Jay Scott

At no time is Urban Cowboy especially well-directed - Bridges, director of The China Syndrome and The Paper Chase, has yet to learn where to put a camera and when to move it. But the performances are so fresh, the dialogue so prickly and arid, and the milieu observed with such accuracy, that one's reservations regarding the cinematography, editing and a raft of other technical matters are held in check. [07 June 1980]

A patchwork quilt of clashing colors, but it's cozy and warm. [10 Oct 1981]

There are individual sequences alternately amusing and touching. [08 May 1984]

Once the riffs are over and put into place, Mo' Better Blues is approximately one-third fabulous, one-third boring, and one-third infuriating. [06 Aug 1990]

Stripped of absolutely everything Absolute Beginners has borrowed from absolutely everything else, the entire film would fit absolutely snugly into a cockroach's shoe. [19 Apr 1986]

The larger budget has given Scanners a high-gloss Hollywood look, the editing is occasionally elegant and the special effects, which consist mostly of imaginative ways of turning actors into meat, provoke from the audience the desired response ("Oh, yuk]"), but he is careful to keep the violence within currently accepted boundaries. [19 Jan 1981]

For most of the movie, Murray desperately throws in schtick after schtick to try to keep the film afloat (Meatballs doesn't deserve him, and he certainly doesn't deserve it), but when facing Makepeace, who isn't allowed to do anything but trade a petulant pout for a wait-'til-the-sun-shines-Nellie smile, he caves in under the sentimental good cheer and becomes a nice guy, a role he is not especially suited to play. [2 July 1979]