Jay Carr

A terrific little uppercut of a boxing movie and close to a perfect one.

Unstrung Heroes, with its small, detailed brush strokes and its eye for specifics, marks Diane Keaton's directorial breakthrough. [15 Sep 1995]

In short, Roger & Me is a breath of new life blowing through the Rust Belt. So depressed has this country's underclass been that any sign of life from it makes you want to cheer, and the funny and furious Roger & Me makes you want to cheer a lot. [12 Jan 1990, p.38P]

Assayas and his engaged, responsive cast finally beat the odds, subtly and beautifully enabling the film to genuinely seem to be about a handful of friends approaching - not always easily or even gracefully but ultimately very touchingly - the September of their shared and individual lives. [13 Aug 1999, p.D4]

Certainly none of Olivier's other contemporary film characters matches Archie's resonances. We're lucky to still have The Entertainer. [04 Aug 1989, p.41]

Beneath its relentlessly decorous surface, "There's Always Tomorrow" is an Eisenhower-era horror story, starring America as a void with sharp teeth. [25 May 1990, p.50p]

The screen Grease seemed at the time a big, overblown version of the sassy, gritty stage musical. Now the differences seem less important. What the two versions share are sizzle and a refusal to ignore the sexual energy of an exuberant cast. Grease seems kickier now than it did 20 years ago. [27 Mar 1998, p.D6]

The Krays is one of the artiest, eeriest gangster movies ever made. [15 Sep 1990, p.14p]

It's a powerful depth charge of a film about reinvented family values. In Denis's hands, this urgent, loving brother and sister act is lyrical, exhilarating, flecked with mystery. [24 Oct 1997, p.C6]

An abundance of style and an almost total lack of substance make Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together a visually arresting but ultimately unrewarding excursion. [31 Oct 1997]

Sentimental and has its heart on its sleeve, but never heavy-handedly so, and its delicacy and tenderness will get to you if you give it half a chance.

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]

Billy Crystal's wit and sweet energies carry it past what could have been a fatal degree of mushiness. Although there's rather too much redemption for one cattle drive, and the film's attitude toward women is at best opaque, Crystal brings warmth and ease to his sharp timing and edgy comic style as he and his pals entertainingly usher us into their brotherhood of schlepdom. [7 June 1991, p.53]

[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]

Although Truth or Dare makes you wish it had dug more deeply, it nevertheless convinces you that there's more to Madonna than the stage personas she sheds like skins. It's as much an exercise in packaging as in documentary, but at least the package isn't empty. [17 May 1991, p.29]

Perhaps a little more back story would have given Levitch some dimension and given us a bit more incentive to commiserate with him. As it is, a little Levitch goes a long way. [20 Nov 1998, p.C4]

It'll satisfy genre fans and Lee fans and win new adherents to the Asian-style action film, with its dazzling moves that make conventional Hollywood movies look like cement mixers in low gear. [7 May 1993, p.25]

It never really chills you, but then it never insults you, either, and it's more affecting than you expect any film based on a Stephen King novel to be. [22 Oct 1983]

Franco Zeffirelli's reputation as a popularizer of Shakespeare stems from this gusty swirl of a 1968 production built around - and aimed at - teens. The uncomprehending looks on the faces of Leonard Whiting's Romeo and Olivia Hussey's Juliet only increase the film's demographic pull, as poetry is replaced with prettiness. [18 Jan 1991, p.32p]

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]

It's easily the best of the movies I've seen by the various "Saturday Night Live" alumni, and part of the reason it's funny and satisfying is that it doesn't strain. [09 Jun 1983]

When a tone is sustained as confidently and with as many delicious flourishes as A Shock to the System manages, and the screen is filled with characterful performances, it's a sign the director is doing something right. [23 Mar 1990, p.46p]

It's the kind of movie you can settle into, secure in the expectation that you can steal from it more than a little vintage Allen fun.

It's one of the few films that persuades you that it went out to meet the war and bring it to us with verisimilitude.

The kind of film that could easily be undone by its own high-minded ambitions and dissolve in a pall of uplift. But it stays the course and gives the season two of its notable performances.

It's lively, edgy, full of zigs and zags, juicy performances, and offbeat fun.

A gorgeous autumnal period piece that catches a vanishing proprietary class on the eve of its extinction in Ireland in 1920.

Gremlins 2 is one of the few sequels that improves on the original. [15 Jun 1990, p.33p]