Gene Siskel

Fresh is Boyz N the Hood meets Searching for Bobby Fischer. Key to the success of the film is the solemn performance by young Sean Nelson. We stare at him in much the same way as we gazed upon that little girl in the red coat in Schindler's List, a human face walking through a tragedy.

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]

It is played out in such a special, gentle way that you will want to anticipate and savor it for yourself. [31 Jan 1986, p.30N]

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]

A better film about love delayed than "Sleepless in Seattle." It's funnier, more credible, more bittersweet and the characters are a whole lot brighter. Naturally, it won't be as big a hit. [18 March 1994, Friday, p.C]

Kenneth Branagh's earnest adaptation of Shakespeare's serious comedy about love is undone by, of all things, Branagh's enthusiasm for this material to be joyful. He practically busts through the screen in an effort to please. His wife, Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, is more restrained as his dueling lover and creates a more credible character. [21 May 1993, p.C]

Tarantino's debut directing job acknowledges the sloppiness and silences that are typically squeezed out of most crime films, but we get the point early on and the remainder is macho posturing. [23 Oct 1992]

By the time Mikey and Nicky reaches its conclusion, the film stands by itself as one of the few pictures to approximate the sloppiness, the randomness, the serendipity of life. [26 Apr 1985, p.A]

Petersen is to be congratulated for creating a solid character out of a film that likes its decor and soundtrack more than its actors. [1 Nov 1985, p.A]

Dafoe manages to draw us into the mystery, anguish and joy of the holy life. This is anything but another one of those boring biblical costume epics. There is genuine challenge and hope in this movie. [12 Aug 1988, p.A]

Sarandon delivers one of her very best performances; her shock at encountering the wrath of the victim's family is registered beautifully. And Sean Penn, who for too long has suffered with the label of being a "bad boy," gives an Oscar-caliber performance.[12 January 1996, Friday, p.B]

An uneven special effects extravaganza about a little boy who winds up traveling through world history along with five midgets. Together they meet and frustrate the great and the near-great. Including Napoleon, Robin Hood, and the devil. Unfortunately, there are just too many visits to famous people. The film was created by some of the people responsible for the Monty Python comedies. [25 Dec 1981, p.12]

The excellence of Red Rock West goes beyond the intricate plotting by brothers John and Rick Dahl. The casting couldn't be better.

Featuring an all-black cast, this little film is a revelation, primarily because it provides black faces with the most natural dialogue they've had in years. She`s Gotta Have It is neither a crime story nor a heavy message movie, and the conversations in it are therefore free of the shackles of most minority-oriented stories.

Director Joseph Ruben would have done much better to limit the physical horror and make it more of a psychological terror game.

The film would be funnier and more provocative if it took a stronger stand on one side or the other, but Howard chooses to hedge his bets, selecting an ending that celebrates brotherhood more than the strongly hinted- at notion that American workers would do well to get off their featherbedding backs.

There is no question that this film is flawed by the inclusion of the party scene and Ratzo's dream, but I cannot recall a more marvelous pair of acting performances in any one film. Dustin Hoffman deserves the Oscar for a role that is prickly on the outside, but tender on the inside.

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.

A beautifully directed melodrama similar to Hollywood pictures of the golden era. [22 Dec 1991, p.5C]

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.

Ethics aside, the filmmaking by DePalma is stylish and alternates between shocking surprise and hold-your-breath quiet.

A refreshing if obvious drama. [9 June 1989, Friday, p.A]

The dance sequences are sexy and energetic, more than compensating for a love relationship in the film that is thoroughly illogical and wooden. [22 July 1983]

A sometimes silly, occasionally hilarious, and often sophomoric spoof of airline disaster films in which a passenger tries to land a disabled plane. Some of the jokes are tasteless, but there is a general air of good cheer as the script laughs most of all at the already laughable "Airport" movie series. [11 July 1980, p.3-8]

Marlon Brando returns to the movies with one of his funniest performances as, in essence, Don Corleone with a screw loose.

To miss this film is to cheat yourself and your family of a memorable moviegoing experience.

A strangely powerful yet meandering film that takes a long time to make its point.

Coppola has raised the stakes, promising the definitive version of the vampire story. What he has created, however, is fresh and original yet boring, an exercise more in art direction than storytelling. [13 Nov 1992, p. C]