Jay Scott

It's a masterpiece of exposition and compression. An allegorical examination of a transitional period in U.S. history. [01 Sept 1988]

What advance publicity has been powerless to suggest is that Personal Best is an exceptionally well-crafted, thoroughly accurate, emotionally galvanizing piece of filmmaking, easily one of the most intelligent explorations of competition on cinematic record. What's best about Personal Best is a lot more than just personal .[5 Feb 1982]

Kurt Russell has never seemed more clever, Mel Gibson more vulnerable nor Michelle Pfeiffer more goddess-like. Once upon a time, before the pictures got small and the hills were obscured by smog, the Hollywood sign read: "Hollywoodland." That was back when Tequila Sunrise, an intelligent, escapist epic for adults, wouldn't have seemed the anomaly it seems today. [2 Dec 1988, p.C1]

The Witches of Eastwick is an uproarious and entirely successful attempt to examine the differences between the sexes by couching the examination in mythological terms. [12 June 1987]

This extraordinary film, a stiletto-edged domestic melodrama that, at different times, evokes the work of Sam Peckinpah, Hal Ashby, John Cassavetes, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the other, unrelated Penn (Arthur, director of Bonnie and Clyde), is harrowingly honest in content yet lyrically elegiac in style. [21 Sep 1991]

An inspired variation on his familiar theme: the whore with a heart of gold is a man. [2 Feb 1980]

The one thing Sid and Nancy could not be convicted of was compromise and Cox has created a film true to that part of their spirit, but he has created something much more, a send-up and critique of the kind of cautionary celebrity biography exemplified by Lady Sings the Blues. [31 Oct 1986, p.D1]

Scorsese and Schrader have made a courageous film that people of all religions or no religion should be able to watch with identical fascination. [10 Aug 1988. pg. C.4]

It does what it desires to do - it suspensefully squeezes the sweat out of the pores - but the salty stench it leaves behind in the persona of Annie Wilkes is a residue that transcends its intentions. [30 Nov 1990]

It's a pleasant, unprepossessing picture of gliding charm and buoyant silliness, a fragile craft unencumbered by the weighty sophistication of camp, and it's one of the nicest surprises of the season. [17 Dec 1982]

Marshall elicits performances from Williams and De Niro that are exceptional. Awakenings is a small, simple movie about a large, complex issue, the waste of human opportunity. [19 Dec 1990, p.C1]

Guilty by Suspicion is a morality play innocent of moralism and manipulation. It's what almost nobody thinks Hollywood is: decent. [15 Mar 1991]

Demme not only gives the script's nuttiness its due, he adds to it by filling the frame in virtually every scene with silliness - a motorcycle- riding dog, a harpsichordist, a man wearing a T-shirt that reads, "I don't love you since you ate my dog." [7 Nov 1986]

Witness is satisfying on so many levels it stands with "Cabaret" and "The Godfather II" as an example of how a director in love with his medium can redeem its mainstream cliches. [07 Feb 1985]

THE BOND by which to compare all other Bonds is Goldfinger and by that standard Moonraker, the 11th chapter in the exploits of Agent 007, is second-best. But, by the standards of most of the other candy served up as summer fare, Moonraker is marzipan - it's so insubstantial it melts in your mouth, but its flavor is distinctive and you can't get enough of it. [30 June 1979]

Pakula has staged Presumed Innocent with gravity - reverence, almost - and makes the most of the darkly elegaic images provided by cinematographer Gordon Willis. The careful, classical stateliness of the movie, with every picture planned and in its place, is in sharp ironic contrast to the legal chaos it exposes. [27 July 1990]

With its wit, speed and bawdiness, it revolutionized screen comedy and influenced directors from Richard Lester to Francis Coppola. [05 Jan 1990]

A serious and funny and subtle work - a work of art - that was easy to confuse with exploitation teeny-bopper quickies because it did what the quickies had tried to do. But Diner did it right. [22 Apr 1982]

Essentially, it re-constitutes the war movie, and in so doing marries a feminist Rambo to Star Wars. [19 July 1986, p.D9]

Raiders of the Lost Ark (at the Eglinton) is a cinematic roller-coaster, thrilling and frightening in equal measure, a heart-pounding slide down greased lightning. [12 June 1981]

Disney unleashes a mousey minor masterpiece. [02 July 1986, p.C5]

Splendidly viewed through Gordon Willis' gleaming black and white cinematography, the story of Danny Rose, narrated by a group of aged comics reminiscing at the Carnegie Deli, becomes a bittersweet examination of dreams that don't come true. [27 Jan 1984]

The movie made me so happy, and here I am back on the subway with Nerdo, and there's this jerk across the aisle who's like ancient, 30 at least, and he's got the nerve to look right into my see-through Madonna lace outfit. And he winks. Oh, barf- ola.

As Lou, an almost prissily natty numbers runner certain that everything - even the ocean - has deteriorated, Burt Lancaster gives the performance of his life. [17 Apr 1981]

A non-stop, shoestring trip with more adventures and a helluva lot more smarts than you'll find in most American movies...All in all, there's more plain fun to be had here in 10 minutes than in a whole hour on the road with that jerk Indiana Jones.

Once you overlook the laborious contrivance of Jerry's background, Down and Out in Beverly Hills is a sharp, sweet comedy of affluent manners. [31 Jan 1986]

The deployment of the hardware may be extraordinary, but it doesn't overshadow the human dimension of this summer sequel. [4 July 1990]

Photographed in stark black and white by Robby Muller with music by both Waits and Lurie, Down By Law (a slang expression meaning in control), more conventional and livelier than Stranger Than Paradise, and a lot less strange, is as up to date as tomorrow and as familiar as yesterday. [19 Sep 1986]