Janet Maslin

An ingenious, cathartic exercise in illusion and fear.

With a fine vengeance along with flashes of great, unexpected tenderness, Mr. Solondz lethally evokes every petty humiliation that his seventh-grade heroine can't wait to forget.

Starman provides him with a role that, played by anyone else, might seem preposterous. In Mr. Bridges' hands it becomes the occasion for a sweetly affecting characterization - a fine showcase for the actor's blend of grace, precision and seemingly offhanded charm.

There are subtly etched characters, effortlessly fine performances, and a moving story that is not easily forgotten.

It's too smart to be maudlin.

Mr. Russell's wonderfully mad odyssey of a movie, in which a man sets out to find his biological parents and winds up meeting more weirdos than Alice found down the rabbit hole.

The ending of Jacob's Ladder, when it finally arrives, is, like much of the film, both quaint and devastating.

Neil Simon is hardly Norman Rockwell, but his Brighton Beach Memoirs has a warmly nostalgic quality, something that has traveled very nicely to the screen...A film of surprisingly gentle charms. Mr. Simon's humor is much in evidence, but it is not the film's strongest selling point. Even more effective are the sense of a place and a way of life long vanished and the care and affection with which they have been summoned up.

Mr. Ivory and Ismail Merchant have long since learned to breathe life into their material without excessive reverence, in a manner that is as decorous as it is dramatic. As might be expected, the costumes, settings and cinematography are once again ravishing.

The Madness of King George mixes the ebullience of Tom Jones with a pop-theatrical royal back-stabbing that is reminiscent of films like The Lion in Winter. That makes it a deft, mischievous, beautifully acted historical drama with exceptionally broad appeal.

The film's strength is that it sustains an intimate and realistic tone. Mr. Fishburne, who is called upon to deliver several lectures, manages to do so with enormous dignity and grace, and makes Furious a compelling role model, someone on whom the whole film easily pivots.

However endlessly film makers around the world have told that story, Mr. Zhang reimagines it with immense grace and turns it into a deeply felt tragedy.

Beautiful and heartfelt, an oasis of humanity in a season of furious hyperbole.

Broadway Danny Rose proceeds so sweetly and so illogically that it seems to have been spun, not constructed. Mr. Allen works with such speed and confidence these days that a brief, swift film like this one can have all the texture and substance of his more complicated work.

Ingenious fantasy.

It has taken only two films, "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and now Happiness, for Todd Solondz to establish his as one of the most lacerating, funny and distinctive voices in American film.

His Breakdown is a tough, vigorous exercise in pure action, shot with throwback expertise and, most refreshingly, without special effects.

Stunning...a film much tougher and more transfixing than its wan title.

A lovely, lyrical, unexpectedly delicate movie. [12 Dec 1980, p.C8]

A rueful, warmly affecting film featuring a wonderful performance by Mr. Troisi, The Postman would be attention-getting even without the sadness that overshadows it. [14 June 1995, p. C15]

Morris has fashioned a brilliant work of pulp fiction around this crime. [26 Aug 1988, p.C6]

Undeniably, there's an element of corniness to this. But that doesn't keep An Officer and a Gentleman from being a first-rate movie - a beautifully acted, thoroughly involving romance.

A handsome and fully imagined work of cautionary futuristic fiction.

A narrative path leading from the sincere to the ludicrous, and culminating in a final image of flabbergasting transcendance, gives Breaking the Waves its surprising power.

When you get the shivers watching this wintry tale unfold, it won't be from the cold.

This is a formula film, but it has the kind of good cheer and fine tuning that occasionally give slickness a good name.

The purity and breadth of this meticulous study are all the more gratifying in view of its unprepossessing style.

This film aspires to be a meditation on (among other things) art, trust, loyalty, politics and popular culture. With utter simplicity, and with unexpectedly intense storytelling, it achieves all that and more.

Drawing a parade of colorful performances from a constantly surprising cast, the curiously titled ''John Grisham's 'The Rainmaker' '' is Mr. Coppola's best and sharpest film in years.

A solidly old-fashioned courtroom drama such as The Verdict could have gotten by with a serious, measured performance from its leading man, or it could have worked well with a dazzling movie-star turn. The fact that Paul Newman delivers both makes a clever, suspenseful, entertaining movie even better.

The visual style of The Freshman isn't always up to its verbal wit, but then the writing sets an exceptional standard.

Grandly entertaining...matches the Austen-based "Clueless" for sheer fun. [13 Dec 1995]

Elegant, festive and very, very funny.

As directed exquisitely by Gillian Armstrong in a headstrong spirit that recalls her debut feature, "My Brilliant Career," this elliptical tale makes up in visual beauty whatever it lacks in universal meaning.

Fierce and disturbing, with a plot that skillfully resists following any familiar course. The film's hero fears that he's half-crazy, and for two hours Mr. Gilliam artfully keeps his audience feeling the same way.

Even though this film may do for chess what "The Red Shoes" did for ballet, it works movingly and most effectively as a family drama.

The second Star Trek movie is swift, droll and adventurous, not to mention appealingly gadget-happy. It's everything the first one should have been and wasn't.

The story is filled with strange, homespun miracles, and this single-minded little film could be counted as one of them.

For all its exaggerated ordinariness, this film seems to start where others leave off.

As Owen, Mr. DeVito is such an odd combination of the childlike and the diabolical that he remains a captivating figure throughout the story. Mr. DeVito's comic timing is particularly enjoyable, since he has such a slow, steady, deliberate way of building up to outrageous behavior.

Mr. Pitt moves through this unexpectedly solid thriller with dazzling confidence, showing off all the star power that he usually works overtime to hide.

Unfolds beautifully, with a rueful, knowing intelligence that rises above easy assumptions. [27 September 1996, p.C1]

Those unfamiliar with the book will simply appreciate a stirring, many-sided fable, one that is exceptionally well told.

It proves to be one of the more exotic blooms in the Disney hothouse, what with voluptuous flora, hordes of fauna, charming characters and excitingly kinetic animation that gracefully incorporates computer-generated motion.

Crackling good... the best crime movie in a long while.

Ms. Armstrong instantly demonstrates that she has caught the essence of this book's sweetness and cast her film uncannily well, finding sparkling young actresses who are exactly right for their famous roles.

Mr. Demme has captured both the look and the spirit of this live performance with a daring and precision that match the group's own.

Combine two stars of this wattage with a lot of techno-talk and elaborate heist plotting and you get plenty of good reasons to pay attention.

A warm, surprising, gently incandescent film that discreetly describes a family tragedy.

This film works hypnotically, with great subtlety and grace, in ways that are gratifyingly consistent with Gould's own thoughts about his music and his life.

Mulholland Falls is so well cast and relentlessly stylish (thanks to some fine technical talent assembled here) that its sheer energy prevails over its shaky plot.

Splash could have been shorter, but it probably couldn't have been much sweeter. Only purists will quibble with the blissfully happy ending, which has the lovers swimming through a shimmering underwater paradise that is supposed to be the bottom of the East River.

Mr. Eggleston proves the polished granddaddy who, early on, recognized beauty in a garish wasteland. In this accomplished look at a storied career, he instructs - without words - how to see all that is hauntingly familiar.

No one who sees Full Metal Jacket will easily put the film's last glimpse of D'Onofrio, or a great many other things about Kubrick's latest and most sobering vision, out of mind.

The film's mix of romance and reading matter is seductive in its own right, providing comfy book-lined settings and people who are what they read and write.

Barcelona, like "Metropolitan," indulges in long, hair-splitting discussions without resorting to broad gags or worrying about wearing out its welcome.

A cute, buoyant sports fantasy, jolted along by a reggae soundtrack and playfully acted by an appealing cast. This new Disney comedy is slick, funny and warmhearted, very much in the old-fashioned Disney mode.

Mr. Spielberg's 1971 television film Duel took advantage of the very narrowness of its premise, building excitement from the most minimal ingredients and the simplest of situations.

An American remake with plenty of new pizazz.

Day of the Dead has a less startling setting, since most of it takes place underground. But it still affords Mr. Romero the opportunity for intermittent philosophy and satire, without compromising his reputation as the grisliest guy around.

Even for American audiences used to the argot of Mike Leigh films, the accents are thick here and the characters impenetrable at first. But it isn't long before the film begins exerting a powerful hold, once the hard edges of its story begin to emerge.

When it comes to holiday films worth swooning over, here's the one to see.

With unexpected success, Robert Altman plays a John Grisham mystery in a seductive new key.

All things being relative, this is a dreamy, lulling film but also a more concise and straightforward one than the magnificently grandiose Ulysses' Gaze, the Angelopoulos opus that directly preceded it.

The film's greatest directorial success is in finding a thoroughly entertaining way of inviting the audience to share Valerie's point of view.

Walter Hill, the director of such beautiful but stilted tough guy movies as ''The Warriors'' and ''The Long Riders,'' has attempted something very different in 48 Hours a male-buddy action film that's positively witty and warm-hearted compared with his other work.

Local Hero is a funny movie, but it's more apt to induce chuckles than knee-slapping. Like Gregory's Girl, it demonstrates Mr. Forsyth's uncanny ability for making an audience sense that something magical is going on, even if that something isn't easily explained.

Mr. Lyne takes a brilliantly manipulative approach to what might have been a humdrum subject and shapes a soap opera of exceptional power.

The Dinner Game, which Veber wrote and directed, is one of his better-constructed comedies of errors.

Mr. Gray's feature-length monologue brings people, places and things so vibrantly to life that they're very nearly visible on the screen.

Mr. Carpenter gives this formerly black and white story a handsome color retelling and a lot of new punch. And he avidly exploits the fears that are at its heart. Now add a new one. With its baleful little villains, Village of the Damned is even creepier to watch as a parent than it was to see as a child.

It's astonishing to see a film begin this brilliantly only to torpedo itself in its final hour.

In his six years working for various movie executives, Mr. Huang filed away trenchant observations about great big egos and helpless little assistants. Now he gleefully brings those observations to the screen. His witty, score-settling Swimming With Sharks is the perfect revenge for anyone who has ever been showered with paper clips, compared unfavorably with a bath mat or ordered to place an urgent phone call to somebody who's out white-water rafting with Tom Cruise -- right now! No excuses!

Dryly clever.

Alan J. Pakula has directed an intense, enveloping, gratifyingly thorough screen adaptation of Mr. Turow's story. Mr. Pakula, who also co-wrote the film with Frank Pierson, is well suited to the job of conveying both the story's suspense and its underlying sobriety.

At heart, the film version of Less Than Zero is deeply conventional, with its underlying notion that these young people's lives are ruined because their rich parents neglect them. However, Mr. Kanievska gives it a superficial stylishness that is quite spectacular; every scene revolves around one ingeniously bizarre touch or another (the lighting effects are especially dazzling), and the cumulative effect is as striking as it means to be.

The central friendship in the movie, beautifully delineated, is the one between Mr. Nolte and Mac Davis, who expertly plays the team's quarterback, a man whose calculating nature and complacency make him all the more likable, somehow.

The real fun here comes from watching Mr. Kline bounding through two archly good performances, Mr. Cleese coming hilariously unstrung in the presence of Ms. Curtis and all those adorable animals.

As directed by Lewis Teague, Cujo is by no means a horror classic, but it's suspenseful and scary. The performances are simple and effective, particularly Miss Wallace's. And Danny Pintauro does a good job as the frightened child.

An intense, volatile film full of sorrow and wild, mordant humor.

If this, the best American comedy since Tootsie, doesn't have you in stitches, check your vital signs: you may be in as much trouble as Edwina Cutwater, the dying dowager Miss Tomlin plays.

Made with such overriding jubilation that its coarseness is mostly liberating...well worth admiring for its sheer glee.

The filmmaker creates schematic, intuitive images that hauntingly crystallize the characters' situations.

Chet Baker's face, and the extraordinary ways in which Bruce Weber has photographed it, encapsulate the story of Baker's life in a succession of ghostly, indelible images that are at once hauntingly beautiful and desperately sad.

By turns funny, vulgar and backhandedly clever, never more so than when it aspires to absolute stupidity. And Mr. Martin, who began his career with an arrow stuck through his head, has since developed a real genius for playing dumb.

The music alone would be enough to make Say Amen, Somebody worth seeing. But it has warmth and friendliness, too, and some of its family scenes are as memorable as its songs.

If it was finally the book's whimsical side that endeared it to so many readers, the movie is missing none of that charm. If anything, it's got a little more...A gentle, intelligent film and an interesting one.

He (Liman) creates a film that lives up to the momentum of its title and doesn't really need much more.

Cool, stark compositions and the occasional audacious visual trick give Buffalo '66 a memorable look even when its narrative enters the occasional uneventful stretch.

What elevates these scenes from the usual concert simulations - and what gives the entire film its tremendous immediacy - is the extraordinary way in which Miss Lange has molded herself to fit the music. Although the performance is conspicuously prop-heavy, with brittle wigs and an enormous number of costume changes, Miss Lange makes herself a perfect physical extension of the vibrant, changeable, enormously expressive woman who can be heard on these recordings.

A film this intent on authenticity might easily grow dull, but this one doesn't; Mr. Apted is a skillful storyteller. He gives Thunderheart" a brisk, fact-filled exposition and a dramatic structure that builds to a strong finale, one that effectively drives the film's message home.

Basketball, bold urban landscapes, larger-than-life characters and red-hot visual pyrotechnics are the strong points of Mr. Lee's biggest three-ring circus, not to mention the central presence of Denzel Washington.

Behind the film's easygoing mood there is firm directorial control. This, together with Mr. Roemer's keen sense of personality and place and his wry humor, accounts for why The Plot Against Harry holds up so well.

National Lampoon's Animal House is by no means one long howl, but it's often very funny, with gags that are effective in a dependable, all-purpose way.

Mr. Hanks's debut feature, written and directed with delightful good cheer, is rock-and-roll nostalgia presented as pure fizz.

But Mr. Penn mostly keeps a tight, impassioned grip on this material, preventing it from wandering too far afield. The influence of John Cassavetes is again clear in the characters' emotional sparring, which has energy and heart.

Two little words: Jim Carrey. That's all it takes to transform Liar Liar from a formulaic Hollywood comedy into an uproarious one-man free-for-all.

Charlie Sheen brings just the right exaggerated seriousness to his ace pilot's role, and Cary Elwes perfectly captures the ingenue arrogance of Topper's handsome rival. Jon Cryer, as a pilot with major eyesight problems, also displays expert deadpan timing, especially when he delivers the film's most uproarious line.