Janet Maslin

Mr. Crowe (who wrote "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and directed "Say Anything") has an exceptional ability to enjoy such characters without a trace of condescension

Even when it turns turbulent, the film sustains its warm summer glow, and makes itself a conversation piece about the moral issues it means to raise.

Thanks in large part to Miss Streep's bravura performance, it's a film that casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell.

Is still sleek, gripping entertainment with a raw-nerved, changeable camera style that helps to amplify its meaning.

Brilliantly reimagines the glam-rock 70's as a brave new world of electrifying theatricality and sexual possibility, to the point where identifying precise figures in this neo-psychedelic landscape is almost beside the point.

At a time when throwaway gags seem like a luxury in any film, Airplane! has jokes—hilarious jokes—to spare. It's also clever and confident and furiously energetic, and it has the two most sadly neglected selling points any movie could want right now: it's brief (only eighty-eight minutes), and it looks inexpensive (it cost about three million dollars) without looking cheap. Airplane! is more than a pleasant surprise, in the midst of this dim movie season. As a remedy for the bloated self-importance of too many other current efforts, it's just what the doctor ordered.

Switching gears radically, bravely defying conventional wisdom about what it takes to excite moviegoers, Lynch presents the flip side of "Blue Velvet" and turns it into a supremely improbable triumph.

As a comedy of manners it has a dependably keen aim, with its most wicked barbs leavened by Mr. Mazursky's obvious fondness for his characters.

The nice thing about I.Q. is that its intelligence doesn't stop at the title. In a romantic comedy that mingles brilliant physicists with auto mechanics, everybody manages to seem smart.

A nifty example of how to make something out of nothing. Nothing but imagination, and a game plan so enterprising it should elevate its creators to pinup status at film schools everywhere.

Food and passion create a sublime alchemy in Like Water for Chocolate, a Mexican film whose characters experience life so intensely that they sometimes literally smolder.

Mr. Zemeckis is able both to keep the story moving and to keep it from going too far. He handles Back to the Future with the kind of inventiveness that indicates he will be spinning funny, whimsical tall tales for a long time to come.

This modest, enormously likable film, about love and temptation and ties that bind, is about brotherhood most of all. [9 August 1995, p.C9]

Mr. Walken, as Frank, does a memorable job of taking a fanciful projection of corruption, greed and complacency, giving it intelligence, and making it flesh and blood.

Mr. Coppola has done things this fancily before, but never with so clear and moving a sense of purpose.

If you don't share the film's piercing vision of what really matters, someday you will.

Everywhere the camera turns in this tense and volatile drama, it finds enough interest for a truckload of conventional Hollywood fare. Whatever its limitations, Cop Land has talent to burn.

''It's such a fine line between stupid and . . . '' ''And clever,'' muse the band members collectively. It certainly is- and the delightful This Is Spinal Tap stays on the right side of that line.

The Sure Thing is glowing proof of two things: Traditional romantic comedy can be adapted to suit the teen-age trade, and Mr. Reiner's contribution to ''This Is Spinal Tap'' was more than a matter of humor.

It's a film specializing in smoky, down-at-the-heels glamour, and in the kind of smart, slangy dialogue that sounds right without necessarily having much to say.

A hilariously brazen comedy whose heroine is an improbable hoot.

There are times when The Shawshank Redemption comes dangerously close to sounding one of those "triumph of the spirit" notes. But most of it is eloquently restrained.

A film that is especially impressive for the courage, intelligence and restraint with which it tackles an impossible task...What it can do, and does to such a surprising degree, is to bring the characters to life and offer fleeting glimpses into the heart of Mr. Lowry's tragedy.

Hope and Glory has an invitingly nostalgic spirit and a fine eye for the magical details that a little boy might notice.

Humorously and fondly, with an entertaining supply of what he has called "prosaic license," Stillman again displays a pitch-perfect ear for both the cattiness and the camaraderie that bind his characters into collective friendship.

On any level, earthly or otherwise, the ingenious new animated Hercules is pretty divine. With inspired intuition, Hercules brings together ancient lore, gospel singing, girl-group choreography and lots of free-floating mischief into a jubilant pastiche of classical references.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a major step forward for both stop-motion animation, which is stunningly well used, and for Mr. Burton himself. He now moves from the level of extremely talented eccentric to that of Disney-style household word.

In the process of drawing audiences into the twists and turns of a knotty detective tale, Mr. Franklin and his cinematographer, Tak Fujimoto, open up an enticing and languorous lost world.