Joe Pollack

LARGE GROUPS of highly paid Hollywood people spend a great deal of time deciding on titles for new movies. Rarely do they succeed as well as with ''Split Second,'' whose title perfectly describes the length of entertainment in store for the moviegoer. [1 May 1992, p.3G]

The film is directed with dark stylishness by Katt Shea Ruben from a screenplay she wrote with the film's producer, Andy Ruben. [29 May 1992, p.3F]

THE MAN who would trade his fiancee - but just for the weekend! - for a $65,000 gambling debt may be rather sleazy, but it probably wouldn't raise many eyebrows in Las Vegas, where sleaze and the concept of woman-as-object have marched hand-in-hand for many years. ''Honeymoon in Vegas'' continues those precepts, and does so woefully, with dumb writing, ordinary direction and performances by Nicolas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker and James Caan that are so awful as to be mind-boggling. [28 Aug 1992, p.3F]

The matte work is awful, the lighting terrible. Many of the vehicles look like bumper cars, borrowed from the nearest amusement park and covered with plastic tops; the rest look like Disneyland rejects. Chase sequences are boring. [24 Jan 1992, p.3F]

Eastwood also directed, in a plodding, heavy-handed style that leaves little to the imagination and less to the sense of humor. Every scene is as predictable as the chase that precedes or follows it. [07 Dec 1990, p.3F]

Fishburne gets the last word, however, in the midst of more flip-flops than a lake full of frogs, and while much of the movie is shoot-'em-up and fast action, the work of the actors and of Duke give it a nice cohesion. [18 Apr 1992, p.4D]

There is a lot of sex along the way, but I found very little of it exciting, or even sensual. Madonna never seems to be having any fun, nor do her sexual partners, either in action or when they talk about it later. [15 Jan 1993, p.3E]

The screenplay is such a mess that the cast cannot overcome it, and the result is a major disappointment. [18 Dec 1989, p.3D]

Unfortunately, as the characters change, Harris cannot keep up with them, and as the film becomes more and more melodramatic, it becomes less exciting. A good movie, but Harris had potential for a great one and let it get away. [02 Apr 1993, p.3G]

Kevin Kline roars through The January Man as a character who is a mirror image of the one he played in A Fish Called Wanda. This time, he's uncommonly bright but still marches to a very different drummer. But while Wanda was bright and slick and very funny, January is as leaden as the month, and not very funny. [13 Jan 1989, p.5G]

Warlock is one of those awful movies that serves a purpose: On a rainy day it's a way to keep dry, and most of the film is so dark that it's easy to nod off during the duller parts. [06 Mar 1991, p.5E]

This is not a great, thought-provoking film, but following the young people from relationship to relationship is mostly fun, though it begins to sag in the latter parts as Crowe does some padding to flesh out a too-thin story. [18 Sept 1992, p.5G]

Betsy's Wedding is what summer pictures used to be, light and sweet and brief as cotton candy. [25 Jun 1990, p.5D]

A splendid murder mystery, but one with as much gore and steamy sex as I've seen in a long time. [20 Mar 1992, p.3F]

Memphis Belle is a great movie of men in combat, and the bonding it provides. At the same time, it shows the awful face of war so quietly that it speaks with great volume. [12 Oct 1990, p.3F]

To me, an ordinary - but often exciting - adventure tale became a sordid look at American society and the American military, with a sickening defense of the-end-justifies-the-means philosophy. [20 July 1990, p.3F]

The Nanny is special effects at their most vulgar, with a thin, silly plot line that is there only to give the special-effects folks a place to start. [30 Apr 1990, p.5D]

Whaley has some ingenuous charm, and Connelly may have some skills, too. The script gives neither much opportunity. [2 Apr 1991, p.4D]

When a film is based on history, especially a moment in history that almost everyone knows, a built-in major problem is that there is no tension for the climactic scenes. To make it successful, the writer and director must find other places to insert drama, to create tension, to give viewers the unexpected. Maybe Roland Joffe forgot. [24 Oct 1989, p.3D]

Despite the melancholy background of Scandinavia, the repressive work ethic, the class struggle, this is a beautiful love story. [14 Aug 1992, p.3G]

Parillaud is a pretty good actress, handling a comic line with aplomb and displaying a proper amount of je ne sais quoi. The movie, on the other hand, is overdone, overblown, overlong and last but certainly not least, over-gory. Michael Wolk's screenplay and John Landis' direction belabor the obvious and the bloody to the exclusion of all else. [25 Sept 1992, p.3F]

The whining reaches new heights in Husbands and Wives, and it was one of the things that bothered me. Another was the over-jerky camera movement as he tried to give the film the look of a documentary but only made it look like a bad home movie. A third was his use of characters looking straight at the camera and talking to an off-screen person, perhaps a psychiatrist. I think that's a phony device. On the other hand, I found more Allen humor along the way than in several of his recent movies, and he kept it brighter than the depressing tone the subject matter would seem to allow. When he didn't whine, Allen was excellent, and so was Sydney Pollack as his friend Jack. [27 Sept 1992, p.6C]

Director Alan Rudolph and writers William Reilly and Claude Kerven don't play fair with the audience. They stack the deck and then deal from the bottom, and the result is such a surprise that I felt let down, even angry. I don't mind not figuring out who the murderer is, but Rudolph should show the viewer a few things along the way to allow it to be figured out. [19 Apr 1991, p.3F]

WE ALL know we have to suspend disbelief when we go to the movies, but never has an audience been asked to suspend as much as it has been by director Alan J. Pakula in Consenting Adults, a dumb, unconvincing tale that features some of the poorest performances in history. [20 Oct 1992, p.9D]

The acting is solid, but the story sags from time to time, and it's very predictable, though when it's funny, it's very funny. [21 Nov 1992, p.7D]

THE WAR ROOM would have been a great motion picture if either James Carville or George Stephanopoulos had been elected president - or if there were more involvement of Bill Clinton. Although none of those occurred, the documentary on the 1992 campaign, from the Democratic side, is interesting, sometimes amusing and always has a sense of immediacy.[14 Jan 1994, p.7F]

Littman avoids excess, just as she does throughout this gripping, moving, terribly unpleasant--and yet valuable--motion pictures. [25 Nov 1983, p.5E]

IF SINCERITY were the basis on which movies were judged, The Power of One would be a great one. But real movies, like real life, have to provide satisfaction over a wider range, and this long, dry, coming-of-age tale about South Africa falls short. [29 March 1992, p.12C]

The screenplay, by Jim Harrison and Jeffrey Fiskin, from Harrison's novella, might have made a good B movie, but Scott refused to let that happen. He was out to make another A movie, and made an F movie that also is excessively and unnecessarily violent. [19 Feb 1990, p.5D]

A well-made, strong three-generation saga that deals with a number of interesting - and sometimes uncomfortable - topics. [27 Oct 1989, p.3F]

Strick and Joanou have made this one so convoluted that interest falters, and the lack of a truly sympathetic character doesn't help. [7 Feb 1992, p.3F]

The acting is quite good, and Marshall keeps suspense as high as possible, considering we all know the eventual conclusion. [15 Jan 1993, p.3E]

Made in America is at its best when the one-liners are thick and fast, and when comedy rules. There's a lot of staring into space that substitutes for acting when the going gets tougher, and while the ending milks all possible emotion out of an audience, there still is something heartwarming about it. [28 May 1993, p.3E]

Wingfield's attempts to bring the movie to a smooth conclusion fail completely, and the weakness of the story undermines the smooth, careful direction of Robert Mulligan, a veteran with 40 years of movies like To Kill a Mockingbird to his credit. [15 Nov 1991, p.3G]

Most important, Taraporevala and Nair have created a seamless story that entertains, informs -- and maybe even teaches. [28 Feb 1992, p.75]

Exotica is a little hard to believe, but if it catches you, it holds on tight. [24 Mar 1995, p.3E]

For the screen version, Baldwin is back, along with Meg Ryan, and there's less chemistry than in a high-school laboratory in July. [10 Jul 1992, p.3G]

A highly sensual but not very believable love story between a 43-year-old woman and a 27-year-old man, and not much else. [19 Oct 1990, p.3F]

Peter Bogdanovich's brilliant direction (on a par with his classic comedy, ''What's Up, Doc?'') has brought a successful adaptation of a stage farce to the screen, conquered the problems of the play-within-a-play format and most important, has lost almost none of the laughs of Michael Frayn's original play. As a result, ''Noises Off'' brings laughter from start to finish because Bogdanovich has captured the essence of physical farce and blended it perfectly with superlative comic dialogue. [24 March 1992, p.4D]

Q&A is about 20 minutes too long, and it sometimes gets confusing, but Lumet, who has been making powerful films since Twelve Angry Men in 1957, has not lost his strength. [27 Apr 1990, p.3F]

The Thing Called Love, Phoenix' final movie, should not be used as a memorial to his career; "Stand By Me," "Running on Empty" and "My Own Private Idaho" are much better examples of his talent, which was considerable. [12 Nov 1993, p.3G]

Pretty good entertainment, but not an outstanding time at the movies. [17 Aug 1989, p.6E]