Gary Arnold
Select another critic »For 390 reviews, this critic has graded:
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31% higher than the average critic
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1% same as the average critic
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68% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 14 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Gary Arnold's Scores
- Movies
- TV
| Average review score: | 52 | |
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| Highest review score: | The Right Stuff | |
| Lowest review score: | Poison Ivy | |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 113 out of 390
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Mixed: 179 out of 390
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Negative: 98 out of 390
390
movie
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Gary Arnold
Zieff & Co. give it a game, good-humored try, but I don't think they're in jeopardy of being celebrated as inspired farceurs. [14 Feb 1984, p.D8]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Stallone hasn't done himself proud in Paradise Alley. The film could still use a director, a scenario writer and someone to discourage the star from lapsing into happy-go-lucky imitations of Lee J. Cobb. Still, there's something likeable about this zany manipulator. [10 Nov 1978, p.E1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Black Sunday takes such a plodding literal-minded approach with an extravagant thriller premise that we have more than enough time to watch the gears working and all too often jamming. [01 Apr 1977, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Patchy, underbudgeted pop-music satire a la This is Spinal Tap but lacking its professional assurance. [30 Jun 1994, p.M28]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Iceman proves an intriguing premise that is allowed or encouraged to go daftly astray. [13 Apr 1983, p.B10]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Eagle flops around trying to sustain a premise that defies suspenseful elaboration from the outset. No one with his wits about him believes the conspirators will succeed in capturing or shooting Churchill. More to the point, who would want them to? We're asked to suspend disbelief for the sake of a gimmick that not only insults common sense and general knowledge but also betrays old loyalties and convictions. [26 Mar 1977, p.B5]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A would-be endearing romantic entertainment that becomes an exercise in futility, Racing With the Moon concentrates a considerable amount of pictorial polish, acting talent and sincerity on a trifling amount of content. [24 Mar 1984, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy promises to take off every so often, but the material proves too slight for buoyant fancy. [16 July 1982, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Without a Trace provides little sustenance. It keeps serving up overprepared tidbits of torment when you'd prefer to get down to a main course. [04 Feb 1983, p.C4]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Although Psycho II is obviously a travesty masquerading as a sequel, it's impossible to tell how deliberate the ludicrous aspects of the masquerade were meant to be. In fact, the best sustained mystery element of the show derives from stylistic sloppiness and confusion.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Obliged to launch the hero on an effective counterattack down the stretch, Wallace goes through the motions proficiently enough for exploitation thriller purposes. He should have quit while he was ahead, but Halloween III demonstrates a reasonable ability to control comic-horror effects on his first derivative try. [27 Oct 1982, p.D9]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Tender Mercies fails because of an apparent dimness of perception that frequently overcomes dramatists: they don't always know when they've got ahold of the wrong end of the story they want to tell. [29 Apr 1983, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
What accounts for the curious appeal of such a pretentiously amateurish scare movie? Surely not the raggedy direction of Robin Hardy, obviously struggling with his first feature. It must be the softcore sex, the illusion that Summerisle is an out-of-the-way paradise where you can get all the action you crave. [26 Nov 1980, p.B9]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Its elaborate and meticulously re-created period settings and moods prove far more interesting and diverting than the undernourished characterizations and love stories that flutter and sputter across the foregrounds. [19 Apr 1984, p.D6]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
None of Hill's dynamism will save The Warriors from impressing most neutral observers as a ghastly folly. It seems a little demented to choose gang warfare as a pretext for showing off virtuoso technique. [10 Feb 1979, p.C7]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Movie tradition sets awfully high standards for these sorts of fatalistic, criminally compromised sibling relationships. Rourke and Roberts don't quite measure up. [23 June 1984, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The aim is oddball romantic comedy, with himself and Mia Farrow embodying a funny-grotesque mismatch; unfortunately, the obligatory demonstration of attraction and compatibility between these characters escapes Allen; the affair degenerates into a mawkish botch. [27 Jan 1984, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Interiors imposes a portentous formality that seems deliberately starved of sensuous appeal. It's obvious that Allen has serious intentions, but they're expressed in bloodless, superficial, derivative ways. [29 Sept 1978, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A knuckleheaded but amiable summer trifle, Stroker Ace is aimed straight at Burt Reynolds' vast heartland public.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Demon Seed might have been a genuinely witty and terrifying thriller if someone had taken advantage of the story's glaring sadomasochistic implications. Nevertheless, Cammell plays it dumb at a thematic level, ignoring the sci-fi sexual bondage satire staring him in the face. [08 Apr 1977, p.B11]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Priceless it ain't, but if the kids are determined to enjoy it, the brain damage should be minimal. [18 Apr 1981, p.D3]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The Dogs of War can be recommended only as a desperate snack for rabid tastes.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
While literate and coherent in digest-of-history terms, the chronicle of Gandhi's remarkable career as a mass political organizer and spiritual inspiration distilled from the biographical record by Attenborough and screenwriter John Briley remains grievously doting and squeamishly evasive.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The movie isn't skillful enough to back up its satiric presumptions. Though it obviously aims to be sassy and uninhibited, Airplane! never approaches the comic heights achieved unwittingly by "Airport '75" and the peerless "Concorde -- Airport 1979." [3 July 1980, p.C11]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The Tin Drum is likely to be remembered as another conspicuous example of why the urge to film certain books ought to be resisted. [25 Apr 1980, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Peckinpah is a filmmaking heavyweight, but in Convoy all he's doing is fighting off the boredom and frustration that grow out of coping with stupid material. [28 June 1978, p.E4]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Rocky II doesn't merely recall its Oscar-winning predecessor, a modestly produced but astutely calculated inspirational fable about the rehabilitation of a down-and-outer. It slavishly repeats the plot of Rocky, achieving differentiation only in dubious forms: soap opera detours, delaying tactics and an ugly new mood of viciousness surrounding a rematch between the boxers. [15 June 1979, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Authenticity isn't everything and "Diner" ends up an oddly disappointing nice try. [5 March 1982, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A picture as secondhand and conventional as The Woman in Red can't generate much enthusiasm, but it displays more buoyancy and incidental comic appeal than one anticipates. Wilder's judgment hasn't proved especially sound, so perhaps it's commercially prudent to pin him down to an apparently reliable pretext or scenario. Still, the results would probably have been more satisfying if his nervous keepers had permitted this sometimes misguided but endearing mutt of a funnyman a slightly longer leash in a slightly roomier kennel. [16 Aug 1984, p.B2]- Washington Post
