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
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- Gary Arnold
Absence of Malice was directed with earnest, straightforward proficiency by Sydney Pollack, and there are crucial public issues involved in the premise. Still, excessively generous allowance must be made if one is to overlook the defects and confuse Absence of Malice with a pertinent, lucid melodrama on a hot topic. A remarkable number of journalists seem to be overcompensating for the film's mildness by treating it as something hard-hitting and usefully purgative. More power to the souls considerate enough to do the filmmakers' work for them, but look out for frustration if you're only prepared to meet them halfway. [18 Dec 1981, p.C9]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The largest shares of credit for this pleasant surprise evidently belong to director Ron Howard--whose assurance behind the camera may come as a revelation to people still associating him with the roles of little Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and clean-cut Richie on "Happy Days".- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Having hit a sassy stride in The Great Muppet Caper (after a treacly start with The Muppet Movie) Jim Henson and Frank Oz suffer a relapse in the progressively lackluster The Muppets Take Manhattan. The weakest link in Manhattan is a scenario of incurable listlessness. [14 July 1984, p.C7]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Albert Brooks may be the Woody Allen of the 1980s. His extraordinary first feature, Real Life, demonstrates a potential genius for movie comedy and is animated by a peculiarly fertile and subtle imagination.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Pennies From Heaven is a rejuvenating, landmark achievement in the evolution of Hollywood musicals, and certainly the finest American movie of 1981. [18 Dec 1981, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The Goodbye Girl itself represents a satisfying step back in the right direction for the purposes of light, optimistic film romance. Its appeal isn't exactly novel, but it is ingeniously and refreshingly traditional. [21 Dec 1977, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A number of grievous things have gone wrong with Gorky Park, the disappointing film version of Martin Cruz Smith's savory mystery novel, in its transition from print to celluloid. But chief among them is the casting of William Hurt as the leading man. [16 Dec 1983, p.F10]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
An overwhelmingly friendly climate of opinion awaited "New York, New York." Scorsese has squandered it by backing off from the very challenge of rationalizing and sustaining a musical romantic drama.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The Wanderers is a well-made movie that leaves a so-what impression. [27 July 1979, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
No need to buy a Christmas present for Redford and Fonda this year. They've already made a movie calculated to smother each other in garlands of self-congratulation. [21 Dec 1989, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Coleman and Thomas are unusually sympathetic embodiments of a father and son, and they have some moments that are legitimately stirring. Cloak & Dagger is never as adept or perceptive as you'd like it to be, but it's got what members of the critical fraternity traditionally characterize as a little something.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The most perfunctory and least imaginative of the recent cycle of horror melodramas, Motel Hell may be credited with a fleeting wry touch, but it wears out its welcome by running a minimum of ghoulish stunts into the ground. [25 Oct 1980, p.F4]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Inconsistent but zestful, this farce about the fanatic reactions of a group of New Jersey high-school kids to the first appearance of The Beatles on Ed Sullivan's show is, however, an amiable promise of good times to come - a showcase for fresh, young talent, both behind and before the cameras.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
For all its awkwardness and mawkishness, Santini deserves the shot. It has an authentic core of family drama and humor that could stir a large public. [03 Oct 1980, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Barely adequate as a pictorial rendering of the book, the movie still thrives on the rousing nature of this unlikely but enthralling epic. [08 Nov 1978, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
There's no doubt about Burt Reynolds' skill. Starting Over finds Reynolds at a level of proficiency that approaches the awesome. [05 Oct 1979, p.B1]- 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
After a fairly promising getaway, Romancing the Stone gradually chases its tail into enough melodramatic dead ends to deteriorate into an expendable runaround, all too easy to shrug off as a miscalculated clone of Raiders of the Lost Ark.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
One may feel limitations on the dramatic side, but Bridge is an unqualified pictorial achievement.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
It never ventures close enough to the victims to inspire profound reflections on the pity and terror of it all. [12 Nov 1983, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Schrader's second feature, Hardcore, is more confidently made than his first, Blue Collar, but it slips into a similar category: absorbing but unsatisfying. [10 Feb 1979, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Inside Moves is sneaky-funny and sneaky-affecting. It's an artfully old-fashioned morale booster celebrating comeback kids: apparent losers, outcasts and hard-luck cases who manage to pull themselves together, buck the odds and reaffirm their pride, dignity and masculinity. [18 Dec 1980, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A rousing and scenically breathtaking romance about ranch life in the 1880s, the film should recommend itself strongly to families. [24 Dec 1982, p.14]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Innovative, lavish and lacking. [30 Mar 1984, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Exquistely written but treacherously threadbare Greene. The author's style doesn't emerge through the filters of Tom Stoppard's foreshortened screenplay and Preminger's monotonous direction, which keeps the exposition at such a low energy level that the scenes feel instantly depleted. [18 Apr 1980, p.E1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Like so many modern movies, The Bounty appears interesting and even spellbinding when preoccupied with settings and textures, but maddeningly obtuse when obliged to clarify basic dramatic conflicts. [17 May 1984, p.E8]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The finished film has no thematic or emotional integrity. It flip-flops withdesperate hypocrisy between clownish antics and indignant orations. [09 Feb 1978, p.B13]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Alligator, the most amusing variation yet on the Jaws formula, finds plenty of room for incidental humor and romantic byplay while sustaining a breezy suspense plot. [20 May 1981, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Like their previous movies, it emerges as an interesting disappointment, reflecting a cultivated and audacious taste in material inhibited by a stuffy approach to filmmaking. The advantage of their intelligent, literate, methodical style is that it may accommodate novel themes and impressive performances. [28 Jan 1982, p.C11]- Washington Post
