Kevin Thomas

Neither acutely suspenseful nor particularly thrilling but instead mainly numbing.

Wonderful, heartwarming.

Simply too tedious and stretched out to be amusing. Had Schorr brought in his picture at 80 or 90 minutes Schultze might have been a different story.

Although this is the kind of entertainment designed to send its audience home happy, Ice Princess has its share of stinging moments and has a good deal more edge than one might have expected.

Wide Awake is a wonderful family film that deals sensitively, and even with humor, with a fairly unusual situation for the screen: a 9-year-old's struggles with his faith in God. [20 Mar 1998, p.F10]

Lawrence is a no-holds-barred stand-up comedian who gets away with the strongest, most graphic language because he is so funny and because he makes himself the object of so much of his humor.

There's enough atmosphere, mayhem and just plain energy to make the film a viable midnight movie.

While not especially distinctive, the film is pleasant and amusing. It has a brisk, well-turned-out quality that augurs well for Harris, the son of Richard Harris.

Lives up to its ambitiousness in all its aspects.

Less than terrific technically; focus and sound levels waver. Luckily, these flaws are not inconsistent with the film's raw, unvarnished tone and they do not diminish the effect of Leary's performance or that of Davis.

A fascinating, veritable self-portrait, masterfully culled from a trove of archival materials.

Stirring, often tragic yet hopeful, In Search of Peace benefits from its eloquent narrator Michael Douglas, and from the voices of Edward Asner, Anne Bancroft, Richard Dreyfuss, Miriam Margolyes and Michael York.

Thoroughly engrossing.

Many try but few succeed as well as writer-director Joel Hopkins with his beguiling first feature, Jump Tomorrow, in giving a fresh spin to '30s screwball comedy.

There's such a rawness, purity and even mystical force to everything Benjamin says or sings, that anything else would seem extraneous and detracting from the impact of a man who has lived his life with absolutely no holds barred.

Kontroll is in fact an allegory, but one that oozes a gritty, dynamic realism.

Shyer and Meyers... are endlessly inventive. They're not afraid to be sophisticated and screwballish in the best '30s tradition, and they know just how far to exaggerate for laughs without leaving touch with reality entirely or destroying sentiment. The humor in Baby Boom is sharp without being heartless.

A modest pleasure that accomplishes its goals with ease and confidence.

A masterpiece by any measure, is fresh, immediate and contemporary, but its wintry yet warm perspective is suffused with the wisdom and experience of a great filmmaker who turns 85 on June 2.

Gaspar Noe's I Stand Alone has an exhilaration that comes from looking at life at its meanest so unflinchingly that you can actually be amused by the absurdity of the human predicament. [07 May 1999, p.F6]

An exhilarating celebration of the possibilities of love and friendship, and Lucía, Félix and Adrián could not be more likable.

A lightweight popcorn movie, hardly the scariest of the year but with enough jolts to be satisfying. Writer Richard Jefferies' solid script emphasizes character and psychology over plot and provides Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone with engaging, multidimensional starring roles.

Transfixed is a solid, engaging example of how a genre plot can illuminate a marginalized world.

As unpretentious as it is perceptive, Gigante is a gem.

Gwynne is the anchoring presence as a classically dry, laconic New Englander who seems to know some terrible secret. Elliot Goldenthal has composed a helpfully ominous score, as moody as vintage Bernard Herrmann, and Peter Stein's cinematography is superbly varied, from the bright hues of a glossy magazine to the dark shadows of the charnel house. No question about it, Pet Sematary is a handsomely produced film.

Sternfeld's approach is rigorously minimalist, which is a plus since the Winters family is in no way extraordinary or distinctive.

Fandango overreaches badly and sinks under a heavy weight of symbolism, bathos and sheer preposterousness that no amount of humor and incident can redeem.

Lively entertainment underlined by some stinging social comment. [04 May 1972, p.17]