Gene Siskel

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

Nobody's Fool was written and directed by Robert Benton, and he does a better job with his camera than with his pen. The town of North Bath is perfectly captured with rusting signage, a classic diner and bar, and dirty snow everywhere. We never feel like Newman is slumming in this town, and that is also a measure of his performance.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is, in fact, about as entertaining as a commercial movie can be. What is it? An adventure film that plays like an old-time 12-part serial that you see all at once, instead of Saturday-to-Saturday. It's a modern "Thief of Baghdad." It's the kind of movie that first got you excited about movies when you were a kid.

Huston gives one of her very best performances as a strong lady who can con almost everyone but herself. Her manner on the screen in this picture and in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors'' marks Huston as the one contemporary actress who comes closest to having the power of classic female dramatic stars of years past. [25 Jan 1991]

What "M.A.S.H." did to service comedies, what "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" did to westerns, what "The Long Goodbye" did to detective pictures, The Player does the to Hollywood success story. [24 April 1992]

Billed as one of the most frightening, depraved films ever made. Would that it were so. Instead, this is a case of much ado about nothing. [15 February 1991, Friday, p.C]

What is more striking about the film is that its secondary characters are also real. The acting appears to be non-acting. . . . Karen Black is a letter-perfect Rayette, and Lois Smith, as Robert's sister, gives the most sensitive small performance in the film. (Jack) Nicholson makes it all go. He proves he is more than a character actor with many scenes, especially the confrontation with his father.

It is precisely that interplay between tenderness and ruthlessness that is the special excitement of Mona Lisa, one of the year's most spellbinding films. [2 July 1986, p.C3]

Individual scenes work, but the movie seems overstuffed-why is the Harris character necessary-and halting.

Enchanting film.

My only quibble with the film is that the character of the Frenchman is too precious to be believed. But that's no reason to stay away from this lesiurely but powerful story of not a man and his music, but a music and one of its men. [24 Oct 1986, p.A]

Australian Judy Davis, one of our finest actresses, gives a brilliant comic performance as a bitter spurned woman venting her spleen on a hapless blind date. Sydney Pollack proves surprisingly effective in a brutal scene where he abuses a bimbo. Husbands and Wives dosen't break new ground in arguing that not breaking up is hard to do; it simply raises the debate with a mix of fine writing and tragic real-life parallels. [18 Sept 1992, p.C]

A smart, funny and hip adventure film in a summer of car wrecks and explosions. [4 July 1997]

This film would be a winner any time of the year. It`s a classic piece of moviemaking that I plan on seeing again very soon.

Martin is joyful; Chase seems depressed, and Short comes off as merely happy to be in his first movie.

One of the year`s boldest, most successful films, a film full of ideas that challenges us to examine how we conduct our lives, while at the same time dazzling us with extraordinary visuals.

Toward the end, the film resorts to placing a young girl in jeopardy in a pathetic attempt to pander to who knows what audience. Some people have praised the technical excellence of Aliens. Well, the Eiffel Tower is technically impressive, but I wouldn`t want to watch it fall apart on people for two hours.

Responsible for this trash is director Fritz Kiersch, and remember that name. Last year Kiersch gave us one of 1984`s worst films, his adaptation of Stephen King`s ''Children of the Corn.'' Now, with Tuff Turf, Kiersch has made the ''worst'' list two years in a row.

A thoroughly engaging version of country singer Loretta Lynn's autobiography. Sissy Spacek excels as Lynn and is assisted by two superior performances. Certain to be one of the year's best films.

Through technical virtuosity at every artistic level -- including the brilliant acting debut of playwright Jason Miller as the doubt-filed priest who assists Von Sydow in the exorcism -- The Exorcist becomes more than a shocking movie: a film with a strong, positive force.

A picture that represents so much of what I want and rarely get from a movie -- a couple of hours filled with characters who are as exciting as the people I know in real life. [11 Dec 1981]

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

A powerful experience. [20 Jan 1995, p.B]

Even more enjoyable than the original. [19 June 1981]

This is simply marvelous entertainment that breathes life into a genre that I thought had been dead for a decade-the prison picture.

Ron Howard's first-rate dramatic comedy Parenthood, with Steve Martin headlining a first-rate cast in a most clever script about the joy and pain of being both a parent and a child. [4 Aug 1989, p.A]

It balances bloodshed with charm, spectacle with childlike glee. It's a near flawless movie of its kind.

The essential problem with The Black Cauldron is that the central human character in the story is a complete drip, making it difficult to root for his success at saving the world from ruination.