John Hartl

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

Christmas classic. [06 Nov 1997]

A perfectly balanced adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, with Deborah Kerr in her greatest performance. [05 Dec 1997]

All but guarantees that you'll want to see Chicken Run more than once.

Runs on wit and creativity.

What the film does have going for it is a ghostly atmosphere that leads to a few surprising developments, including some color effects and a charmingly off-the-wall musical number.

Miyazaki's appreciation of miraculous possibilities and childhood visions is what drives Totoro.

An irresistible NASA instant classic about the conquest of space — via the Voyager missions.

The variety of inspirations (not to mention the visual quality of the film clips) is astonishing.

A soothing 76-minute respite from the noisy clutter of Hollywood's holiday-oriented movies, Microcosmos invites us to "fall silent" while it shows us the spectacularly exotic sights of a world almost beneath our notice, where "time passes differently." [22 Nov 1996]

There's not much any actor can do with material as woeful as this. Pierce seems as charmless at the end of First Kid as he is in the early scenes, while Sinbad seems lost without a stand-up shtick. [30 Aug 1996]

For me, the experience was much like seeing Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" and George Lucas' "American Graffiti" before the hype machines kicked in.

Jackson uses seamless, state-of-the-art visual effects to capture the girls' shared fantasies. One would expect nothing less from the director of the technically proficient horror movie, "Dead/Alive." The surprise here, and the key to the film's success, is his casting and handling of the young unknowns playing the girls. [23 Nov 1994, p.D3]

He [Anderson] simply doesn't allow for dull moments, and his gifts for irony and showmanship are clearly appreciated by a collection of actors who have rarely been better.

Scathingly hilarious...To Die For could be the "Dr. Strangelove" of its genre, a movie that puts even John Waters' somewhat similar "Serial Mom" in the shade.

Today it has a classical feeling to it, with rich, on-target performances by Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons and Michael J. Pollard. [10 May 1991, p.65]

A thoroughly satisfying musical-comedy romp.

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

While it suffers from the limited facial animation of so many Japanese cartoons, the backgrounds, characterizations and story are consistently pleasing. [03 Sep 1998, p.D6]

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]

If Unforgiven occasionally overstates its case, this is the best work Eastwood has done as a director since The Outlaw Josey Wales 16 years ago.

A terrific feature-length cartoon.

Inevitably, The Last Days has its moments of pain. There are just enough glimpses of the camps (some in color) to remind us of the shocking physical conditions. But the sense of dignity these people convey, their resilience in the face of evil, their implicit acceptance of this traumatic and transforming experience, is truly inspirational. [26 Mar 1999]

Quite a spicy brew.

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

Spike Lee's liveliest, funniest, most confident movie in years, Get On the Bus suggests that he should stick to political confrontations as the basis for his stories. [16 Oct 1996, p.E3]

A chronicle of the exasperating circumstances that yield cinema gold -- or lead. It almost doesn't matter which; it's the process that counts here.

And whether or not you think Allen's an irresponsible home-wrecker and/or Farrow's gone round the bend, Husbands and Wives towers above the recent batch of mediocre-to-awful summer movies that were created by people with less-dished private lives. For those of us who aren't directly involved, it's the work that matters. [18 Sept 1992, p.3]