Jack Kroll

This courageous film breaks new ground in movie musicals. [21 Dec 1981, p.49]

A powerhouse of a film, an epic of sixteenth-century Japan swarming with savage action and even more savage irony. [13 Oct 1980, p.131]

A unique and provocative film, ironic, funny, crazy and moving. [26 Oct 1981, p.78]

Sarandon and Davis give superb, wonderfully interactive performances: funky, fierce, funny and poignant. [27 May 1991]

Splendid film...Just as the recent "Chariots of Fire" did, Robert Towne's Personal Best takes the world of track and field as a microcosm for the ecstasies and pains of self-striving. And it dares, with great delicacy and insight, to show a loving sexual relationship between two young women, not as a statement about homosexuality but as a paradigm of authentic human intimacy. [8 Feb 1982, p.60]

The Terminator is a splendid meta-monster, Frankensteined for the computer age. And Cameron devises not one, not two but, well, let's call it X climaxes that will melt the hinges of your jaws. [19 Nov 1984, p.132]

Alan J. Pakula has succeeded brilliantly in converting that outworn myth into a brand-new myth that conforms to our time. Pakula drives moral and ideological meanings straight to your nervous system by the rhythms of his imagery and editing. But Pakula is subtler, less melodramatic. Redford and Hoffman really are ordinary guys doing an ordinary job. But film shows how their tenacity, their doggedness, become under pressure much more than mere professional virtues. [05 Apr 1976, p.85]

Almost certainly Joplin's friends, associates and many of her old fans will accuse The Rose of distortion, sentimentality, vulgarization andother crimes. They will not be entirely wrong, and yet Mark Rydell's film has a certain coarse, splashy integrity. And it has a remarkable, going-all-the-way performance by Bette Midler in her first movie. [12 Nov 1979, p.107]

Eating Raoul is only one of the many outrageous things that Paul and Mary Bland do in this outrageous black comedy that's almost certain to be the up-from-underground movie of the year. [11 Oct 1982, p.103]

At times veering toward the portentous, the film nonetheless has the relentless rhythm of a juggernaut. The acting is first-rate American realism -- gutsy, funny and scary as the occasion demands. [09 June 1986, p.79]

An absorbing, well-crafted, honorable movie that seems almost as ambitious as the original operation itself. [20 Jun 1977, p.65]

Central America has become a kind of hell on earth, and "Salvador" scorches us with this infernal truth. [17 March 1986, p.81]

Lange gets deep into these numbers, the sound and spirit of Patsy seeming to stream through her face, body and hands with the musical equivalent of that hunger for living. Hominy Harmonies: Lange's energy, sensuality and intelligence pump iron into Getchell's script, which doesn't have the bite and color of his "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." [7 Oct 1985, p.88]

Despite pitfalls of bathos and silliness, Knightriders has a startling sweetness, warmth and humor. [13 April 1981, p.82]

Robertson, the former rock star, is a natural screen presence who's learning how to act; Busey is a sophisticated young actor who makes everything look natural. Best of all is Jodie Foster as a teen-age runaway who joins the carnival. Now 17, she has the wise but innocent smile of a kid Mona Lisa and an irresistible acting style that combines tough realism and pure poetry. [23 May 1980, p.75]

Price's vision was realistic and romantic at the same time, the violence painful but also sensual, the mood charged with a sweet hopelessness. Philip Kaufman's tough but tender film emphasizes this double vision. It's like Grease with brass knuckles. [16 July 1979, p.93]

Purists will cavil -- or choke -- and not everything works, but this film does more than rough justice to its source -- including McKellen's portrait of a man who tries to redeem his deformed body by deforming his soul. [29 Jan 1996, p.58]

Saint Jack should clear away all irrelevancies, reminding us that Bogdanovich is a gifted and distinctive director who should be making movies, not enemies. [07 May 1979, p.88]

The fun of They All Laughed is that it's both blithe and knowing, a work carefree in its spirit and careful in its art, somehow French in the way of (so help me!) Rene Clair. [30 Nov 1981, p.105]

The first major film dealing with photojournalism, Under Fire expertly uses the American movies' conventions of excitement and romance to put into sharp focus tough questions of truth, ethics, politics and ultimately consciousness itself. [24 Oct 1983, p.124]

Switch plays witty and wise games with every shade of sexuality. [20 May 1991, p.56]

The gags as usual vary in quality from gold to zinc, but what makes Silent Movie more than a string of gags is the comic sensibility of Brooks. [12 Jul 1976, p.69]

Marathon Man is an intelligent and largely satisfying thriller, written by William Goldman from his own novel, directed by John Schlesigner and photographed by Conrad Hall. But the most satisfying element is the work of Olivier, one of the few who turn acting into one of the great humane progressions of Western civilization. [11 Oct 1976]

The Onion Field is one of the best films of the year, a powling, gripping, disturbing movie that has its own far-from-simple vision of evil in our wretched and sinister cities. [24 Sep 1979, p.107]

Moving like a dream that explodes into reality, Chocolat is blessed with superb acting, especially by its star, the African-born Bankole. His quiet eloquence and suppressed passion express the human cost of an unjust political system. [27 Mar 1989, p.68]

The Streep-De Niro show is bringing back the sizzle and savor of the golden age of movie couples. [03 Dec 1984, p.78]

Slacker is a very funny, oddly touching, weirdly appealing look at the young (and not so young) people who live (sort of) in the nooks and crannies of this college town. [22 July 1991, p.57]

In THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN, they're at their most golden, ethical and sexy. This ability to make right-mindedness so seductive, stylish and debonair is what makes The Electric Horseman such a sweet and beguiling movie. [17 Dec 1979, p.112]