John Hartl

Goes out of its way to suppress most natural dramatic conflict, so it's left to the actors to carry the day.

This could be the year's most pretentious Hollywood film.

Quentin Tarantino's latest movie puts an epic spin on a favorite genre, taking it to time-tripping levels rarely tested by its forerunners.

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]

Cameos by Mel Brooks and Whoopi Goldberg add nothing, and there's not much of a storyline to stitch together the gags. [05 Aug 1994, p.E3]

Its honesty and insights are refreshing.

The movie jerks tears shamelessly, it smugly mocks the political and fashion trends of the early 1970s, its characters make no sense at all, and it even makes fun of senility. [27 Nov 1991, p.C1]

Gorgeous and troubling.

Director Renny Harlin and his writers, Robert King and Marc Norman, appear to have spent many hours watching bad pirate movies, and they seem determined to repeat every pieces-of-eight cliche. [22 Dec 1995, p.G8]

This installment is essentially the same mix as before, with only a better-than-average cast to recommend it. [30 Sept 1995, p.F7]

Visually a macabre knockout, this 75-minute fantasy boasts some of the wittiest, most vigorous stop-motion animation effects in the history of the process.

Story. Character. They used to mean something to George Lucas.

Although Stella is intelligently made and generally well-acted, there were plenty of dry eyes at a packed preview screening earlier this week. [2 Feb 1990, p.25]

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]

Affliction could be their (Nolte, Coburn) finest couple of hours on film; they do seem to be father and son, rather than actors playing these roles.

Sommers is so busy spinning his camera, crowding the soundtrack with animal noises and piling on the cheesy visual effects that he can't stop for a reflective moment or a character-revealing touch.

Absorbing 1958 adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play about lonely people at a British seaside hotel. [20 Aug 1998]

For all its flaws, Fantasia 2000 is certainly something to see.

Were expectations running too high for this "erotic thriller" from legendary director Richard Rush, who hasn't completed a movie in 14 years? Or is it really the full-blown fiasco it appears to be?

What rescues the movie, time and again, is the strength of Jones' and Jackson's performances.

Compared to such current television shows as ''Sex and the City" and ''Action," this menage-a-trois tale seems downright tame.

For all the cynicism on the soundtrack and the occasional lapses in tone, this is a remarkably generous comedy.

Has its clunky and wince-worthy moments, it does explore some new territory, and there are moments when it's quite fresh and moving.

Crowe gives the kind of thoughtful performance that suggests what Mystery, Alaska could have been if it had stayed in focus.

The chief distinction of the picture, and what makes it more guilty pleasure than patience-tester, is Pakula's strong visual sense, which is reminiscent of his work on "The Parallax View." [16 Oct 1992, p.3]

Some of this is fun, some of it is extraneous, and by the end of Muppets From Space it's hard to tell the difference. [14 July 1999, p.E3]

Just doesn't live up to its title.

While writer-director Frank Darabont often fails to make King's story plausible, that's no fault of the actors. The performances are the movie's strong suit.