Michael Wilmington

This is a romance with minimal physical contact and sex--and that's part of what makes it work so well as a love story.

The protracted scenes of eating, cooking and cleaning carry neo-realism to its end point -- and to a violent climax which emerges logically and terrifyingly from the welter of daily trivia preceding it. [24 Oct 1997, p.L]

People always complain that movies aren't as entertaining, entrancing or outrageous as the best of the old Golden Age. Yet, memorably and magically, here's one that is. Don't let it dance away unseen. [22 Jul 1994, p.C]

The new Israeli movie Ushpizin, a film about man's clumsiness and God's grace, is a touching and amusing tale that expands our horizon and also should open our hearts.

It's an almost overwhelmingly professional picture, murderously fast, slick and full of outlandish notions, painstakingly realized. And it's also surprisingly satisfying -- thanks to Washington, a good cast, Tony Scott's swift direction and that unyielding professionalism.

If you're in the mood for something strange, this film may please you, twice over.

You have to have faith that kids will recognize a bad movie when it's foisted on them -- and they don't get much worse than The New Guy.

The Human Stain has those qualities we often want but rarely see in our films: intelligence and ambition, decency and humanity, poetry and pity, fire and ice. Watch it and weep.

If nothing else, The Cable Guy will make you think twice before trying to pick up a free movie channel. [14 June 1996, p.C]

Sumptuously exciting, glowing with expertise, seething with life, gorgeously designed and thrillingly articulated.

Funny Farm --a weak-fish-out-of-water comedy about a New York City couple who see their rural paradise turned into a rustic hell--is a movie with a doubly deceptive title. This movie isn't about a farm, and it isn't very funny, either.

Just because it's true to life doesn't mean it can sing.

It suffers from stilted Vista Vision staging and a lack of gloss -- but has some sparkling Cole Porter musical numbers. [26 Sep 1999, p.26C]

Made after Visconti's second paralyzing stroke, in darkly splendid Roman interiors, this is a somber, meditative, confessional work about corruption and mortality, the ways the world and desire batter down even the most protected doors. [17 Oct 1994, p.5C]

The film is truly special, truly different -- a wondrous talky roundelay about and for people who love life.

The movie, like Smith, is breezy, fun and keeps comin' at ya. [22 Dec 2006, p.5]

The film seems a mad mix of staid PBS bio-drama, flamboyant musical comedy and surreal cartoon nightmare.

The usual bad movie sometimes gives a few chuckles, amuses audiences by making them feel superior. But young director Leonard makes a different kind of bomb. Fascinated with technology, Leonard makes cutting-edge techno-turkeys, with wildly elaborate visuals and ridiculous plots. [4 Aug 1995, pg. I]

Starts like a house afire and then suffers an imagination burnout.

The picture is written and acted as a lark and a romp.

An amazing celluloid poem by a filmmaker whom Ingmar Bergman called "the greatest." He very nearly was. He was also, perhaps, too pure a creator and reckless a citizen to survive unscathed.

A stark, minimalist near-masterpiece about the creation of a murderer in modern Iran.

The Brady Bunch Movie, which was directed and written by at least five people whom we prefer not to embarrass, looks bad, sounds bad and doesn't make any sense. There's even something nightmarish about it. All these bad jokes and vacant sets become almost horrifying, as if the film were on the verge of proving that life itself is a bad joke on a vacant set. [17 Feb 1995, p.J]

Chevy Chase has not been on a roll lately, and to say that in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation he's funnier than in his last six movies combined may sound like high praise, until you remember those six movies. "Caddyshack II" alone almost throws them into the "minus" laugh range. But here, he does what he does best: flat-out slapstick and subversive tear-downs of his own smooth image. This sweet, goofball, manic middle-class daddy brings out his sharpest reflexes and he gets good support from D'Angelo, the bulging-eyed slob-in-excelsis Quaid, and from Questel and Hickey as his dottiest relations.

A weird, funny, melancholy tribute to movies and movie-going, an opus for film geeks that rang my personal bell. A bizarre minimalist epic that will either transport or infuriate, it's defiantly, exquisitely eccentric.

A very Peckinpah-influenced film about the James Gang with four sets of real-life brothers playing the outlaw broods. [16 Jul 2004, p.C4]

A breezy, elegant charmer of a movie.

The suspense is pulse tearing, but Hitchcock, in a movie made explicitly for the war effort, gives it an extra edge. Also, in his favorite and most ingenious cameo role, Hitch solves the problem of appearing in a film with no extras -- the cast consists only of the other shipwreck survivors -- by having himself photographed before and after losing 100 pounds on a special crash diet. [15 Nov 2005, p.C3]