Gene Siskel

Ambitious but hokey melodrama...It's a beautiful looking film, but only the supporting characters are believable. Beatty and Diane Keaton are miscast and never disappear into their characters. [25 Dec 1981]

Nine to Five is a film full or surprises - some pleasant, other disappointing. The most pleasant surprise is the appearance of Dolly Parton, who with this one film establishes herself as a thoroughly engaging movie star. The biggest disappointment is that this Jane Fonda comedy about a trio of secretaries out to get their boss doesn't have more bite. [19 Dec 1980, p.2-1]

A powerful, joyful, raw, energetically acted bio-pic detailing the joys and pain of the on- and offstage lives of blues rockers Ike and Tina Turner. [11 Jun 1993, p.C2]

A nauseating thriller that reaches down from the screen and defies you to stay in the theater to see what desecration of the human body it will present next. [24 Feb 1986, p.C3]

Sometimes raunchy, but always well-acted. [25 Dec 1981]

What an enormous waste of talent and money is Labyrinth. [30 Jun 1986, p.3]

A dull and lethargic comedy. [19 June 1981, p.2-8]

Toy Story is a complete joy.

It's a tribute to the quality of writing, direction and photography in this film that we willingly go along with the story.

Wonderful performances by Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Timothy Hutton. [19 Dec 1980, p.2-10]

A bunch of scattered laughs. [22 June 1984, p.5-12]

The film is mostly light and funny, but it also has a wistful ending that lingers in the mind. Both lead actors are sensational. [21 Oct 1988, p.A]

Pump Up the Volume, an exceedingly well-written teenager-full-of-angst melodrama about a high school student who operates a pirate radio broadcast that criticizes parents and teachers while revealing the turmoil of adolescence.

A charming, adult-oriented saga of the famous cartoon character that comes alive only when Popeye finds his baby, Swee'pea. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]

A three-hour delight… The movie generates much of its power by being so life-affirming at a time when people feel nervous about the future. [9 Nov 1990, Friday, p.C]

The stirring, somewhat too earnest story of a white newspaper editor in racist South Africa who rallied to defend black activist Steve Biko, who was beaten to death in jail in 1977. The film is weighted to the story of the editor (Kevin Kline)-his education about Biko, his subsequent determination to spread the word of the widespread bigotry in South Africa and his adventure story of his family fleeing their native land before they were all jailed for treason. Directed by Richard Attenborough (Gandhi) in the same noble, yet effective manner. [06 Nov 1987, p.41]

This is easily one of the worst films I`ve ever seen.

Road House is startling because of the intensity of its violence and because of Swayze`s mindless posturing. A young star has sold himself to become a pinup boy.

A routine Neil Simon comedy with Goldie Hawn ,Chevy Chase, and Charles Grodin mixed up in a story about an innocent bank robber and a power-hungry district attorney. Hawn has been married to both. Not very funny, but the dogs are cute. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]

It's an old lesson, but one well told with fresh faces in Mask.

What is undeniably good about Rocky V is that our working-class hero returns to the grimy neighborhood from which he sprang. Seeing a more slender, "street" Rocky is a refreshing change of pace from the muscle-bound champ of Parts 3 and 4. [16 Nov 1990, p.C]

We know exactly where this picture is going at all times. Holding our attention, however, is a cast of fresh talent among the trainees. [03 Jun 1994]

Sold as a romance, but actually is one of the funniest pictures to come out in quite some time. [15 Jan 1988]

Another important, risk-taking film from Spike Lee.

Short Circuit is an obvious WarGames ripoff in which a robot steals every scene from wooden performances by the always-too-eager-to-please Steve Guttenberg and the usually likable Ally Sheedy.

In the past few years, we've seen or heard every teenage joke at least twice. What we haven't seen much of is a little teenage tenderness, the kind that we find in the concluding scenes of The Sure Thing. [1 Mar 1985, p.FN]

Director John Landis' comic timing is a little slow in spots - we get the joke before he thinks we will - but Oscar generates a solid pace of rolling big laughs and winds up as a pretty good time at the movies. [26 Apr 1991, p.C]

More of a physical achievement in moviemaking than a piece of storytelling, but I do recommend it on that basis. [15 January 1999, Friday, p.A]

A hit and mostly miss parody. [5 Feb 1993, p.C]

Mad Dog and Glory was directed by John McNaughton, who wisely lets many scenes run to the point of being uncomfortable, just like his characters are with each other. Everything about this movie seems fresh. [5 Mar 1993, p.C]

It's a good ol' boy version of "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?," but whereas that classic had four characters in direct conflict, "Fool for Love" essentially is a two-character duel to the quick.

Fat Man and Little Boy tries to cover too much territory by introducing corny romantic subplots involving Oppenheimer's mistress and a relationship between a young scientist (John Cusack) and a nurse (Laura Dern). These awkwardly written sequences remind us that we are watching a conventional movie and destroy any documentarylike reality. [20 Oct 1989, p.A]

Standard action fare with a false overlay of social conscience. [3 Apr 1998, p.A]

John Travolta stars as a Texas construction worker who spends his nights chasing a woman and the cowboy myth in a huge honky-tonk bar. Debra Winger is a standout as the object of Travolta's anger and affections. [11 July 1980, p.8]

A dumb and purposefully cheesy version of the comic strip space hero. Although the film has a few early moments of put-on humor, the story has nowhere to go. Sam Jones is not very bright as Flash. Only Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless brings any style to the adventure. Only for the juvenile set. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]

In film circles there's a name for pictures like Lifeforce. Film Comment magazine has dubbed them guilty pleasures, movies you're embarrassed to admit you like. Maybe somebody spiked my popcorn, but I can't deny that I liked Lifeforce.

Barely has there been a group of more smug and obnoxious characters in a single film than in St. Elmo`s Fire.

Crossroads doesn't contain most of the common sins of today's youth films: cheap sex, fast cars and food fights. But you can't reward a film very much for what isn't there, if what is there leaves you wishing that its lead characters would break free from a tired story and sing and play with abandon. [14 March 1986, p.A]

The songs are joyful, and the plant is a foul-mouthed wonder when it begins to talk. Director Frank Oz deserves credit for staging a musical in classic form, creating nothing less than one of the year's most entertaining films. [19 Dec 1986, p.A]

That sort of depth is rare in most movies; it's the trademark, however, of John Cassavetes.

A dismal kids' comedy in which all creativity stopped after casting lookalikes for the old rascals was completed.

About halfway through the violent, fantasy adventure Highlander, one character talks about how it was the custom during ancient times to throw babies into a pit of hungry dogs. Well, there were more than a few times during this hyperviolent film in which I felt as if I were a baby being thrown to a dog of a movie.

Most biopics mistakenly try to take us from cradle to grave and end up skimming the surface. The wisdom of Cobb is that writer-director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) knows that the close study of a single day can decode a human life.

A dreary, needlessly violent and ugly comic thriller about a psychic hustler (Michael J. Fox) who gets more than he bargained for with his latest scam. Fox seems to be trying to get hip in the movies, and he's lost his way here.

This is nothing more than a half-hour Ramar of the Jungle episode, blown up to motion-picture length.

Sleeper has plenty of bald spots, lacks the inspired silent comedy of Take the Money and Run, but, these days, comedy beggars can't be choosers.

A dreadful witches' comedy with the only tolerable moment coming when Bette Midler presents a single song.

This middle portion of the picture becomes dangerously preachy, but just before we and Max are bored, director Miller returns Max to his roots, a screaming chase sequence through a desertlike Australian landscape.

There's no development of Turner's character. The laughs in the first reel are the same as those in the last. [15 Apr 1994, p.C]

Switch is highly recommended for Barkin's work, which has to be considered on a par with Steve Martin's similar comic turn in All of Me. [10 May 1991, p.C]

Brewster's Millions is a PG film, and the humor is sanitized. Pryor grins, Candy gurgles and we sit there stone-faced noticing all the holes in the plot. Once Pryor figures out a clever way to spend money by using rare stamps on letters, why doesn't he keep on doing it? Yes, that might make for a short movie, but given the way Brewster's Millions turned out, it would be no great loss. [22 May 1985, p.3]

Of all of its lies, the worst may be that Color of Night perpetuates the notion that people who seek therapy are more dangerous to others than those who don't. The film also makes a direct link between sexual appetite and violence.

This has to be one of the greatest casting coups and consequently blown opportunities of recent years...Streep isn't that funny in what is a frivolous role, and Barr is only mildly successful in her angry moments. [8 Dec 1989, p.A]

Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams star in a thriller about New York detectives trying to capture an international terrorist. The story is full of holes but compelling nevertheless because we do grow to hate the terrorist and want him stopped. [19 June 1981, p.8]

Ironweed is more than a chance to watch two multimillion-dollar actors play bums. Each character has a particular story; each is given a dignity that seems honest in the context of a worldwide Depression in the late '30s, and at no time are we certain what the future holds in store for either character. [12 Feb 1988, p.A]

An engaging yarn about a wealthy kid who learns to fight his way out of trouble in a rough Chicago public school. He also learns not to believe in labels placed on people. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]

Mixing moments of genuine terror with offbeat comedy, writers Tom Epperson and Thornton have created a script that jumps along wih the energy of "In Cold Blood."

This movie doesn`t have any greater meaning than offering a lot of amusing, troubling, quirky behavior. But that`s reason enough to see it.

What distinguishes The Deer Hunter most is its many rich characters and the size of its vision. This is a big film, dealing with big issues, made on a grand scale. Much of it, including some casting decisions, suggest inspiration by "The Godfather." [9 Mar 1979]

Platoon is filled with one fine performance after another, and one can only wish that every person who saw the cartoonish war fantasy that was Rambo would buy a ticket to Platoon and bear witness to something closer to the truth.

So if you're in the market for a "family" film, Natty Gann qualifies. But that doesn't mean it's a boring, namby-pamby entertainment. Rather, it's that Natty, in her cap and jacket and determined look, is a character with universal appeal. [15 Oct 1985, p.2C]

Nothing, absolutely nothing, at either location is the slightest bit funny. [13 Sep 1985, p.C]

More explosive laughs from Leslie Nielsen, Pricilla Presley, and friends (George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson) in another madcap police farce that is often so funny you lose track of the terrorist story. Alas, the comic pace is not sustained to the finish, but maybe it couldn't be. [18 Mar 1994, p.C]

There is only one problem with the excitement generated by this film. After it is over, you will walk out of the theater and, as I did, curse the tedium of your own life. I kept looking for someone who I could throw up against a wall. [8 November 1971]

The problem may be that Scorsese, arguably America's most gifted and gritty director, is working from a script not written by one of his veteran collaborators, and so the grit is gone. All of the performances are fine. Newman is particularly effective, but he is forced to run a familiar treadmill. And so The Color of Money joins Heartburn as one of the biggest disappointments of 1986.

The biggest surprise with On Golden Pond is that the best performance in the film is not turned in by a Fonda. Rather, it is Katharine Hepburn, in a performance without gimmicks or "great scenes," who communicates so much of the film's emotional power as a portrait of the serenity and anger associated with old age.

Io its credit, the film has a surprising and likely to be controversial ending. It creates moments of genuine tension that take us beyond the issue of who is more at fault and into the deeper question of what does a lifetime of commitment really require?

Her Alibi, the disappointing pairing of two fine physical specimens, model Paulina Porizkova and Tom Selleck. Neither is a major acting talent, but both are eager to please and easy on the eyes. Yet, they have chosen a script that is so light that it fails my basic test for evaluating a movie: Would it be more interesting to listen to the actors talk at lunch than to hear them run through this script? Yes, it would.

Ephron delivered an incredibly flimsy script based on her novel about her former husband's repeated infidelity during their marriage and her pregnancies. Nicholson isn't given a character to play. He just lumbers onto the screen and cheats off-camera.

Rarely has a comedy been so empty of laughs. If this film makes any money, it all should go to the person who thought up the title. [18 Sept 1987, p.A]

The story is full of good feelings, but as one sits there it all seems so predictable that you can't help but ask the point of it all. [27 Aug 1993, p.C]