Jay Carr

[Verhoeven's] cold, slick, funny, high-powered movie is informed by a humanism this genre almost always abandons in its chase after vigilante splat. [17 Jul 1987]

Junior isn't brilliant. A lot of its moves are as patently synthetic as Schwarzenegger's prosthetic stomach. But it goes through its paces with directness and savvy, arranges its big, bold elements into a likable pop construct (if you tune out the music), and some of Schwarzenegger's moves into motherhood will surprise you. [23 Nov 1994, p.25]

Suggests a summit meeting between ''The Princess Bride'' and ''Bridget Jones's Diary,'' it has a decided charm of its own.

Without Limits gives us the achievement, gives us Prefontaine'sflaws alongside the considerable appeal, makes us feel his loss. It's miles beyond the previous biofilm about him, Prefontaine. It works because it makes running a subset of being maniacal - and nothing works better in a movie. [13 Sep 1998, p.N25]

Titanic is a big-budget spectacle and director Cameron brings it off with high-tech bravura, placing us aboard the ship in real time.

It is Close's performance that gives the movie its oomph and will leave adults with smiles as wide as the kids'.

Give your brain the night off, and Myers will make you smile too.

Harris means to give us a realistic look at contemporary African-American women and succeeds impressively. [09 Apr 1993, p.46]

It plays like Scorsese's ``After Hours,'' but for higher stakes.

Alice isn't one of the best Allen films, but it's one of the better ones, generating more than enough whimsical fantasy to surmount its tacked-on moral. We're talking choice fluff here. [25 Jan 1991, p.29P]

It's a surprisingly sweet underdog immigrant coming-of-age story set in 1961. [24 Oct 1997]

The triumph of La Cienaga lies in Martel's way of fashioning the kind of ensemble performance that draws us in by convincing us we're watching behavior, not acting.

Black comedy and film noir are around one another smartly and wickedly in Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave, a tense, twisty Scottish-made thriller that's going to break out of Glasgow in a big way. [24 Feb 1995]

There are three main reasons for seeing Someone Like You - Ashley Judd, Ashley Judd, and Ashley Judd.

Alda's work as a writer on M*A*S*H didn't go to waste. His script delivers a lot of laughs - patently related to TV sitcom, but laughs all the same. Betsy's Wedding is fun, and LaPaglia is a find. [22 Jun 1990, p.43p]

Until it goes off course, Limbo not only is up to Sayles's high standard, but extends it. [04 Jun 1999, p.C4]

Something to Talk About is one of the summer's very few adult movies, and while it's flawed and meanders into slackness, it also offers kinds of rewards few studio movies do. [4 Aug 1995, p.49]

Somewhat sanitized but gorgeous Americana, with another impressive turn by McTeer.

The film's flaws seem unimportant, and it passes the big test, making you want to find out what happens to these characters, even when what does happen is predictable.

Washington and the others score in this predictable but rousing film where the big victory is over attitudes.

Despite the fact that Doc Hollywood isn't exactly brimful of surprises, it's awfully easy to take because it seems a throwback to the kind of formula movies studios used to grind out by the bushel in the '30s and '40s, relying on a squad of accomplished secondary and character roles to flesh them out agreeably. [02 Aug 1991, p.41]

Charming and, compared with most Hollywood films like it, refreshing.

The Lost Boys is schlock, but it's juicy schlock. [31 Jul 1987, p.34]

Slick and outrageous and subversively funny, Doom Generation is the kind of date movie that will tell you perhaps more than you want to know about your date. [03 Nov 1995, p.46]

Miller is going to take some heat for making this new film inhabit a cruel world. But better that than sugarcoating the story. He's found a way to recycle a popular film - choppily perhaps, episodically perhaps, but provocatively. [25 Nov 1998, p.C1]

A solidly crafted, suspensefully written, powerfully acted little juggernaut.

(Washington's is) an astonishing performance, partly because it's so devoid of histrionics, and it has Oscar nomination written all over it.

It's all glossy urban fairy-tale stuff, laid on with style to spare, given added resonance by a mini-pantheon of French movie goddesses.

Tearjerking aside, Untamed Heart reminds us of the bravery it takes to love. That's the ultimate source of its appeal. [12 Feb 1993, p.50]

This is a sizzling, invigorating Hamlet.

I'd take a chance on it anyway, even if it stumbles and loses its way.

Movingly recounts a hitherto untold story in the voices of the people who lived it.

As generic as its title, but two things enable it to land: the basic likability of Mark Wahlberg as the wannabe protagonist, and the contagious energies in the rock concert sequences.

Down in the Delta, Maya Angelou's film-directing debut, strongly establishes her ability to command emotional authenticity and fashion-rich, beautifully wrought images that tap into the stabilizing dignity of family life. [25 Dec 1998, p.C7]

Dodging the pitfalls of making a film about a writer is no small challenge, but Campion succeeds unforgettably in Angel at My Table. [14 Jun 1991, p.31]

The film belongs to Donohue's cool, toothy slinker, who sports instant fangs when she lures a pimply student into her bath and later shimmies deadpan out of an art nouveau urn when the snake-charming record starts its amplified grooving. [11 Nov 1988, p.61]

Scott makes it easy to overlook the conventionality beneath his sometimes overdone but almost always enjoyable combination of atmosphere and propulsiveness.

Tone is everything here, and the film never loses the smiling poise and benevolence that help you buy its gauzy plot as the three sashay through it. Douglas Carter Beane's script is witty as well as buoyant, which is a big help. [08 Sep 1995, p.99]

Likable, go-with-the-flow comedy.

A solid, not to say ironclad, winner in the less than overcrowded family animation arena.

It's huge, brilliant, dark and cathartic, with a towering and complex performance by Anthony Hopkins that humanizes Nixon more than Nixon ever was able to humanize himself. [20 Dec 1995, p.33]

A lively and affectionate cross between an infomercial and a genuflection.

Many spy capers lose their intended irony and wry black humor, but The Tailor of Panama stays stylishly on target in ways that would put a heat-seeking missile to shame.

But, fittingly, it's the kids who carry this outing. They're led by Sean Astin, who's rightly more of a dreamer than the others. Jeff B. Cohen engagingly handles the most cliched role, the fat kid who keeps stuffing his face. And I couldn't help wondering if Ke Huy Quan, who played Indy's sidekick in the Temple of Doom, knows that not all movies are made in caves. In any case, you can relax. The Goonies is entertaining despite its calculated flavor. [7 Jun 1985, p.61]

It's funky and funny, not just sleek, riding witty repartee that makes it seem an extension of the fizzy, romantic comedies of the '30s (as well as the Harlem Renaissance, invoked by its poetry club scenes). [14 Mar 1977, p.C1]

It's intelligently crafted, above average for this presumably dying genre, and if you can get past a couple of potential credibility problems, you'll find it absorbing. [23 Mar 1990, p.45]

At times, there's no escaping the schematic nature of what's unfolding - such as the buddies' horseplay, and an ending that seems tacked on. But Savoca makes it all happen with a charm that overcomes the lapses in the script. [04 Oct 1991, p.44]

The kind of film you've got to admire simply for the way it squares its shoulders and plunges into a message of unfashionable idealism.

Hot Shots! revels in absurdity. At times it's as surreal as the Marx Brothers. [21 May 1993, p.26]

Stephen Frears' Hero is a slyly entertaining reinvention of the old newspaper comedy - Frank Capra's Meet John Doe, William Wellman's Nothing Sacred, Howard Hawks' The Front Page - on the altar of TV. In an image-dominated age, what does the concept of heroism mean? Not much, once TV gets hold of it, Hero says. But it's peachy, not preachy, celebrating energy, resourcefulness and cheerful amorality. [02 Oct 1992, p.45]

If The Mighty Quinn is slight, it's also very easy to take. And its soundtrack is a treat. [17 Feb 1989, p.90]

The Big Lebowski isn't quite up to the level of the Coen brothers' best films - "Miller's Crossing," "Fargo" and "Barton Fink." But second-level Coen brothers can be funnier than first-level almost everybody else. [6 March 1998, p.D5]

Is a chamber romance, in that there's nothing grand or sweeping about it, but it's got all the style it needs to go with those glorious Tuscan settings.

Give it a chance and you'll probably share the cast's collective impulse to dive in and embrace it.

Light on its feet and reveling in its deviousness, it stays one step ahead of us .

Sitting through Lethal Weapon 2 is like dating a jackhammer. It's a slick, cynical, high-speed assembly line of car chases, jokes, sex, explosions and blood. [41 Jul 1989, p.41]

Stylish, sad, opulent, brilliant, and clear-eyed, Wilde does justice to its complex subject. It should stand as the definitive biofilm for years to come. [05 Jun 1998, p.D6]

It brings an enlivening wit to a comedy of culture collision.

I Went Down is an offbeat Irish gangster movie that overcomes its meandering nature with engaging performances, an avoidance of formula, and, above all, its characters' way of making us take everything personally - as they certainly do. [1 July 1998, p.F4]

Cruise will never be a master thespian, but there's no one better at putting across the charisma of control, and the opening sequence of ''Report'' is an astonishingly fluid demonstration of his gifts.

Filled with fun, style, and ensemble give-and-take, the peppy Love and Other Catastrophes restores one's faith in sex, lies, and videotape. [11 Apr 1997, p.C7]

Brown and Dennehy aren't teen-age, they're not mutants, they're not ninjas, they're not even turtles, but they're just as entertaining the second time around, and of how many sequels can that be said? [10 May 1991, p.30]

Most of the time Things Change makes you marvel at how fresh a mob comedy can seem in the right hands. [21 Oct 1988, p.49]

A smartly crafted throwback to the gritty Manhattan crime melodramas of the '40s .

Not only reminds us that there's a little larceny in all of us, it reminds us how much fun it can be to commune with our inner thieves.

There's almost too much there, but the three-hour-plus film permits the kind of detailing that not only brings the storytelling to life, but sometimes persuades us we're breathing to its rhythms.

Reminds us that the human dynamic can do a lot that explosions can't, even when the film flirts with formula.

Invigorating excellence.

Housesitter is the kind of sweet little user-friendly concoction that until very recently defined the term summer movie. It won't solve the environmental crisis or raise your IQ, but neither is it likely to promote brain damage, which immediately puts it miles ahead of, say, the presidential race. And, needless to say, it's funnier. [12 June 1992, p.29]

Man Bites Dog brings new meaning to the term guilty pleasure...You will by now be thinking that "Man Bites Dog" isn't easy to take. It isn't. But the viciousness of its violence is justified by the fact that it isn't exploitative. It's there to indict exploitation and complicity...It's "Sweeney Todd" filtered through "Spinal Tap," shock theater designed to remind us that we conveniently downplay our central role in the media's preoccupation with violence. [30 Apr 1993, p.50]

Guncrazy, a film more about limits than about bullets, is a pretty compelling little pistols 'n' potency outing, and Barrymore's sprung teen is what makes it almost mandatory viewing. In her chopped blond hair, creamy skin, strong chin and perfectly curved jawline, she's Lolita with the safety catch off. [05 Feb 1993, p.30]

Grant is surrounded by terrific comic performances from Robin Williams, Tom Arnold and Jeff Goldblum. Director Chris Columbus bolsters them with lively, robust pacing, turning Nine Months into a comedy of pregnancy that tests positive. [12 July 1995, p.41]

Ali, in short, is far from a seamless success, but it does get the big things right and it respects a subject who commands respect.

The film not only works better than expected but gets the important things right, starting, of course, with Zellweger's Bridget and Bridget's mind-set.

Hurls its Holocaust at us in a series of justifiably horrific images.

A comedy of chaos, an ensemble comedy, with characters swirling around one another unaware, in their uniform desperation, of how funny they are.

Rat may be lightweight, but it's never cheesy.

It's thoughtful as well as funny, and you never want to take your eyes off Barkin. [10 May 1991, p.27]

A rich mood piece, a study in bleakness, spiritual exhaustion and death. [02 June 1995, p.56]

Brightly sidesteps the cliches that cling to the genre like barnacles and reinvents a lot of the old moves.

Slightly misshapen and unbalanced, with a few loose ends, a few extraneous dream sequences. But there's something going on all the time.

The Trigger Effect is a smarter-than- average thriller that proves David Koepp can direct films as well as write them. [30 Aug 1996, p.F1]

Just what Gooding needed to restart his stalled career.

My Girl is a pleasant surprise. It's sweet, offbeat and ultimately slight, but likable nevertheless for the emotional integrity it maintains in its story of a girl coming to terms with the death of someone close to her. It's one of the few American movies that tries to be honest about death and give kids credit for being able to cope with it, and that alone makes it recommendable. [27 Nov 1991, p.23]

The performances are disarming and Mumford is the kind of comedy that grows on you if you give it a chance.

Spaceballs has the happy air of a comic enterprise that knows it's going right. It just keeps spritzing the gags at us, Borscht Belt-style, confidently and rightly sensing that if we don't laugh at this one, we'll laugh at the next. And so we do. After a long dry spell, Brooks is back on the money with Spaceballs. [24 Jun 1987, p.33]

Shadow Magic isn't interested in psychology or character study. It's a series of tableaux and on that level succeeds admirably.

A steadily engaging and winningly humane film that loves its characters.

It hasn't got a brain in its body, but it's fun to watch.

Pee- wee's Big Adventure is a shrewdly observed, deftly executed looney tune. [9 Aug 1985, p.42]

August's production, while not on a level with either of those memorable predecessors, is solid nonetheless. Its strengths are its handsome amplitude and the intelligent clarity with which the various strands of the novel are advanced by a smoothly meshed international cast. [01 May 1998, p.D4]

Breathes fresh life into old formulas.

Dutifully bleak, suitably oppressive, the film delivers Atwood's desolate who-owns-our-bodies? indictment with intelligence and probity. [09 Mar 1990, p.25p]

Good clean dirty fun.

Lori Petty gives her enough scrappiness on screen to make her a lot of fun to watch. When Tank Girl isn't playing like "Road Warrior" meets "La Femme Nikita," it plays like "The Crow" meets "The Brady Bunch," and it's the ultimate spring-break movie. [31 March 1995, p.57]

An efficient, good-looking production that amounts to the kind of safari with which Disney's customers will feel comfortable. [23 Dec 1994, p.53]

Warm, wry, endearing.

Wind is quite content to keep things at the visual and visceral level, and on that unambitious but highly photogenic plane it's a handsome piece of salt-water escapism. When those sails start popping as they're slapped with gusts of sea air and the tacking gets intense, Wind gives you an adrenaline-filled ride. [11 Sep 1992, p.37]