Jami Bernard

Aside from its relentless exploitation of a child, this minor thriller features an intriguing beginning, a middling middle and an increasingly silly end, with a multitude of red herrings going squoosh underfoot.

Outside of the leads, the acting is uneven, but The Tao of Steve has an unquenchable playful spirit.

A gentle comic stew of monster movies, adding dashes of Bugs Bunny irreverence and British gentility.

The film paints an affectionate portrait of a wry, somewhat addled man whose hard-partying past was in stark contrast with his later life - a fluffy cat nestles in his guitar case while he explains his nickname.

Noir has never been this bright.

Sharp, erotic performances are the mainstay of Olivier Assayas' unnerving Demonlover, a visually stylish movie that equates and fuses high-stakes corporate negotiations with the video-game mentality.

Gore fans will dig the makeup effects and some of the tongue-in-cheek slice-&-dice.

The deliberate simplicity that works so well at the Sullivan Street Theater seems flat, anachronistic and almost spooky on the big screen.

A sharply comic critique of corporate greed might have added to the national dialogue, but this is a series of hit-&-miss sketches.

There is a very sharp, funny critique of ambition and self-made gurus in The Mystic Masseur, but it is obscured by a softening bloat.

Evans fumbles through painfully extended homophobic jokes, weak double entendres and agonizingly contorted double-takes.

The Substitute is just engaging enough that you won't wonder until after the movie why Mr. Smith is apparently the only teacher in the entire school. [19 Apr 1996, p.65]

It's sweet but not the least bit plausible that any kid in the mid-'80s would be surprised that along with rock 'n' roll come sex and drugs.

It's a movie that should have been called on account of boredom.

It's a bit of an oddball story, but surely there was a less plodding way to elaborate on it.

Silly supernatural Viking epic.

A great divorce movie. It's also one of the canniest comedies ever made about a certain kind of literary pretension.

The picture's a dud... Instead of Chow's gravitas rubbing off on the kid, Scott's dude-ness dilutes Chow's authority.

Ben Affleck's goose is cooked with Surviving Christmas, a movie that makes "Gigli" look like one of the crowning moments in his career.

Modest and polite. That's not a ringing endorsement of Michael Showalter's good-natured comedy, but there are enough laughs in it if you're willing to settle.

A well-acted and surprisingly thoughtful treatment of the same old, same old.

A depressingly hollow vehicle.

Union is a brilliant spitfire, though one wishes the script had been run past an English major. But the movie's flaws are smoothed over by a rousing soundtrack, some excellent comic performances and the star-making moves of LL Cool J.

Alamo buffs will be delighted, and everyone else will be treated to something that feels like Old Hollywood crossed with new sensibilities.

Alana De Roma is going to be a tremendous star.

Overall the tone is dark and nasty, exemplified by the inelegant signature kung-fu move of the good guys -- a backward kick to the groin.

Surprises, repulses and provokes. It's also brilliant and infuriating, wise and naïve, outrageous yet unforgettable.

The movie's clever ambiguity allows a number of interpretations. Perhaps it is all a dream, a parable, or a combination of wishful thinking and reality.