Edward Guthmann

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

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

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 charming, finely nuanced romance.

Placing style above coherence, Seven glosses over plot points and shows a weakness for cheap, lurid effects.

It's downbeat material and it tends to drag a bit, but Jia's performance is so unsparing and intense -- and the film so compassionate and chaste in its approach to a life lost and recovered -- that Quitting ultimately satisfies.

A movie so cheeky, aggressive and bursting with vitality that it can't help being annoying and exhilarating at the same time.

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]

A movie by a man who adores film and relishes its potential.

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

Three hours of overstatement and schmaltz.

Addams Family Values is so much better than the first film -- partly because Sonnenfeld, who made his directing debut with the first film, has refined his directing chops, but mostly because Rudnick has contributed a delightful, mock- macabre script. [19 Nov 1993, p.C1]

Could use more background and personal detail on Rijker, but Bankowsky's tight, no- frills approach is always compelling.

(Holm) nails one of the best roles of his career.

All told, the best ensemble cast I've seen this year.

Entertaining.

Handsome and sincere but slightly awkward in its combination of entertainment and evangelical boosterism.

A pleasant but conventional film.

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

Larger Than Life isn't as bad as it sounds, mostly because Murray is so likable and fundamentally incapable of not being funny.

Consenting Adults is well-made, preposterous junk -- the kind of modestly effective thriller that delivers a modicum of thrills but insults its audience, over and over, to achieve that effect. [16 Oct 1992, p.C1]

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

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]

It's an horrific and tragic story, but somehow made beautiful through the care and attention of Schnabel's direction and Bardem's tender, unforgettable performance.

This is Rampling's film, and she's never less than surprising, never less than a revelation.

Instead of defining and spoofing its period, its attitude and its social barometer, Leave It to Beaver just stumbles about in a bland, irony-deprived suburbia that denies the movie any juice or bite and renders the Cleaver family even duller than it was.

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.

Schrader seems to understand these characters implicitly, and the result is probably the best film he has directed.

Spartacus isn't the greatest epic ever made, but it's head and shoulders above most of the sword-and-sandal wheezers that came out in the '50s and '60s. And, given the prohibitive costs of shooting an epic today, it's the kind of movie we're not likely to see anymore -- except in well-deserved revivals like this one. [13 May 1991, p.E1]

It's hard to follow, the characters are ill-defined, and the wide-angle shots used by Wong's perennial cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, are deliberately unflattering.

Pryce is very good, but Very Annie Mary is a bit too eager to please.

Manages to be affectionate without drawing too deeply from a well of sugar and schmaltz.

The movie was written by Scott Yagemann, who taught seven years in the Los Angeles public- school system, and you can feel the rancor and bitterness he still carries.

Light and innocuous.

Loose, buoyant and bracingly original.

None of the advance hype on Kids can prepare you for the raw, stripped-down reality that Larry Clark captures in his astonishing first film. Nothing can prepare you, because no other film has ever caught the recklessness, sweat and tingly heat of teenage sexuality so effectively.

Boyle isn't the first British or European filmmaker to make his obligatory zesty American road movie (apparently it's a dream for anyone raised on American cinema), but knowing that doesn't make A Life Less Ordinary any less tiring or its numerous pilferings any less obvious or annoying.

Harmless enough, and its team of actors so frisky and enthusiastic that it manages to deliver a modicum of laughs despite itself.

At its best, Forrest Gump is a gentle, elegiac fantasy about love and trust.

Unfortunately, Raising Cain is largely a retread of De Palma's vintage thrillers from the '70s -- an extended self-homage that makes you wonder if his imagination got frozen in 1980.

A study in unexpressed emotion, but Mamet turns the flame so low that his film lacks the emotional payoff we expect.

That's a few too many agendas for one film.

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]

The animation is rich and densely detailed, the characters well defined.

It's a sad sight when two big- name stars sink this low, especially when their demoralization and embarrassment are right up on the screen. [24 Aug 1991, p.C3]

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]

The Neon Bible is a lovely, rewarding film, but it requires some work and some faith on the part of the viewer. Davies' rhythms and camera moves are as slow and stately as ever -- the antithesis of most Hollywood films -- and the moments of crystallized emotion he achieves are sometimes separated by dull patches and self-conscious artiness.

In a movie as hackneyed and as dull as Evolution, the small favors of Duchovny's performance stand out.

It's a wise, sweet-natured film, and one that manages to have fun with its charac ters without judgment or condescension. [04 Aug 1993, p.E1]

A delicate, beautifully observed study of impossible romance, Lost in Translation is one of the best films this year.

Jay and Claire are exquisitely played by Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox.

Plummer gives her strangest, most uninhibited screen performance to date. Playing Eunice, a wildly psychotic killer with a working-class British accent and a mysterious past, Plummer draws a streak of white-hot rage across the screen.

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.

Sick does a remarkable thing in presenting extreme, sometimes revolting material and simultaneously making us like and admire Flanagan.

It becomes stronger and more honest than most character studies on film.

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

A schlocky thriller that might appeal to less discriminating members of the mall crowd.

Exhilarating not only for its dreamlike images and fierce, frequently reckless imagination but also for the fact that it got made (and released) at all.

It sounds promising, but it doesn't work. You get the feeling that Soderbergh, so early in his directing career, has exceeded his reach -- that the com- plicated logistics of making a film on location in eastern Europe, compounded with the challenge of bringing to life such a fundamentally lonely and passive figure, had stymied him. [17 Jan. 1992, p.D1]

Days of Heaven is a visual poem. Slow and elegant, reverential in the way it celebrates the earth's contours and the play of light. [27 Oct. 1999, p.B3]

His (Seidl) camera is shocking in its intimacy, his film surprisingly casual in its depiction of extreme behavior and the randomness of violence.

By far Elvis' best post-Army flick, and you can thank Ann-Margret for that distinction. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

A conspiracy tale of high-tech chicanery, Chain Reaction has better acting, better writing, more spectacular chase sequences and more genuine drama than all of this summer's blockbusters. It's also got Morgan Freeman, as good an actor as we have today, which easily qualifies it as the one action film you should see this summer if you see no other.

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

The photography is strong, the performances sympathetic and the sex plentiful.

A first-rate historical drama.

Hollywood hit-making at its efficient, formulaic worst.

Numbing.

Sci-fi has rarely been so playful.

It rambles, it's repetitive, but once in a while there's a sparkling moment when someone speaks in a way that conjures the fierce passion of the '60s.

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.

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

A mean-spirited comedy...that steals the rampaging-psycho-chick formula from ``Fatal Attraction'' and tries to make it funny.

Holds our attention by dispensing information gradually, like a piece of fiction.

Grease isn't a four-star musical. It's fluffy and unimportant, and it gets tedious toward the end with the car-racing sequence that Kleiser staged in the paved-in-concrete Los Angeles River. The friskiness of the performers, the choreography by Patricia Birch and most of all Travolta's phenomenal charm give it its value.

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. . . ."

Wonderfully original comedy.

Remarkable also for the uniform excellence of its cast, and for the pleasure [Altman's] actors take in the wide berth he allows them. [24 Apr 1992]

One of the year's sweetest surprises. It sneaks up on you, disarming you with its modesty and tenderness, its remarkable lack of self-infatuation.

A glob of comedy, drama, action and suspense.

A buoyant, picaresque farce that hums with goofy energy and mines enough ideas, jokes and setups for three movies of this description.

The only way to enjoy Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy is to savor the performances and behavior quirks, and release the notion that plot is essential.

Nobody's Fool functions mostly as a character study, but it's also Benton's elegy to America's endangered small towns. It's a gem.

Barbarella is a pure goof -- Vadim called it a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future -- and Fonda seems to have reveled in every sexy, campy moment.

An earnest, ponderous epic that tries desperately to say Something Important about disenfranchised blacks and their Afrikaans oppressors, but never does. [27 March 1992, p.D7]

Leigh doesn't sentimentalize these tragic, dead-end lives but allows his characters to be ugly and stupid, to make horrendous mistakes. Sometimes they're laughable, and yet there's never the sense that Leigh is mocking them.

Captures the effervescence and playfulness of Johnson's novel, even as it attempts to shoehorn a tangle of characters and situations.

That's why American Movie cuts so deep: It's about the American dream, about not giving up, about being true to yourself.

A handsome film, filled with lavish costumes and set designs and told in a series of exquisitely composed images. But even with its visual polish, it's a chilly, largely unaffecting film about an unsympathetic man.

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]

A powerful allegory.

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

Fernanda Montenegro gives a landmark performance.

The aftertaste of that father-son scene is so strong, so disturbing, that the riches of Happiness -- its writing, its performances, its trenchant wit -- all seem a bit diminished in the bargain.

Gorgeous and optimistic.

It's a classy but downbeat spin on the most familiar of TV-movie formulas.

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.

Cheerfully raunchy and undeserving of its prohibitive NC-17 rating, Orgazmo is a harmless sex farce.

A great experience, precisely because it's so intimate and unguarded.

Made in America, for the most part, is surprisingly inept -- badly shot, badly lit and badly edited. It's the actors alone, Danson especially, who save it from total disaster. [28 May 1993, p.C1]

Emily Watson is ravishingly good -- and brings an amazing focus and intensity to what could have been a disease-of-the-week picture.

A blast of manic energy in the form of a film.

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.

Disarms with its sincerity and frankness.

It's Eric Bana, a popular Australian stand-up comic, who justifies our interest with a dazzling performance of blunt humor, unpredictability and an edge of menace.

A master of minimalism, Finland's Aki Kaurismaki makes films that are so dry, so delicately ironic that they seem on the verge of crumbling in front of us -- but they never do.

We're left with a metallic aftertaste.

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

A strange, vivid tale of two British schoolchildren stranded in the deserts of the outback.

This is trash on a big budget, but trash nonetheless.

An indelible statement on loneliness and spiritual thirst.

Coming on the heels of Ma Saison Preferee, Thieves suggests that Techine is filling the void left by the deaths of Truffaut and Louis Malle, and ought to be considered his country's finest humanist filmmaker.

It's a strong film, but apart from its stunning images, it doesn't linger in your mind's eye the way you would like it to.

The result is a sprightly, entertaining film, but one in which the satire is neutralized for laughs.

The magic here is all in the telling: in the graceful, laconic direction of Jacques Becker.

Despite its implausibilities, Only the Lonely disarms you with its innocence. [24 May 1991, p.E1]

It's a sensational part for a young actress -- the film is told entirely from her point of view, using her journal entries as voice-over narration -- and Judd, in her first film, gives a subtle, delicate performance. [05 Nov 1993, p.C12]

(Morris's) strangest and most disturbing portrait yet.

What Happened Was . . . isn't always easy to watch. Like a Beckett play, it doesn't spare its characters, but strips bare their insecurities, their fear of rejection, their essential isolation and foolishness. [07 Oct 1994, p.C3]

A pretty lame premise for a movie.

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

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.

Much of Astronaut comes off as tedious and self-amused, but the musical vignettes are fun.

Tough, mean and unsparingly honest, Ladybird, Ladybird is the kind of movie that people resist going to, feel edgy while sitting through and then can't shake off for weeks afterward. [31 Mar 1995, p.C3]

Altman has delivered a lot of surprises in his long directing career, and his new comedy, Cookie's Fortune, is one of the most refreshing -- not because it's so good, but because it's so sweet and affectionate.

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]

The film doesn't explore the nature of ghosts, as it promises to initially, but it's fun to watch Del Toro confront death and fear with such energy and humor.

Dredges up every cliche about druggy, obnoxious dreamers on the fringes of Hollywood and assumes that said cliches have the power to shock and surprise.

A zingy self-empowerment fantasy for kids.

A confounding and unsatisfying film.

The quality of acting in September, coupled with Idziak's images, warrant a visit.

A sexy, mildly entertaining import.

A gentle, sprightly satire that pokes fun at these trendy communards but emphasizes their humanity and fallibility.

A breezy, occasionally funny spoof.

Doesn't sanitize its tale of African American loss and survival -- the way Steven Spielberg's “The Color Purple'' did -- but delves deeply, heartbreakingly into an American tragedy.

A big, gorgeous, sprawling swashbuckler that delivers its diversions in grand, uncomplicated fashion.

Does about as good a job of simulating that terror as it possibly could, but it's no competition for what we create in our mind's eye while reading.

What's lacking is an explanation for the relationship, and some insight into the origins of Rimbaud's art. The other big problem, aside from DiCaprio's twang, is his lack of chemistry with Thewlis. These are two fine actors, working in vastly different styles, who might as well be walking through different movies. At the end of the handsome, frustrating Total Eclipse, you'll be wondering who these two men were.

Manhattan Murder Mystery is splendid good fun, and especially gratifying for those of us who've missed the harmonious Allen-Keaton combo. [20 Aug 1993, p.C1]

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

What is meant to be brave comes off as gimmicky and immature.

It's a sweet, low-key and satisfying film -- and it deserves a heap of credit for treating its subject with humor and humanity.

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]

Jefferson in Paris is dull, sluggish and unfocused.

Gentler in tone than the English working-class comedies of Mike Leigh (Life Is Sweet and High Hopes), The Snapper manages to draw laughs from the cheerful vulgarity of its characters without ridiculing them. [17 Dec 1993, p.C3]

Harron validates and largely clarifies the work.

Crooklyn is loud and raucous and occasionally cruel. The actors shout their dialogue, the kids trade insults and the movie has the strained, desperate-for-fun anxiety of a TV sitcom. [13 May 1994, p.C1]

The film's aim -- to dazzle and inspire -- is sapped by Cruise's vein-popping, running-the-marathon performance.

A wildly implausible thriller.

The film's loose, scaled-down technique never turns gimmicky...but enhances the tension and intimacy of Rosetta's struggle.

What we have here isn't a disaster, exactly, but a very handsomely produced let-down.

An elegiac, visually hypnotic film about love, honor, reverence for nature and the loss of tradition.

They try to make Beverly adorable, and the movie comes off strained and dishonest as a result.

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.

The Secret Garden unfolds like a richly illustrated storybook. It's an enchanting film, full of visual surprises and a story so simple and wise that it makes most ''children's'' entertainment seem gaudy and facile and overly explicit. [13 Aug 1993, p.C1]

Humanite isn't like any other film: It's uncompromising, eerily affecting and wildly unresolved.

Exhilarating but blatantly biased.

It's a witty, intelligent scramble, and it's beautifully mounted.

Conveys the character of this tiny, insular community through richness of detail.

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

A compelling, sympathetic portrait.

A delicious comedy that starts out promisingly as a pleasant gag comedy but then turns unexpectedly into a bright social satire.

What sounded like an embarrassing blunder -- the romantic pairing of Richard Gere and Jodie Foster -- turns out to be surprisingly entertaining and persuasive.

An uneasy mixture of tragedy, satire, monster yarn and David Cronenberg creepiness, No Such Thing can't decide what it wants to be or how it needs to get there.

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.

Jackson has called "Creatures" a "murder story about love, a murder story with no villains." His generous approach makes it an unforgettable experience.

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

I'm not quite sure what David Cronenberg is trying to say in Crash, but whatever it is, he deserves a lot of credit for having the nerve to put it on screen and face the consequences.

A strange but oddly memorable film.

It's rare that we have a screen character as well-rounded, as recognizably human or as brilliantly played as Sonny Dewey.

Terrific.

Death Becomes Her may be crude and tasteless, but it's also irresistibly funny and very well played by Streep, Hawn and Willis -- each of whom suffered career disappointments of late, and each of whom shines in a role that casts them against type. [31 July 1992, p.D1]

A wonderful, cockeyed sex comedy.

Plays like the cinematic equivalent of a paperback bodice- ripper with embossed type.

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

Despite its posh trimmings, and Fiorentino's feline presence, Jade never rises above its limitations and never cloaks the fact that Eszterhas' dialogue and script are basically pulp -- minus the trashy fun that we've come to expect from the genre.

An entertaining but exhausting satire on tabloid media and the way they feed our thirst for violence, Natural Born Killers stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, in banshee-out-of-hell performances, as serial killers Mickey and Mallory Knox -- a trashy, gonzo/weirdo version of Bonnie & Clyde. [26 Aug 1994, p.C1]

If they weren't so funny and real, and if Linklater hadn't done such a good job in writing their dialogue and casting them, their lack of ambition might seem depressing, and the movie might come off as some smug hymn to negativity. [9 Aug. 1991, p.F3]

Takes a long time getting started and doesn't hit its stride until Danny starts coaching a team of fellow cons -- think "Bad News Bears," just nastier.

A sweet but curiously unfulfilling story.

Cheesy.

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.

It's beautiful to look at, but it's stiffly acted by some of the performers and tends to get ponderous.

An absorbing look at emotional tyranny, with a great screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

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]

Today, Blade Runner works better than ever: Scott's version not only has more dramatic integrity, but its visual aesthetic and futuristic vision are more in sync with today's movie-goers. [11 Sept 1992]

Rising Sun doesn't work all that well as a thriller: it's far more successful in its old cop/young cop character study, and in its examination of cross-cultural tensions. [30 July 1993, p.C1]

The best scenes are the ones that Fox shares with Tamala Jones, Wendy Raquel Robinson and the full-figured Monique as her sassy girlfriends. There's a ripe, crackling spontaneity when these women get together.

Surprisingly, Potter takes what seemed like a recipe for embarrassment and excess and delivers a film that's sweet and understated and devoid of diva posturing.

4 Little Girls brilliantly captures a moment in American history and tells an achingly painful story of injustice and family loss.

Self-serious, pointless and silly.

[Raimi]'s drawn lovely, complex performances from Paxton and Thornton and proven that he can work effectively -- and movingly -- in a minor emotional key.

Joyously unhinged and outrageously inventive.

This is a sloppy hash of a movie, poorly directed and plotted in a way that looks as if it were improvised on the spot.

Knows its audience and doesn't stint on the flatulence jokes, poop jokes, leg-humping dogs and moments of homo-panic.

A goofy genre-buster that takes its amateur criminals as seriously as ``Pulp Fiction'' or ``Run Lola Run'' did theirs.

Down Periscope makes a surprisingly successful launch, with plenty of brisk one-liners and a promising set-up. But after that auspicious opening, it sinks.

One of the most impressive actor-to-filmmaker transitions in recent years.

Graham Greene ("Dances With Wolves") in one of the year's best performances, he's a fully dimensional character: pathetic and shrewd, tragic and bitterly funny.

It isn't simple bad taste that Formula 51 deals in, but a total vacuum of feeling.

It's tremendously entertaining, and probably worthy of repeat viewings.

Numbskull entertainment.

A marvelous film.

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]

Heartfelt and passionate and brave in what it attempts to explore.

Great pleasures.

Apart from Lawrence's goofing, Blue Streak isn't much of a movie.

A dark, unsettling drama from Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone.

A half-baked disappointment...never flies, never comes close to meeting its own expectations.

The result is startling and repellent -- a challenge to filmgoers accustomed to fake gunfire, fake wounds and cosmeticized death.

For music fans, there's great pleasure in hearing new audio tracks to "Sitting Here in Limbo," "Friend of the Devil" and more songs -- each one complete and unedited.

The Olsens' precociousness and sitcom-style mugging grate at first, but I found myself warming to their movie in its last half - thanks mostly to Alley, a crackerjack physical comic who's incapable of a flat or colorless note.

Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty draw everything in simplistic, overstated terms. The good guys are pure and spunky, the bad guys bellicose and one-dimensional, the conflicts stripped of nuance.

There's tremendous maturity and skill in Felicia's Journey but also a sense of impending horror that's bound to repel some audience members -- even though the violence is all implied.

For all its flaws and vagueness, Safe is smart, challenging and provocative -- a film that gives you plenty to chew on, long after Carol's sad tale has wound down.

Mayron, who directed a remake of the Disney comedy Freaky Friday for TV, took on a lot with The Baby-Sitters Club, and the strain shows. She's got too many characters to establish -- several adults besides the girls -- and her movie feels under-rehearsed, as if she hadn't been given the benefit of preparation and wasn't allowed to get as many takes as she needed of most scenes.

Might be a blast of ridiculous fun -- the way truly bad movies tend to be -- if it weren't so noxious and reprehensible.

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.

Hollywood warhorse Norman Taurog directed Elvis eight times and had a knack for dragging decent performances from the boy. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

Concubine demonstrates that Chinese films are growing by leaps and bounds in their technical sophistication, but also reveals how much they borrow from the energy and style of American cinema. [29 Oct 1993, p.C1]

A haunting, beautiful labyrinth that gets inside your bones and stays there.

Extraordinary.

Red is the best of the lot: warmer, more accessible, unusually generous toward its characters. A mystical tale of chance encounters and unexpected connections, Red uses a traffic accident as a springboard to discovery.

It's that dilemma -- a commitment to Orthodox life, the refusal to deny one's sexuality and the fear of expulsion once that sexuality is revealed -- that director Sandi Simcha DuBowski illustrates so powerfully.

They're great, every one of them, but the real joy of Little Voice is Horrocks: her impeccable evocation of a timid soul and that eerie voice that sounds so surprising coming out of her.

Wildly ambitious, unwieldy epic.

Superb documentary.

It's a bizarre hybrid: one part feminist screed, one part French art film and one part skin flick.

If your tolerance for Branagh's shtick and Woody's narrowness of focus is as low as mine, you can take solace in the director's joke on himself.

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.

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.

It's smart and good-hearted and boasts an amazingly good score, but the film is limited by the very private nature of the man it portrays.

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.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, featuring a quartet of unsympathetic characters and an unrelenting air of misanthropy.

Haneke directs Benny's Video in a cool, dispassionate style that matches the austerity of his subject, but keeps us at a distinct remove. And even though he introduces a faintly optimistic note in the film's last moments -- a hint at possible redemption -- his film is mostly a grim, downbeat experience. [01 Apr 1994, p.C3]

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

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.

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

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.

Dreadful teen comedy with a "Cinderella" theme.

The Thing Called Love should have been a nice, middle-key romance, with a few gentle digs at Nashville's fevered, wildly competitive country-music scene. Instead, it's a hapless, well-intentioned mess -- running in half a dozen directions at once, looking half-planned and semi-improvised, and featuring a skittish, overly mannered performance by Phoenix. [16 March 1994, p.E1]

In concept alone, Ravenous is anything but appetizing, but in execution it's worse than you'd imagine.

Not only celebrates Deren's cinematic legacy but also reveals a gifted talent whose explosive temperament was at odds with the lyrical, dreamlike imagery she put on screen.

Meticulously crafted, and warmly acted by a cast that includes Winona Ryder as Jo and Susan Sarandon as her mother, the devoted Marmee, Little Women is one of the rare Hollywood studio films that invites your attention, slowly and elegantly, rather than propelling your interest with effects and easy manipulation.

An arid, uninvolving film that suffers from Burrows' miscasting as the vain Julie.

Disappointing, pointless and repetitive.

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.

Irma Vep blurs the line between reality and fantasy, toys with notions of identity and offers a playfully jaundiced look at the petty jealousies and acts of sabotage that infect film crews in the heat of production.

The great thing about Reality Bites is that each of the characters comes across as real, and not some glib concoction by a screenwriter who's watched them from a cloistered distance. Childress obviously knows their world inside out, and shares it with insight and a prickly, original wit. [18 Feb 1994, p.C1]

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

Bound to be talked about, debated and eviscerated far more than it's understood.

Stettner approaches this material with a playwright's incisiveness and structural sense. His dialogue is cutting, often surprising.

By playing the boob so brilliantly, Atkinson allows us the catharsis of recognizing our own incompetencies and lack of poise.

Succeeds despite that mismatch of artist and material.

In its sober, nonassertive way, Bopha! takes on the tone and weight of a Greek tragedy. [24 Sept 1993, p.C1]

Delicious but complex.

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

Sinks into melodrama.

An eye-opening documentary.

Leigh goes right to the core of his character's lives and mines the place where we're weakest, most alone and sometimes the cruelest.

Has there ever been a live concert film as vibrant or as brilliantly realized? I don't think so. [Review of re-release]

Downbeat, ultimately tragic, but there's a wondrous, sad beauty here.

Splendid.

Feels so moldy and out of date.