Hal Lipper

Oliver Stone's Platoon is the most sobering Vietnam War epic ever made. It is an unqualified triumph for its honesty, its artistry, its brutality and its frank portrayal of a nation - our nation - divided by ideology, poverty, racism and drugs. [25 Jan 1987, p.1E]

An absolute masterpiece in the Disney tradition. [17 Nov 1989, p.11]

Distant Voices, Still Lives is both a personal and social portrait. It often flows without dialogue, eloquently relating a tragic story that words could not describe. [10 Nov 1989, p.13]

Aladdin is a treat for adults, as much as it is for children, because the big blue Genie of the lamp is none other than Robin Williams. [25 Nov 1992, p.7B]

Bertrand Tavernier's 'Round Midnight is a superlative elegy, a bluesy, melancholy movie dedicated to expatriate jazzmen Bud Powell and Lester Young. It captures the essence of their music, moving with the smokey, meandering rhythms of bebop. [03 Feb 1987, p.3D]

Despite its commercial leanings, Dragnet is consistently entertaining. Its acting is flawless and its tone is refreshingly reverent toward the old Dragnet series. [26 June 1987, p.1D]

Yet the sting of truth and insight that Husbands and Wives provides is such a rarity in cinema, even in Allen's movies, that Husbands and Wives emerges a singular achievement, ranking among Allen's best. [18 Sept 1992, p.22]

The particular genius of My Life As a Dog is its ability to capture the joy, fear and fantasy that make pre-adolescence so beguiling. [18 Sept 1987, p.3D]

Levinson's Bugsy is painted against a vast tableau as sprawling as his Avalon and Rain Man. Bugsy is his most sophisticated film to date, a celebration of an outlaw's scheme to turn sand into gold; not for profit, but for love of a woman called Flamingo. [20 Dec 1991, p.24]

These are minor quibbles with a stunning achievement. For All Mankind rewrites history, creating a single glorious adventure from a generation of giant leaps for all mankind. [20 July 1990, p.7]

Too often, the movie relies on the contrived situations endemic to gangster movies, rather than explore new routes to tell the story. Yet, there is an undeniable visual power that places The Untouchables in the class of The Godfather and Once Upon a Time in America. [3 June 1987, p.1D]

The Witches is a delectably creepy movie guaranteed to keep night lights burning bright.

Biloxi Blues is sweet, nostalgic and readily forgettable. But it is entertaining. And in this case, that's all that is required. [25 Mar 1988, p.7]

There are occasional missteps. The movie's pacing is uneven. The scandal is overblown...But the performances are excellent, and the sentiment is honed to ugly perfection.

Stand and Deliver does what it promises. It delivers. [30 Mar 1988, p.1D]

A League of Their Own is a grand-slam comic drama. Superbly written, acted and directed. [1 July 1992, p.1D]

Bob Roberts is the meanest, most outrageous movie to come out of the emasculated American left in a decade. It's a triumphant satire. [25 Sep 1992, p.9]

10 Cloverfield Lane superbly shuffles what we know (and don't) and what the characters are experiencing.

The Last of the Mohicans is grand entertainment. Romantic, exciting, though unremittingly violent at times, it is rich in frontier lore and in its respect for the land that the conquering settlers too often take for granted. [25 Sep 1992, p.5]

Writer-director Levinson returns to Baltimore (his home town) with a perceptive, rueful comedy called Tin Men. It is about male camaraderie and revenge, and it, too, uses its setting as a statement. Baltimore, circa 1963, represents hope, transition and a fading American Dream. [13 Mar 1987, p.1D]

One of the finest pictures released this year. [13 Nov 1987, p.1D]

Radio had a mystical power that television never has been able to re-create. Its sound effects and faceless voices stirred the imagination and quite often the heart. Allen captures its essence with an anguished broadcast from the scene of an accident, an attempted rescue of a young girl wedged in a well shaft. [20 Feb 1987, p.1D]

A pleasant surprise. It's a gentle, unforced adult comedy that capitalizes on situations rather than gags. [19 June 1987, p.1D]

The Commitments is a noisy, gritty, foul-mouthed movie with strong Irish sentiments and accents as pungent as stout. [13 Sep 1991, p.20]

Stone's riveting three-hour movie freely mixes black and white and color documentary footage with pseudo-documentary and dramatic footage, so the line between real and fabrication is constantly blurred. [20 Dec 1991, p.7]

How much you enjoy Presumed Innocent depends on whether you read Scott Turow's exhilarating legal thriller about a prosecutor charged with murdering a colleague who was briefly his lover. If you haven't, director Alan J. Pakula's adaptation will leave you dazzled and drained long before the final twist. If you have, you'll appreciate Pakula's faithful, though overly restrained, approach to Turow's 1987 novel that sold 1-million hardback copies and spent 44 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. [27 July 1990, p.6]

While Husbands and Wives is mired in mid-life, Singles is buoyed by the exhilaration of young people experiencing the initial freedom of adulthood. The concerns are similar. But the outlook of each generation couldn't be more different. [18 Sept 1992, p.5]

If you let it, Damage can be an exhilarating and a devastating leap into the realm of erotic obsession. [22 Jan 1993, p.8]