Edward Guthmann

Deliciously witty and entertaining… A first-rate thriller, one that's likely to generate as much word-of-mouth as “Alien,'' “Carrie'' and “Psycho'' did in their time. [23 Aug 1991, Daily Notebook, p.F1]

Clockers has the strengths of Lee's best work (passion, humor, terrific acting) without the preachiness, self-importance and gimmicky camera moves of his weakest.

I think what I like best about Light Sleeper -- more than Dafoe's peculiar magic or Schrader's wise, sympathetic writing -- is the fact that it gives you so much to chew on. So many contemporary films seem to evaporate as soon as you walk out of the theater. Light Sleeper resonates. [04 Sep 1992, p.C1]

A wonder of a film -- a luminous, beautifully executed drama that gathers the best cast of the year -- the best American film of the year.

Contrived and overly schematic, but De Niro and Hoffman are such good actors that it never slips into pat sentiment.

Pure ham and cheese.

Efficient action thriller.

What's Love Got to Do With It isn't the best musical biography of all time, but it's an unusually satisfying one, and a tremendous showcase for the splendid Bassett. [11 Jun 1993, p.C1]

Takes a fascinating look at the origins and impact of a ballad that's been called "one of ten songs that changed the world."

Certain to nauseate a portion of its audience.

Has slow patches and requires a generous suspension of disbelief. But it's also sweet and optimistic -- a welcome antidote to gloom.

Told so simply and powerfully that it seems to carry echoes of earlier, timeless tales.

Norman Bates is alive and well, and just a tad kinkier than you remember him.

On a deeper level -- and this is where When We Were Kings exceeds its expectations and becomes a great film -- Gast examines African American pride.

Any movie with Meryl Streep is an occasion, but when you add Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hume Cronyn and Gwen Verdon, you've got an embarrassment of riches.

Downbeat but ultimately hopeful, it's a domestic tragedy that cuts clearly to the bone, finding emotional nuance among the family's knotty secrets and dense layers of subterfuge.

In Sorkin's vision, this is what ought to happen when a political progressive occupies the White House -- provided he has principles, guts and more on his mind than voter-approval polls and re- election prospects.

Violent, disjunctive and exhausting, it's a dark fable that illustrates with startling images the strong, seductive pull of evil.

Lacks the kind of rhythm and snap to make it work -- and allows this fitfully entertaining romp to dribble on way too long.

Delivers a full emotional palette without undue sentimentalizing.

Kore-eda weaves these images and others, building a multilayered fugue that contemplates death, asks if mourning ever truly ends and addresses the ephemeral nature of love, family and home. Everything we value and use to define and frame our lives, he suggests, is always at risk.

An original, inspired piece of work.

Worse than dull. It's parasitic.

Clever, exceptionally well-written film.

It's safe, and it's smart, and even though it's lightweight compared to "Boyz" and bound to disappoint a lot of Singleton's admirers, Justice demonstrates that Singleton is more than a one-shot wonder. [23 Jul 1993]

Martin Compston, the young man-child of Sweet Sixteen, had never acted before, but his combination of sweetness and rage -- part puppy, part pit bull -- gives Sweet Sixteen a shot of reality and a big, aching heart.

An unabashed soft- core sex marathon, much of it played for laughs, Sex and Zen could catch on as a voyeur's delight -- an Asian spin on the jiggle- and-hump comedies of sex-satirist Russ Meyer (''Beyond the Valley of the Dolls'').

The movie is stiff and schmaltzy and clumsily directed.

The few bright moments in Housesitter are supplied by Martin, who works himself into a sweat trying to make this movie work -- he even squeezes laughs out of a wedding reception scene, when he warbles an Irish melody to his dad -- and by Moffat and Harris, who give their Norman Rockwell stick figures a bumbling, simple charm. [12 June 1992, p.D1]

It's one of the most violent, shocking and bitterly funny movies ever released. In terms of body count and graphic violence, it rivals ''Reservoir Dogs,'' ''Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'' or, going back several years, Sam Peckinpah's grisly ''Straw Dogs.'' But that's half the story: Man Bites Dog also has method in its mayhem. By spoofing the trashy ''reality TV'' phenomenon -- a soul-numbing entertainment form that's found even greater popularity in Europe than the United States -- the film exposes the desensitizing effects of television violence, and questions the extent to which the media not only feeds the public hunger for violence, but ultimately creates it. [15 Jan 1993, p.C9]

Largely and insider's joke.

Uses loneliness and alienation as the primary emotional colors on a surprisingly expressive canvas.

Self-satisfied -- an undisciplined brat of a film.

It's an interesting technique -- the blurring of reality and "movies" -- but Korine's objective is so narrow and mean, and his viewpoint so colored by smug, adolescent condescension, that Gummo comes off like a mean-spirited prank.

This is an amazing record of a group of lives -- and probably more resonant than anyone could have imagined when the project began.

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

It may smell awful from a distance, especially if you have low tolerance for lowbrow humor, but up close this yarn about an unlikely golf star is fairly painless.

Life Stinks will never stand with the classics -- it's basically a diversion -- but its plea for economic equality is well taken. And Brooks, after years of lousy movies, finally seems back on sure footing. [27 July 1991, p.C3]

Wise, delicate and impeccably performed, Yi Yi is a three- hour drama that looks at one middle-class family in transition -- and does so with such a kind and probing eye that we all see our lives reflected through Yang's lens.

A sweet, unabashedly sentimental tale.

With a surgeon's precision and trenchant wit, director Patrice Leconte slices open the French upper classes of the late 18th century and reveals the black, wilting heart beneath the pomp and pretense.

As dreary as Oscar is for the majority of its 110 minutes, the movie sings whenever Shearer and Ferrero are on screen. [26 Apr 1991, p.E1]

Coming-of-age schmaltz fest.

A self-indulgent mess.

Technically rough and ragged, Paris nonetheless does an excellent job of digesting a rich, multilayered subculture, and breaking it down for a general audience without oversimplification. [09 Aug 1991, p.F1]

Despite the weakness of Sciorra's character, and the lack of development in her relationship with Snipes, Jungle Fever is a fascinating movie -- consistently provocative, brilliantly acted and written, in most cases, with a number of moments that transcend anything you've seen this year in their wit, sexual heat and emotional intensity. [7 June 1991, p.E1]

Pokemon is over.

Although it's told in the light, piquant style of his best comedies, there's a sadness at the root of Federico Fellini's Intervista. [31 Mar 1993, p.D3]

Despite the awkward, stomach- churning camera movements and the grainy, flat images that come with insufficient lighting, the actors' work is often riveting and compelling.

A thrilling, audacious work.

It's a passionate, beautifully mounted film -- but the agenda she sets for herself is too large and the conflicts she portrays too complicated to be illustrated in a single drama.

In one sense it's aged surprisingly little -- the language and physical gestures of camp are largely the same -- but in the attitudes of its characters, and their self-lacerating vision of themselves, it belongs to another time. And that's a good thing.

Beatty has fashioned a hilarious morality tale that delivers a surprisingly potent, angry message beneath the laughs.

Cynical to an extreme, it doesn't illustrate its points but blasts them at us -- in italics, boldface and capital letters.

A visually spectacular film, distinguished by strong performances and brilliant Steadicam photography that snakes through the U-boat as its patrols the North Atlantic during World War II. [Director's Cut]

Naked Gun 33 1/3 is a feast of pointless, shamelessly silly, almost consistently funny gags. Another comic gem. [18 Mar 1994, p.C1]

Guaranteed to inspire, antagonize and divide his (Lee's) audience.

Campbell and Edwards work wonders with the rocky, wide-open Oregon landscape, but none of their periwinkle-blue skies and sparkling shots of whooping cranes in flight can compensate for a film that aims high, means well, and ultimately fails its audience. [20 May 1994]