John Hartl

"We're in Twin Peaks here," says the only surviving teenager in town. It's a lame attempt to create class by association. Unlike David Lynch's kinky series, the creators of Freddy's Dead couldn't care less about the movie's interchangeable characters. The actors are often hard to tell apart; some are just worse than others. [14 Sept 1991, p.C5]

Eric Clapton, who wrote the blues-heavy score, told Oldman that the film was "like you throwing up over everyone." He meant that as a compliment. Whether you respond to this gritty, punishingly long and plotless film will depend largely on whether you agree. [13 Mar 1998]

The final scenes, which suggest an earnest science lesson presented by a weepy extraterrestrial in an alien planetarium, play like the work of an amateur filmmaker.

Cross occasionally lets their more promising moments go slack. The staging of a few scenes suggests home-movie limitations. But enthusiasm counts for a great deal in a project as ambitious and strange as Second Nature.

A supernatural thriller that would like to be the new Exorcist, this hapless film has a promising villain and a sympathetic hero, but their confrontations are mostly anti-climactic. [02 Sep 1995, p.F3]

Watching Avalon is like leafing through someone else's family album. It undoubtedly means a great deal more to Levinson, because he can make the associations we can't. [19 Oct 1990, p.28]

The boy (Osment) has an uncanny ability to suggest Cole's secretive, haunted soul, and he seems to have inspired Willis to give perhaps his most self-effacing performance.

The 42-year-old Assayas demonstrates an assured light touch here, drawing expert comic performances from Cheung, Richard and Ogier while using a 16mm hand-held camera to lend the film a live, experimental quality. It dovetails neatly with a surreal and quite hilarious ending that carries the technique - and Vidal's cinematic pretensions - to their logical conclusion. [26 Sept 1997]

For all its occasional long-windedness and visual dazzle, Brazil may be the "Strangelove" of the 1980s.

A civilized summer entertainment that never quite transcends its genre. [7 Aug 1992, p.24]

The darkly comic tone is often just right, and the casting occasionally pays off.

The engine that drives Jerry Maguire is Cruise, giving the kind of performance that all but deconstructs his recent series of glib leading-man roles.

Depp, who has never looked so angelic, is covering familiar ground here, playing another Gilbert Grape type who's involved with an older woman. [9 Sept 1994, p.H34]

The animation is smooth and occasionally quite expressive, the character voices are well-chosen, and the pacing (songs aside) is confident. For young moviegoers unfamiliar with the Camelot story, this could be an option. [15 May 1998]

Already nicknamed "This Is Spinal Rap," this clever fake-documentary should delight both those who love rap music and those who feel it's been given a free ride by music critics for far too long. [17 Jun 1994, p.E3]

The ride in this road movie isn't always as smooth as it could be, but even the bumps have some charm.

It's the survivors of this tragedy that must make peace with their fate, and the film finally rests with them.

(Thornton) does a remarkable job in all three categories, but what you're likely to remember most clearly is his performance.

The frenetic style suggests the influence of Richard Lester's British comedies, but the storyline and the use of rock music suggests that Coppola may have influenced Mike Nichols' "The Graduate," which was released one year later. [14 Jan 1999]

Sergei Urusevsky's amazingly mobile cinematography is so expressive, and Kalatozov's heightened sense of drama so contagious, that this becomes one of those rare movies that makes you look at the world differently. [23 Jun 1995, p.H26]

In any future compendium of film clips from anti-Hollywood satires, Swimming With Sharks will surely be included. Several scenes are so incisive and well-written that they stand out as classics of their kind. [09 June 1995, p.H32]

The idea may have sounded great in film school. As written and directed by B.W.L. Norton, that's where it should have stayed. Still, the music of the period is well-used, and Charlie Martin Smith, Candy Clark and Cindy Williams rise above the script problems. [05 Dec 1991, p.F3]

It's a painful sit from beginning to end.

Runs on wit and creativity.

But they all end up spinning their wheels under Deran Sarafian, whose action-movie credentials include Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Death Warrant." He tries to establish a tongue-in-cheek attitude that seems as borrowed and clueless as Stephen Sommers' script. [4 Feb 1994, p.D28]

Time-travel movies don't come much dopier than Freejack. [18 Jan 1982, p.C5]

Much of the time, for all the leering effort she puts into portraying this demonic tease, Barrymore just seems to be playing dress-up. She also needs a more responsive co-star than Gilbert, who gives a one-note performance in the part that should be at the story's center. [29 May 1992, p.18]

The film has smarts, but what really makes it fascinating is its huge heart...and the film soars because of that.

It's no more obnoxious than the original, and in several ways it's more interesting. [08 Apr 1995, p.C7]

It's doubtful that any variation on Finney's story could be called definitive. There's an inexhaustible supply of targets; we could have a new one every year or so. But this one certainly has its creepy moments. [18 Feb 1994, p.D3]

Completely ignored at the Oscars in 1939, "Midnight" seems more sophisticated and durable than several of that year's winners.

It's all over the place, trying to cover every base as it delivers its neon-style message: Nothing is more important than friendship. Indeed, it's so busy pushing buttons that it rarely has time to settle down to establish even one relationship that rings true - by and large, we have to take the actors' word for it - yet fans of this cast probably won't mind too much.

She's So Lovely works best as an actors' showcase. The ordinarily reserved Robin Wright Penn goes through a transformation not unlike Mia Farrow's complete makeover in Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose; she's never been brassier or funnier. [29 Aug 1997]

Loses touch with its characters.

White Fang is one of the best family films around right now. The violence is not too intense, the harshness of the frontier is downplayed without being ignored, and the wildlife footage is reminiscent of the best Disney documentaries. [18 Jan 1991, p.22]

George Stevens' mythic 1953 Western finally gets a video transfer that captures the crisp, bright beauty of its Oscar-winning cinematography. [17 Aug 2000, p.D3]

While Bounce may mark a sophomore slump for Roos, it's hardly the worst date movie out there.

It's a very movie-conscious movie, and that aspect of it palls.

Suspense is the key element in The Long Walk Home. That may seem like a frivolous thing to say about a fictionalized but scrupulously authentic account of the 1955 civil rights bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala. Yet it's what holds this movie together, gives it distinction and makes it considerably more than a TV-movie-style docudrama. That, and the richly imagined performances of Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg. [15 Feb 1991, p.24]

(Ash and Russell) generate just enough tension to keep the audience interested.

The script, attributed to four writers, is based on stories of cats who roamed the Warners back lot, begging for food among the discarded sets of "Casablanca" and "East of Eden." Imagine any storyline designed around that studio legend and you're likely to come up with a more auspicious plot than the one this team has created. [26 Mar 1997]

Best of all is a Halloween party where the Falls are complimented on their "costume," then outed.

Toy Story approached toy frenzy from the toys' point of view while craftily exploring the media-driven delusions of that Turbo Man-like doll, Buzz Lightyear. Jingle All the Way had that kind of potential, but somewhere along the way the filmmakers lost all perspective. [22 Nov 1996, p.F7]

Miscast and nervously directed. [11 Oct 1996]

An OK debut effort, but like so many "Pulp Fiction" wannabes, it lacks freshness and energy.

The first-time writer-director, Miguel Arteta, does a remarkable job of drawing us into this destructive world and making its rules and rituals seem casual and almost natural. [8 Aug 1997, p.G10]

A wry, rambling, smart comedy.

The script by David Stenn (21 Jump Street), which also includes a hoary subplot involving blackmail, a kidnapping and a guilty family secret, is essentially a way of tying together a collection of familiar-looking music videos that are so loosely connected to the story that they have about the same impact as commercials. [19 Oct 1991, p.C7]

Broad, obvious and thuddingly unfunny, Drop Dead Gorgeous makes almost every previous "mockumentary" look like a work of genius.

The characterizations now seem a tad thin, but Ives still impresses, and so does Charlton Heston as the most conflicted character, caught in the middle of this Cold War allegory about two feuding families and an outsider (Gregory Peck) with pacifist leanings. [29 Feb 1996, p.D3]

The most entertaining portrait of a wildly talented, socially untamed filmmaker since The Bad and the Beautiful. [21 Sep 1990, p.28]

A perplexing movie. Wonderful to look at, delightful to behold, but when the plot breaks open the insides turn out be mold. [14 May 1993, p.21]

The audience for Digimon is small children.

Neeson might as well have phoned this one in.

Has a cute idea. Which it promptly runs into the ground.

There's an anger and rawness here that fit hand-in-glove with Bruce Springsteen's "Badlands," which serves as the opening song. [3 Apr 1992, p.28]

Andrew Bergman's The Freshman is a charmed comedy, the kind of seemingly effortless movie in which everything falls neatly into place, as if ordained by nature.

Eat Drink Man Woman is so cleverly plotted, edited, scored, performed and photographed that the audience is frequently just as surprised as the characters, yet Lee and his co-writers plant just enough clues to keep you from feeling tricked. [05 Aug 1994, p.E22]

Full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing, End of Days is the loudest and least of the year's end-of-the-world movies.

The co-writer and producer, Henry Bean (Internal Affairs), and the director, Bill Duke (A Rage in Harlem), punch up the story with plenty of action, some of it gratuitous and illogical. But for the most part they stick close to Fishburne's character and his increasingly difficult choices. [15 Apr 1992, p.D6]

If you've seen one "Scream" rip-off, you really have seen them all.

An Almodovar-like blend of laughs, drama and uplift, filled with the kinds of pop-art colors and pop-out performances that Almodovar loves.

The script can seem random and shapeless at first, but in retrospect that seems intentional. Assayas creates a sense of people who really can't see the forest for the trees. [27 Aug 1999]

A stark and still-stunning medieval allegory. [14 Sept 1991, p.25]

Child's Play 2 is perfunctory, disagreeable and patience-trying. [09 Nov 1990, p.24]

An enjoyable vehicle for the young Jane Fonda, who does a pretty fair Marilyn Monroe imitation as the sweet new wife of a very nervous Korean war veteran (Jim Hutton). [03 Dec 1992, p.E3]

Technically, Titanic is a marvel.

Elegantly photographed by the legendary Henri Decae, who emphasizes smoky blue and darkest blacks, "Le Samourai" has film-noir style to burn. [25 Apr 1997]

Neither the sophisticated teen comedy it wants to be nor the routine Disney slapstick number it sometimes becomes, it doesn't know what it is. [14 Feb 1997]

The movie is a model of clear, precise storytelling, of state-of-the-art technique used to advance a story rather than show off.

This is the swiftest, funniest, most lunatic comedy to date from the team that created "Top Secret," "The Naked Gun," "Ruthless People" and "Airplane!" [28 June 1991, p.23]

You might not want to pay top dollar for The Skulls, but at the right price, it delivers.

There's not much to save this formulaic suspense film from seeming both ridiculous and predictable, but if you can get past the groaner dialogue and hysteria that follow the opening credits, the midsection of "Extreme Measures" does generate some tension. [27 Sept 1996]

The movie is a stylized collection of well-timed shockers, helped along by the contributions of its capable cast, especially Neill, who plays the detective in a hard-boiled manner that suggests 1940s film noir. [03 Feb 1995, p.H31]

Tokyo Decadence includes what may be the only near-death experience ever played for laughs in a movie. [15 Oct 1993, p.D26]

By film's end, the husband's reasons and rationalizations seem all but incomprehensible. That doesn't, however, prevent this from being a thoroughly engrossing tale. [11 Jan 1991, p.24]

Some scenes hold up better than others, and there’s always a question about the film’s intentions: Is this voyeurism or is it satire taking off on the Playboy era? Condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency in 1960, Private Property is less dated than you might think.

This might have been a very good movie if it had lost about one of its three hours.

Godard's technical innovations have become so commonplace that they no longer jolt. But the aura of urban fatalism remains compelling, and so does the acting by Jean-Paul Belmondo as a Bogart-worshipping fugitive and especially Jean Seberg as his amoral girlfriend. [02 Aug 1991, p.24]

Practically perfect in its unpretentious way, MGM's Get Shorty is the kind of smart, witty, polished entertainment that restores one's faith in the studio system.

Aside from the Brechtian ending, Taste of Cherry is not a difficult film, although the implications of the characters' references to "true" Moslems, "brave" Kurds and multiplying Afghans may be entirely clear only to an Iranian audience. [3 July 1998]

The performances and Towne's conception of the characters are what carry the picture. Crudup has been creeping up on stardom in movies as varied as Sleepers and Inventing the Abbotts, but this is the role that shows what he can do. [09 Oct 1998]

Mangold ultimately can't displace memories of "An Angel at My Table," "Lilith," "The Snake Pit," "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" and other, stronger accounts of young women placed in mental institutions.

Too long, too predictable.

The Marx Brothers at their purest and funniest - no romantic subplot, no musical interludes with Harpo, no distractions from the fun of watching Groucho deflate Margaret Dumont as he becomes dictator of Fredonia and frivolously declares war. Cleverly directed by Leo McCarey, it was the team's least popular 1930s film, perhaps because the tone of non-stop anarchy proved too unsettling to Depression audiences. [10 May 1991, p.65]

You can't help getting into the spirit of it.

Handsomer and funnier than the original, Young Guns II is still a mediocre brat-pack western. It lacks the attention-getting novelty of the first film. [01 Aug 1990, p.E1]

Neither the actress nor her director disgrace themselves, and Curtis does suggest a commitment to her character that goes above and beyond the limitations of the script, but they've both done more interesting work. [16 Mar 1990, p.26]

Unfortunately, the recycled plot is still the driving force here, and the movie becomes increasingly frantic trying to accommodate it. In the end, Raffill can't bring this dummy to life, but he does try.

An appalling masterpiece.

While Jennifer 8 won't surprise anyone who's addicted to whodunits, it's not a great disappointment either. It occupies that middle ground inhabited by so many thrillers that keep you interested only as long as they're in front of you. Out of sight, out of mind. [6 Nov 1992, p.20]

Simultaneously smart and myopic, sneaky and forgetful, the mother Debbie Reynolds plays in Albert Brooks' Mother always keeps you guessing. [10 Jan 1997, p.F1]

The problem with most movies about junkies is that they're really not about anything but getting high, crashing and screwing up. The problem with most movies about writers is that they can't demonstrate a writer's talent. Put the two together and you've got Permanent Midnight. [18 Sep 1998, p.H6]

Bugsy is really pretty wonderful. It's the kind of old-fashioned yet multi-layered movie that Hollywood filmmakers seemed to have forgotten how to make in 1991, when well-written, carefully structured screenplays often appeared to have gone the way of manageable budgets. It couldn't have arrived at a more welcome moment.

Better Than Chocolate is essentially a 101-minute sitcom that runs out of energy (but not vulgarity) long before it reaches its predictable finale. [27 Aug 1999]

While it may have seemed revolutionary in its time, it now suffers from the disadvantage of looking like one more Asian movie about alienated youth. [18 Feb 2005, p.I20]

The script is a minefield of ideas that need more work.

It's a pointless, $30 million mediocrity with a disengaged star-director at its center. [15 Jun 1990, p.3]