Jay Carr

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]