Kathleen Carroll

It's not just the sexist humor that makes this tired businessman's fantasy so offensive. The real shocker is that the basic plot has been shamelessly lifted by screenwriters Charlie Peters and Larry Gelbart from "One Wild Moment," an equally skimpy French comedy by Claude Berri about two middle-aged pals who get into the exact same predicament in the South of France with their two nubile daughters. [17 Feb 1984, p.5]

Footloose turns out to be a sort of Boy Scout version of “Flashdance,” a carefully toned-down, overly respectable piece of schmaltz.

Chariots of Fire reasserts the importance of the so-called old-fashioned virtues of moral courage and personal integrity and, as such, it is a movie that, with the help of Vangelis Papathanassiou’s wonderfully stirring music, lifts the spirits to a new high. The actors seem to have been born to play their roles.

Were there Richter scales for measuring the degree of terror induced by movies of this kind, De Palma's "Carrie" would register only 2.2 in terms of actual shock value, but it would score well on the laugh meter. This satiric examination of the American high schooler turns out to be scathingly funny.

The Godfather PART II is the most ambitious American movie in terms of size and scope in recent memory. It goes much deeper than “The Godfather” in analyzing the twisted mentalities of these men who pervert the capitalist system for their own gain. The film is richer in texture and gives more evidence of social awareness.

Kubrick leaves himself wide open to ridicule from the minute he picks up Dr. Floyd’s space investigation of the mysterious monolith...The setting is a technical marvel, but advertising plugs make it a super-commercial and destroy its impact.

Unforgiven is a high-caliber movie, a gripping and haunting work of art that should finally establish Eastwood as one of America’s best directors.

There are moments when it seems Allen’s comic muse has temporarily deserted him - but it has been replaced by something much greater. Annie Hall touches the heart.

A movie that is pure escape and good, clean, unadulterated fun.

Audiences of all ages are bound to fall in love with this bubbly, thoroughly enchanting fish story.

In ferociously intense, chillingly brutal scenes, this bravely innovative, kingsized movie (one should be warned that it runs over three hours) enables one to fully understand why this particular war not only destroyed the hopes and dreams of America’s young men, but why it left so many of them permanently shattered and alienated from society.

As he proved in the far funnier and livelier "Sixteen Candles," Hughes has a wonderful knack for communicating the feelings of teenagers, as well as an obvious rapport with his exceptional cast — who deserve top grades.

The Graduate, the erratic, jet-age film at the Coronet and Lincoln Art, has two standout performances - one from a young actor, who looks as if the worries of the world rested on his sawed-off body, and another from a director, still new to movies, whose spit and polish technique at times borders on genius.

It is nearly impossible to look at this brilliantly executed movie without being moved to tears.

A haunting, emotionally devastating movie. [04 Nov 1983, p.C21]

The movie is both wonderfully tender and wryly funny. [05 Feb 1992, p.31]

The French Connection is pure dynamite. Its trigger-fast, explosive scenes and high-tension chase sequences (the one in “Bullitt” pales by comparison) will have you literally gasping for breath.

Coppola, with his bravura style of direction, has created a movie of harrowing intensity and staggering power. But if you accept the belief that art should enlighten and illuminate as well as arouse the emotions, I’m afraid that Apocalypse Now does not qualify as great art.

The flight sequences in “Top Gun” may arouse aerial buffs. Still, this movie approaches its subject in such juvenile, superficial way that it’s clear the producers were merely in a hurry to cash in on Hollywood’s new wave of Rambo-style patriotism.

His film may offend (it very nearly makes one nauseous) but there is no doubting the fact that it is the end product of a brilliant, highly original mind.

There is no denying the emotional power of these scenes, but one wishes that Scorsese would end his Italian-American guilt trip and stop exposing mean-tempered, self-destructive characters like La Motta, whose personality problems, he apparently feels, stem from their cultural environment. Raging Bull ultimately has a numbing effect on the brain as if one's head had been pummeled by La Motta's so-called "girlish" fists.

As irresistibly sweet as cotton candy. Even though the poor-girl-meets-rich-kid plot is older than the Hollywood hills, and this romantic comedy lacks the cheeky humour of Hughes' first outing, "Sixteen Candles," the film definitely warms the heart.

It is a purely mechanical movie that is no more dazzling to the eye than a nighttime landing at Kennedy airport.

Sidewalk Stories manages to expose the modern-day realities of New York while at the same time recapturing the sentimentality and charm of the classic films of the silent era. [03 Nov 1989, p.47]

Director William Friedkin, with his scrupulous attention to detail, his determination to convey a sense of realism, achieves such startling effects that one comes away almost completely convinced of the possibility of demonic possession. His movie rushes headlong towards a blood-curling climax (the actual rite of exorcism), a series of scenes so powerful it leaves the audience limp and exhausted.

Out of Africa is still an absolute knockout. It provides such an enchanting glimpse of the paradise that Dinesen tragically lost that audiences will completely understand her other grand passion for Africa itself.

What finally makes the movie so compelling is director Martin Scorsese's scathing vision of New York as a fiery inferno of neon lights and relentlessly hostile populace.

Kids and parents alike are gonna dig this wonderful fantasy.