we care about.

A sexy, mildly entertaining import.

Director- writer Oliver Parker saps much of the juice from Wilde, slows the pace and directs his actors in an inappropriately naturalistic style.

Edge of Seventeen is sweet and affectionate, but it also has "first effort" stamped all over it. Director David Moreton never made a feature before this, and has yet to learn how to compose a shot or block his actors.

The movie, directed and written by Gregory Nava ("My Family/Mi Familia"), is only so-so but Lopez, who appeared recently in "Jack'' and "Blood and Wine," is so vibrant that you almost forgive the movie's paint-by-numbers script and moldy formula.

Her direction is weak, her dialogue is cliched, and her acting lacks energy and focus.

A pleasant but conventional film.

A silly Hong Kong action flick from actor-turned-director Corey Yuen, fits nicely in the "bimbo fu" genre.

Strange Days wants to say something about faith and redemption -- about the importance of maintaining one's humanity in a darkened world. That's a worthy intent, but Bigelow is so enamored of high-tech thrills, and so mesmerized by the violence she seeks to condemn, that her efforts at 11th-hour moralizing seem limp and halfhearted.

Sweet and insubstantial -- just like the French Christmas cake for which it's named.

One can admire it, but it's hard to get caught up in it.

So quick that the flat moments are rapidly, inevitably chased by a new gag.

[Harris's] craft is shaky, and the actors she's assembled, with the exception of Johnson and Ebony Jerido as Chantel's best friend, are one step above Amateur Hour. Just Another Girl looks and feels like a first-time effort. [02 Apr 1993, p.C5]

Rich with statistics and snazzy visuals, but it ignores those larger questions and, as a result, feels a tad naïve.

Spielberg uses a more conventional format than he did in the stripped-down black-and-white "Schindler's List,'' and delivers a film that veers between stoic political correctness and mushy pop-Hollywood platitudes.

Murphy is wonderful -- I wouldn't begrudge him an Oscar nomination -- but The Nutty Professor is a mess.

The wolf-homosexual analogy is well drawn, but Wolves ultimately feels slight, a tad unfinished -- as if it were conceived as a sketch and hadn't been fleshed out to feature length.

Polanski attempts a precarious mixture of drama and comedy here -- seesawing between a serious look at sexual obsession on the one hand and an antic, spoofy tone on the other. It's a bold risk, but it rarely works because we usually don't know if Polanski is being intentionally funny, or merely inept. [25 Mar 1994, p.C3]

Pure ham and cheese.

Impeccably mounted, nicely scored and beautifully written.

Slick, overly deliberate and brimming with hammy performances...directed by Rob Reiner with glistening, uninspired competence. [11 Dec 1992]

Even the surprise ending arrives with a thud and makes us wonder why Shyamalan didn't try something new instead of recycling his "Sixth Sense" recipe.

Night and the City is basically a mess, but De Niro, calling up his reserves of manic energy, is entertaining in the title role. He's foolproof, really: He even shines in mediocrity. It's a shame his talent didn't rub off on Jessica Lange. Playing Helen, a tough-broad barkeep who joins Harry in his biggest scam yet, the overly mannered Lange gives her worst screen performance to date. [23 Oct 1992, p.C1]

Ultimately there's something too measured, too controlled in his film.

A domestic melodrama with weak dialogue and biopic cliches.

Sweet and harmless -- a beach movie in more ways than one -- but it doesn't run awfully deep.

Three hours of overstatement and schmaltz.

The Portrait of a Lady is a huge disappointment. It's a deliberately arty, overly formal exercise in emotional terrorism.

Sexy and passably entertaining, with a plot that's too clever by half.

A melodramatic yarn that transcends some of its technical and storytelling flaws through the cheery energy and sincerity of its cast.

In Hollywood, where integrity is rapidly consumed and careers defined by market value, there's trash and there's trash with a pedigree.

Myers and Carvey bring a lot of goofy, adolescent charm to the party, but not enough to save an idea that's grown stale. [10 Dec 1993, p.C3]

The film has a good heart, but its central premise -- that ignorance is an enchanted realm -- is too sentimental.

Lushly entertaining, and its subjects are terrific storytellers with style to burn.

It starts out with several seemingly separate stories and characters, allows them to tease, overlap and shade one another, and then weaves them into one rich fabric. It's an allegory about American life -- a tough, cynical meditation on race, crime and the futility of human endeavor.

The story doesn't quite pay off, characters are underwritten and the surprise ending is contrived and unconvincing.

The Indian in the Cupboard is such a sweet film, and so lacking in the bloodthirstiness and violence that parents dread in children's films, that its mere existence seems worthy of praise. Too bad, then, that it turned out so dull and lifeless.

Ultimately, Chechik can't pull off the fractured-fairy-tale aspect of Benny and Joon. His film never explains mental illness, but romanticizes it, making it seem like a state of enchantment. It's ultimately irresponsible, and not very funny. [16 Apr 1993, p.C1]

Little Buddha is ambitious, sincere and squeaky clean -- a dose of spiritual eyewash that skims the surface of the Buddhist religion and leaves us wishing for more. [25 May 1994, p.E3]

Largely and insider's joke.

A listless, predictable effort, occasionally redeemed by witty lines and charismatic performers.

Ultimately, it's a cold, caustic film that doesn't take a strong point of view but seems to offer up its numerous set pieces.

Campy, overwrought and gleefully cannibalistic in the way it references and regurgitates horror flicks of yore, Scream 3 fulfills its modest ambitions by delivering a glib slasher spoof for the mall crowd.

If John Waters had directed Mermaids, the new Cher comedy, it might have more of the spunk and the trash that it needs. In the hands of middlebrow director Richard Benjamin, it starts off promisingly but finally sinks into schmaltz and melodrama. [14 Dec 1990, p.E1]

Isn't an awful movie. It's got two charismatic, albeit ill-served leads in John Cusack and Kevin Spacey, and it's got a sizzling, tear-it-up performance by The Lady Chablis, who brings such good-natured sass and suggestiveness that you hunger for more whenever she's offscreen.

Doc Hollywood has its moments, including some nice comic turns by Barnard Hughes as a curmudgeonly doctor, Bridget Fonda as the local coquette and David Ogden Stiers as Grady's folksy mayor. And Julie Warner is certainly hot stuff. But Caton-Jones' approach is too facile, and his use of Southern-cracker cliches too offensive, to capture my vote. [02 Aug 1991, p.D1]

It's a light-hearted comedy about faith, transcendence and American-brand exploitation, and addresses those issues in such goofy, indirect, unhurried fashion that you could easily miss what Schrader has to say.

Exuding glamour, health and prosperity, real-life spouses Beatty and Bening are so radiant that they run the risk of seeming superhuman and thereby losing our sympathy as screen characters.

The dialogue, heavy on sarcasm and puncturing insults, never captures the World War II period but sounds ridiculously anachronistic.

Pitt isn't a bad actor, but he's way out of his depth and never disappears into the character -- a selfish rogue who gets a jolt of enlightenment at the feet of the Dalai Lama -- the way a superior actor like Daniel Day-Lewis might have.

If Party Girl weren't so contrived, and if Posey didn't exude such cold hauteur, all of that might have worked.

Floats along on the strength of its writing and supporting cast.

A strange but oddly memorable film.

Unabashedly sentimental, it's meant to touch our hearts in profound and important ways, but misses the mark by drawing too deeply from a pool of schmaltz.

First-time film director Sullivan draws good performances from Goldwyn, Hutton and Parker, as well as Debra Monk, Elizabeth Franz and Eric Bogosian in minor roles.

Stylized dialogue tends to play awkwardly onscreen -- we're conditioned to naturalistic conversation in films -- and Waters, who makes his feature directing debut with The House of Yes, fails to create an emotional tone or attitude to match the characters' goofy repartee.

A time-waster that might be diversionary on a dull cross-Atlantic flight -- but only in the absence of alternatives.

It's hard to give two hoots about any of these characters.

Small kids ought to love this entry, but die-hard Muppet fans are likely to find it tepid and uneventful -- a minor addition to the Muppet canon.

Surprisingly tepid and soapy.

Light and innocuous.

Murphy, who started directing movies in his native Australia, does a good job of locomoting Under Siege 2 at a lively, muscular clip.

Coming-of-age schmaltz fest.

A menage a trois tale that aspires to the breezy screwball comedies of the 1930s -- but more often resembles a hip soap opera.