Edward Guthmann

In his big-screen directing debut, British film maker Danny Boyle demonstrates wit, intelligence and economy of style.

Private Parts is witty and fast-paced and makes Stern's raunchy, breast-obsessed, lesbian-fetishizing, big-penis-envying, arrested-adolescent outlook seem like harmless fun.

Director Nicholas Hytner doesn't soften or cosmeticize Miller's tale -- it's often uncomfortable to watch -- and he draws an emotional pitch from his actors that helps us understand the mob fury and irrational fear that make a situation like the one in Salem possible.

Greenwald is fine at creating the texture of early mountain life but loses her footing by embracing several plot points at once.

Too bad the plotting is jumbled, and the characters too numerous and undifferentiated.

Neutralizes these characters, makes them cute and one-dimensional like fluffy dolls.

This is a tour-de-force performance, delivered by an actor at the top of his game, and it's a shame that K-Pax, instead of engaging our imaginations as it promises to, devolves into such a conventional, paint-by- numbers disappointment.

Basketball Diaries is an earnest, botched effort to do justice to Carroll's book. Amazingly, though, even with Kalvert's lack of style and vision, the greatness of DiCaprio's performance is undiminished.

Magical and haunting, The Piano has the power and delicate mystery of a gothic fairy tale. [19 Nov 1993]

Enchanting documentary that also serves as an animated gallery of Goldsworthy’s uniquely ephemeral art.

Directed with style and wit by London filmmaker Richard Kwietniowski, who makes his feature debut here, Love and Death is an off-kilter romantic comedy.

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

Never comes alive.

A wonderfully twisted comedy.

It makes you wonder when Araki is going to find something else to think about.

It's impossible to imagine why Lions Gate, the indie distributor that released "Monster's Ball," would bother with this garbage.

A mystical tale of two souls, joined in love but divided in society, seeking redemption and understanding before they pass to another plane.

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.

A tale of yuppie conformity and domestic angst that quickly turns into a horror film.

[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]

It's a glamorous revenge romp, a "9 to 5" mixed with "Auntie Mame," and it gives each star the opportunity to do her best work in a long, long time.

The Hudsucker Proxy is the Coens' fifth feature in a decade, and you can see their tremendous artistic growth in every frame of the film. Classically composed, beautifully shot by Roger Deakins ("Barton Fink") and co-produced by legendary action-flick producer Joel Silver, Hudsucker has technique and visual invention to spare. [11 Mar 1994, p.C3]

A lot of the acting is amateurish, and most of the plot feels like a rehash of a rehash. The music, written and performed in the spirit of L7, is small consolation.

A wickedly, punishingly funny movie.

A messy, ambitious comedy.

Crowe and his movie leave you with a good and generous feeling. As the Matt Dillon character might say, it's a pretty good hang. [18 Sept 1992, p.C1]

A white-trash burlesque that springs from the notion that people chasing each other in cars and doing stupid things in motels are inherently funny.

The movie belongs to Rodriguez: A gorgeous woman with a powerful body and the face of an Aztec princess, she's also a natural talent who instinctively understands the importance of economy in good acting.