Gene Siskel

Viewing UHF may be injurious to your sense of humor. Rarely has a comedy tried so hard and failed so often to be funny. [21 Jul 1989, p.A]

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]

What we have here is a much less radical movie than writer Hughes probably believes he has created. Yes, he's given us an individualistic girl, but she swoons like a robot after the first reasonably human WASP or WASC asks her for a date. [2 Feb 1986]

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.

The film is violent and a little gross in one or two scenes, but there is an intelligence in its writing by Bob Hunt and direction by Jack Sholder that makes everything worthwhile. [30 Oct 1987, p.41C]

It so often is a joy to look at and so often a pain to listen to.

The third and easily the worst in the series of hapless adventures of the Griswold family of suburban Chicago. [1 Dec 1989, p.A]

Enchanting film.

There is one hilarious sight gag involving prophylactics, and one can't argue with the film's sobering message, but otherwise Ritter's character is mostly a bore. [3 March 1989, p.A]

The story has no center; the duck is not likable, and the costly, overwrought, laser-filled special effects that conclude the movie are less impressive than a sparkler on a birthday cake.

Leave it to an American production team to remake the same premise into an inarguably worse movie. And this insufferable remake called The Man with One Red Shoe marks the second time in as many years that producer Victor Drai, a former estate developer, has taken a French movie and turned it into garbage. Last year he took the genuinely amusing ''Pardon Mon Affair'' and reworked it with the help of the increasingly annoying Gene Wilder into ''The Lady in Red,'' one of the year`s worst movies.

As it is, Betsy's Wedding is pleasant fluff when Alda isn't on the screen. [22 Jun 1990, p.C2]

The film's strength is director Jim McBride's seemingly easy way of presenting us with a New Orleans that is more malevolent and intoxicating than the tourist trap that some think it to be.

This House ought to be condemned for its insulting use of the Vietnam War and children as props for its nonsensical violence tinged with pathetic attempts at humor. [4 March 1986, p.C4]

[Cage] cracks wise throughout the third act and is almost entertaining enough to make this absurdly energetic movie recommendable.

A visual delight and a dramatic letdown. [10 Jun 1990, p.4C]

So what we have in the middle of Back to the Future, this seeming kids' movie full of screeching cars, special effects and lightning storms, is nothing less than an adult reverie. And if families could be persuaded to see this film together, it might touch off a long night of sharing between parents and children. [03 July 1985]

The physical scale of Ran is overwhelming. It's almost as if Kurosawa is saying to all the cassette buyers of America, in a play on Clint Eastwood`s phrase, "Go ahead, ruin your night"--wait to see my film on a small screen and cheat yourself out of what a movie can be.

The crosscultural action picture might have worked if the filmmakers had come up with a script in which Douglas' character had been rendered weak and confused by being a fish trying to swim in strange waters. But instead he is presented as a traditional action hero dominating everyone in sight. The cultural imperialism of that decision makes for a routine and frequently offensive story full of Asian stereotypes. Director Scott (Blade Runner, Alien) certainly knows how to photograph arresting architecture, but the high-gloss look of Black Rain only intensifies the shortcomings of the pedestrian story.

There are a couple of potentially interesting movies lurking inside Heaven Help Us, a film that, sadly, doesn`t have the guts to push any one of its elements to the hilt. The result is a picture that is sort of a comedy, sort of a romance and sort of a condemnation of parochial schools, all wrapped up in a nostalgia piece about the mid-`60s.

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]

Byrne is a major musical artist, as he was shown to be in his rock concert film Stop Making Sense, but as a filmmaker he has barely stretched his muscles. [31 Oct 1986, p.A]

The most interesting story about this movie would be the amount of money Hawn and Sylbert got paid for ripping off ''Private Benjamin,'' and how they managed to lure the usually talented director Michael Ritchie (''The Candidate,'' ''Smile'') into joining their caper. Their story of wheeling and dealing would make a more exciting movie than ''Wildcats,'' which concludes with--you`ll never guess--a championship game between Goldie`s dirty two-dozen and the seemingly invincible crosstown rivals....Believe me: The tension will send you immediately to the candy counter.

What's so funny about Down and Out In Beverly Hills is not its moral imperative to appreciate life's simple, enduring pleasures. True, we get that message, and we appreciate it, but we already know that motto even if we don't live by it. No, what's funny is director Mazursky's extraordinarily fine eye and ear for capturing the way the wealthy residents of Beverly Hills walk, talk, dress and think.

A joy to behold, a complex film that never loses either its sense of purpose or sense of humor. [7 February 1986, Friday, p.33]

Gary Busey, Robbie Robertson, and Jodi Foster star in a romantic triangle about some carnival sharpies and a runaway girl. A beautiful portrait of the carnival as an American institution. [18 July 1980, p.8]

Dave has been directed by Ivan Reitman in a refreshingly restrained fashion-there are plenty of quiet passages, rare for American movies these days-which compliments Kevin Kline's wonderful work as well.

Bruce Willis' film debut should prove to be a disappointment for Moonlighting fans, because the script he has been given here does not compare to the elaborate material he has worked with on some episodes of the TV show. Willis plays a business man who winds up falling in love with a woman (Kim Basinger) who goes crazy every time she has a drink. Director Blake Edwards (10) does not distinguish himself with this exercise in nonstop slapstick, and the performances of both Willis and Basinger are lost amid the rubble. [08 May 1987, p.C7]