Jay Carr

Farnsworth's embodiment of old American values, with their combination of delicacy, reserve, and stand-alone independence, is a one-of-a-kind treasure.

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]

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

Johnny Handsome may lapse into downbeat formula, but its acting is pungent, and, in the case of Barkin and Henriksen, as immediate as a razor slash. [29 Sep 1989, p.34]

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]

Occasionally wills itself to rude, crude life. But most of the time it's pretty limp.

It would be gratifying to report that there's a lot more to K-Pax than Spacey at the top of his form, but there isn't.

The kind of comedy that takes the fun out of stupidity.

As savage and as epic as film gets.

Could have been a classy thriller. But all the Aramaic in the world can't save it from its own pounding slickness.

Herek's brisk pacing and skillful way with the hockey sequences gives The Mighty Ducks an urgency its manipulative copycat soul doesn't really earn. The Mighty Ducks - with its team calculatedly organized along gender as well as multi-cultural lines - is the kind of film kids like, then outgrow. [02 Oct 1992, p.49]

Agreeable eye candy and ear candy, but it's too slight to reach as deep as it thinks it wants to reach.

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

The tame, confused script eventually sinks the film, although Field shows skill directing actors.

The playfulness and high spirits bubbling from the pages of Leonard's novels are squelched by Schrader's earnestness. Schrader's touch with Touch isn't light, and it costs him. [14 Feb 1997, p.D9]

Throughout the history of film, nothing turns campier faster than dinosaur movies. This one will have a much longer shelf life than most.

Young Guns had no vision at all. Young Guns II at least tries for poetry and irony and epic scale. And it finds humor in such things as the outlaws' keen appreciation of media exposure and image-making. But its chronicling of the gang's downfall just slogs. [01 Aug 1990, p.63p]

A bit of a cop-out, wrapping in wistful sentimentality a failure to acknowledge a connection that is more than epidermal.

The slightly androgynous Curtis is always interesting to watch; her sentience, her thin lips pressed into an ironic smile, her hood-ornament sleekness are tempered by a believable capacity for edgy affection. But the fact that the force is against her is minor compared to the way the film is against her. Blue Steel victimizes her more than any of the celluloid heavies in it. [16 Mar 1990, p.42]

As Die Hard clones go, it's easier to take than most. [06 Nov 1992, p.38]

The moral universe remains unsullied in this lite, lo-cal thriller - the cinematic equivalent of a fizzy summer drink.

It's a treat to encounter the deadpan light-handedness with which Mamet goes about his business.

Likable, but at times it's also inescapably sketchy and ramshackle.

What gives the film its tension, apart from Hitchcock's masterly manipulation of suspense as he sends them into a wine cellar used to conceal uranium, is his way of connecting with Bergman's masochism and Grant's stoniness as they circle one another, mutually attracted but holding back. [03 Apr 1992, p.94]

Son-in-Law (bet you can't guess the ending) would be brain-on-vacation fun if it weren't so smug and patronizing. [2 July 1993, p.44]

Plummets into the realm of ludicrous failure.

The Quick and the Dead is a sly, savvy Hollywood sendup of Sergio Leone Westerns with Sharon Stone playing the Clint Eastwood righteous avenger role and Gene Hackman the heavy. You'd call it a spaghetti Western, but the budget is too high. Maybe we'd better think of it as Hollywood's first angel-hair-pasta Western. [10 Feb 1995, p.47]

Pink Cadillac, you might say, is low on gas. [26 May 1989, p.43]