Jay Carr

Distress of Parents is a real pleasure.

Snazzy visuals, of which she (Moss) is one, carry The Matrix past its klutzy script.

Cross Fame and Spinal Tap, color it Irish, and you've got The Commitments, the summer's most irresistible movie. [30 Aug 1991, p.79]

Hou Hsiao-hsien is one of the masters of world cinema, and Flowers of Shanghai represents a shift for him. Stunning and hypnotic, it's his first period piece. [07 Apr 2000]

Superior and original filmmaking. You won't be able to take your eyes off it.

Plays like a dislocated version of ''Death in Venice,'' but in a dryer, higher climate that features exponentially more firepower.

Wrestling gets in America's face and Blaustein gets in wrestling's face. It's a fascinating tango.

In style and story line, the film is daring in its simplicity.

Space Cowboys does achieve liftoff.

Mother's peace crusade ennobles Irish Town.

There's nothing seriously wrong with Man in the Moon. It's sincere, heartfelt and handsomely crafted - but within limits, and ultimately it's the limits you feel most strongly. [04 Oct 1991, p.43]

The women here aren't afraid to get extreme about love, but in the end, you sense that they are too sound to destroy themselves over the worthless man they have allowed to personify it. That's what lifts Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown from the amusing to the sublime. [23 Dec 1988, p.23]

Roberts and Erin Brockovich have Oscar contender written all over them.

With the charismatic Williams and Sohn leading the way, "Slam" electrifyingly moves beyond wishful thinking to hot immediacy, and, yes, earned optimism. [23 Oct 1998, p.D4]

A grand, dark, grave, severe piece of first-rate cinema.

Bizarre, shadowy, enticingly eerie...more poetic, more tantalizingly original.

The cinematic equivalent of a high, arching rainbow of a three-pointer from midcourt.

In short, "Crossing Delancey" is a joy of a romantic comedy. It's got warmth, brains, heart and humor. So what's not to like? [18 Sep 1988, p.96]

Just enough laughs to keep you watching.

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]

Not only exhilarating and cathartic. It's too funny to be ignored.

Films that achieve the dimension of seraphic embrace achieved by 'Innocence, as it explores a return to first love, are the rarest of the rare.

In a season mostly given over to unwatchable movies being cleared off studio shelves, it's at least about something. And there's no denying the lurid urgency with which it jumps off the screen.

French Kiss is a French miss. It's got the settings, but it has little magic, less charm and almost no chemistry between Meg Ryan's heartsick American innocent and Kevin Kline's shady Frenchman. [5 May 1995, p.57]

You expect virtuosic technique from Spielberg, and it's there, in spades. What you don't expect is heartfelt romanticism. But that's there, too... Always is a terrific-looking throwback to those large-scale '40s cinematic stews of romantic longing. [22 Dec. 1989, p.43]

Matilda is fresh and spirited, and while the edge on it keeps the film interesting, DeVito manages to tilt it expertly from darkness to light. [02 Aug 1996, p.E4]

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

Miami Blues is just good enough to make you wish Demme would come back with Ward and direct another film based on Willeford's deceptively casual you-saw-it-here-first laser-beam vision of Miami as surreal American litmus. [20 Apr 1990, p.31]