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
At once emotionally sound and cinematically promising, this sort of obsession can degenerate into spooky nonsense unless it's handled with care. Weir's attraction to the mysterious seems authentic enough, but he's still not expert at rationalizing and sustaining psychological mystery stories. Both "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and "The Last Wave" lack consummate strokes of manipulative artistry. They leave you hanging on the brink, but the drop isn't very deep. [14 March 1979, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
While perfectly presentable and agreeable, especially if you are in an undemanding frame of mind, Krull remains a thin, dogged exercise in extravagant adventure. [03 Aug 1983, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The director appears to be stuck with rather drab shots from inside the racers showing one car creeping ahead and then falling back. The effect is not exactly thrilling, but the audience is obviously eager to be thrilled and more than willing to do its imaginative share. Greased Lightning never generates enough momentum to meet the audience half-way. [16 July 1977, p.E5]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
When he finally takes the screen for a prolonged routine, Lee reminds you that he was indeed a thing of beauty in motion. However, if it's the missing Lee footage you've come for, there's no reason to catch the first hour or so of the film [26 May 1979, p.C9]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
One of the worst ideas in Murder on the Orient Express was the repeated reenactment of the murder scene. Death on the Nile compounds this vulgarity by visualizing almost every speculation Poirot entertains about his fellow passengers. The redundancy of it all becomes ridiculous. [29 Sep 1978, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Unfortunately, screenwriter David Shaber hasn't laid the sort of tracks that can support a clever or gripping vehicle. The rickety foundation might be finessed by swift, dynamic direction -- the sort of approach William Friedkin brought to The French Connection or Walter Hill to The Warriors, an urban thriller Shaber also helped fabricate -- but newcomer Bruce Malmuth isn't agile enough.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Despite this sporadic funny stuff and the enthusiastic cast members, "Zorro" degenerates into a ponderous trifle. By turns, Peter Medak's direction seems stuffy and scattered and Hamilton's Spanish and English accents keep getting lost on the soundtrack. [25 July 1981, p.C9]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Producer Ray Stark, screenwriter Neil Simon and director Jay Sandrich obviously intended to whip up a frothy, madcap entertainment in the tradition of the screwball comedies of the '30s and '40s. Their failure to "make one like they used to" incurs a double liability: In addition to wasting resources and disappointing expectations, Seems Like Old Times -- now at area theaters -- appears to trifle with an older and better movie.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The result is a curios, unsatisfactory pastiche of documentary tidbits acquired from Reichenbach and speculative filler supplied by Welles himself, who appears prowling around in his Felliniesque hat and cape, performing a couple of magic tricks and mostly pontificating about himself, Hughes, Irving, de Hory and the nature of art and illusion in the editing room or a the dinner table.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
By the time the film is over, the movie has degenerated with a jaundiced vengeance. Fosse's sour, grandstanding cynicism imposed an intolerable burden of self-pity on his talent, our compassion and the tradition of the backstage muscial.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Condorman is ingenious enough when it comes to mechanical resources. Its undoing is personality resources.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Witty as they sometimes are, Romero's ironies aren't subtle or devastating enough to justify lengthy comtemplation. "Dawn" seems like a good 80-minute horror premise stretched out at least half an hour too long. Moreover, the excess running time appears to be filled by repeated shootings, clubbings, stabbings and munchings, always vividly depicted, rather than further character exploration or mordant strokes of humor.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A mannered, gratuitous exercise in Grand Guignol dreadfulness that was made by and with unknowns. [03 June 1978, p.B6]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
There isn't much conceptual or stylistic integrity in Tightrope. It's calculated to function at the most expedient and spurious levels of nightmarish artifice. [17 Aug 1984, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A dreadfully earnest but fatally uninspired effort to compress the aftermath of an epic catastrophe, massive nuclear war, into a small-scale family memoir.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Fred Walton, who directed Stranger, seems more skillful at orchestrating creepy atmospherics than John Carpenter was in Halloween. At the same time, he's scarcely clever or stylish enough to make Stranger a thriller worth going out of your way for. [20 Oct 1979, p.F6]- 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
Days of Heaven leaves one wanting more: either a totally revolutionary approach to pictorial storytelling or traditional dramatic interest....It may be artistic suicide for Malick to continue his style of pictorial inflation without also enriching his scenarios. If he doesn't, he's likely to be remembered not for his undeniable pictorial talent but for his eccentricity. [5 Oct. 1978, p.B10]- 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
The plot synopsis bears may a suspicious resemblance to "Alien." [6 Nov 1981, p.23]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
My Favorite Martian never achieves anything that resembles farcical consistency, let alone farcical bliss, but it has enough playful nonsense scattered around a hit-and-miss scenario to rationalize a kiddie matinee excursion. [12 Feb 1999, p.C16]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The movie version of The Onion Field offers a compelling buildup of suspense and apprehension, culminating in the shocking murder of a young policeman. But it gradually begins to diminish in force, transforming a gripping, realistic reenactment of a murder case into a prosaic and somewhat baffling grind. [19 Oct 1979, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Southern Comfort sets up a potentially compelling switch on The Most Dangerous Game, but Hill's tactical maneuvers prove too diffuse and uncoordinated to carry out a successful variation. [16 Oct 1981, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
One detects flickering intentions of enlarging on the formula material -- especially in the byplay between the actors playing narcs -- but the prevailing mood of the entertainment is decidedly bargain-basement. [11 Oct 1979, p.D15]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The rapport that ought to evolve between Gloria and her juvenile charge never quite makes it from the filmmaker's imagination onto the screen. [10 Oct 1980, p.E7]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Social consciousness and cultural respectability are allowed to make deep inroads on the raunch, since the kids are suddenly congregated around the Drama Club and devote their major conspiratorial campaign to discrediting a bigoted preacher who threatens to interfere with the term play. [2 July 1983, p.C3]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Doug Trumbull has spent years maneuvering a potentially stirring mystic pretext to the threshold of realization, only to balk and stumble at the act of finally crossing that threshold. [29 Sept 1983, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The premise and star remain out of whack until the rambling, diffuse screenplay finally struggles beyond basic training.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Never makes a subatomic particle of melodramatic or psychological sense yet nevertheless provokes an overwhelming proportion of women spectators into screaming fits. [19 Aug 1981, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Regrettably, director Hal Ashby has allowed both the protagonist, folk-singer Woody Guthrie, played with surprising canniness and authority by David Carradine, and the Depression setting to drift away in pictorial reverie and dramatically evasive heroworship. [16 Feb 1977, p.B1]- Washington Post
