Gary Arnold

F.I.S.T. may be given patronizing credit for reflecting some vague desire to do an important picture about the perils of corruption within the American political system. Unfortunately, it can't be given credit for realizing that desire with much skill or credibility. [26 Apr 1978, p.B1]

A GREAT American movie in a new epic form, The Right Stuff fuses the comic and the heroic to emerge as a knockabout social comedy that also packs a thriller inspirational and -- why deny it?-- patriotic wallop.

One of the best little slice-of-contemporary-Americana pictures to emerge from Hollywood in recent years. [01 July 1984, p.F1]

High Road to China suggests "Raiders of the Lost Ark" slowed to a crawl. [18 March 1983, p.D3]

An absorbing but rarefied, introspective variation on traditional thriller motifs, it's probably not the synthesis between the personal and traditional that Wenders needs but it's a fascinating compulsively watchable experiment.

Ridley Scott has made a triumphant directing debut by creating a film that looks beautiful but never loses sight of the capacity for animosity and conflict lurking in the human psyche. [08 Mar 1978, p.D1]

Smokey and the Bandit is an unexpected good time, a playful, wisecracking and curiously revealing example of All-American escapist entertainment. [29 July 1977, p.B1]

Jaws 2 isn't a disgraceful self-imitation, but one sampling should be enough. It may inspire nothing so much as a nostalgic hunger to see "Jaws" again.

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]

For the first 40 or 50 minutes of Paul Mazursky's Moscow on the Hudson, I was convinced it was going to emerge as a great human interest comedy. But it takes such a nose dive in the final hour that bailing out early may be the only way to protect a favorable impression.

When it comes to the tantalizing prolongation of suspense, nobody does it better than De Palma. He has absorbed and adapted the Hitchcock's fondness and flair for sustaining exposition through sheer pictorial virtuosity, his mischievous erotic humor and even his ambiguous mixture of morbid, romantic and comic impulses. [25 July 1980, p.C1]

Martin Scorsese's obsession with a dubious mystique of masculinity turns Raging Bull into a ponderous work of metaphysical cinematic bull.

The character is again a lackluster after-thought, exploited by a new Universal assembly line that specializes in the serials manufactured for weekly television consumption.

Thanks largely to the dexterity of director John Badham and the irresistibly fresh attractiveness of the young leads, Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, WarGames contains enough entertaining suspense and more than enough personality appeal to finesse many of its implausible plot twists. [3 June 1983, p.B1]

The vacuous quality of Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown" would be better represented by a title like, "Bore Me to Death, Charlie Brown." [24 Aug 1977, p.B4]

Sounds hard to mess up, but Death Hunt is so unconvincing that you never once stop asking yourself, "Why is this manhunt necessary?" [27 May 1981, p.B6]

While it's fitfully, harmlessly diverting, Breaking Training never overcomes the handicaps that derive from its fundamentally derivative character. [04 Aug 1977, p.B11]

You're obliged to take your fun where you can find it during this coyly coarse-minded, near-wreck of a musical, and there's precious little to be found watching the costars gather moss in each other's uneasy company. [23 July 1982, p.D3]

What really compromises Midnight Madness is not inexperience or subsophomoric humor, inconvenient as they frequently are, but derivativeness. This vehicle can't quite build up its own head of steam when it seems to be assembled with spare parts from National Lampoon's Animal House and Scavenger Hunt. [13 Feb 1980, p.B4]

The general idea is obviously dog-eat-dog, but it's depicted in ways that convince you of nothing so much as the filmmakers' obscene dependence on brutality. Bad Boys emerges as a textbook example of rotten melodrama. [25 Mar 1983, p.C2]

Malle's most forcefull dramatic element is the feeling of rivalry and resentment that exists between mother and child without the characters being conscious of it. The script is eloquently supplied with scenes illustration this fundamental conflict and bond. [26 Apr 1978, p.B1]

It's difficult to view Sudden Impact as anything more exciting or authentic than the action movie equivalent of drawn-out foreplay and faked orgasm.

It's difficult to predict if audiences will be patient enough with Best Defense to allow it the shakedown time necessary to hit a funny stride. But the movie confirms a flair for comedy that may pay dividends when the filmmakers' rapport with the actors is strong enough to discipline and perhaps improve dodgy material. [25 Jul 1984, p.D3]

If Kagemusha falls short dramatically, and many admirers may not share that impression, the sag occurs at an awesome level of filmmaking prowess. Ironically, this tale of a shadow warrior is diminished only by the length and intensity of the artistic shadow thrown by Kurosawa in his prime. [21 Nov 1980, p.F1]

The premise breaks down just at the point when it needs to be cleverly elaborated into a story. [05 Aug 1978, p.H1]

A gaudy erotic showcase for a male stripper named Richard Gere. A couple of feebleminded heads were put together on this would-be-torrid production, a kind of glorified featurette for Playgirl subscribers. [13 May 1983, p.B1]

By and large the film seems humorless, the reflection of exhausted or snide entertainers. [21 June 1978, p.B13]

"Grease 2" is the most serendipitous sequel in recent memory. It is an ingratiating, jubilant improvement on a crummy original.