Mick LaSalle

City Slickers is a funny and affecting comedy, with wonderful jokes and a script flashing intelligence in every direction. [7 June 1991, p.E1]

They talk and talk, and somehow it's delightful.

One of his better efforts, not up there in the Vertigo-North by Northwest-Psycho stratosphere, but a cut above his competent thrillers such as Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur and Lifeboat. [19 Dec 2004]

To think of how people thought and acted just 45 years ago is to realize that the women in this film were the advance guard of the modern era. That makes them important, and they make this documentary important.

Carries a lot of emotional power.

Freeway is rude in the way the truth is rude -- only funnier. The movie seduces with its humor, all the while presenting a realized vision of a harsh, absurd world.

Anybody who talks about True Romance has to start with the writing. It's dazzling. In scene after scene, Tarantino surprises the audience even while coming up with dialogue that rings much more true than anything you could have anticipated. [10 Sept 1993]

One of the consistent pleasures of Knives Out is that, while its style evokes an earlier era, the script is very much a witty response to today’s world.

As the corpses pile up and the cocoons hatch, the spiders become more brazen and finally start invading houses. The last 45 minutes of Arachnophobia is a blast, with attack-of-the-killer-spider scenes coming nonstop. This is not great art, but it's a good time, and the climax is terrific. [18 July 1990, p.E1]

This is one of the wisest, slickest and most unorthodox feminist films one could ever hope to see.

Though One Fine Morning is low-key and flows easily from one scene to the next, it’s truly innovative and original. Writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve has cracked a code. She figured out how to make a kind of movie that other filmmakers would love to make but don’t know how.

Hopkins makes himself transparent. He lets us see both who this man was and what he is now. There’s dignity in the crumbling facade and child-like terror in the eyes — and a warning to those who’ll be lucky enough to live so long.

It’s a crime movie, but as the title suggests, it’s a personality study, a detailed one that grows in dimension. It’s fascinating to watch Plaza fill in those details. Her face is almost blank, but only almost. We always know what she’s thinking.

Smart, fun entertainment.

It's a rare, beautifully made movie that offers you another world. [23 June 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Red Sparrow is a thoroughly entertaining movie that stays fresh and interesting for all of its two-hours-plus running time. But what kicks it into a higher level is that it’s a terrific vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence, one of the few movie stars who deserves one, who is a film star in the classic sense.

In the end, the power of Final Account resides in the way it shows how human nature reacts to lies, propaganda and state-sanctioned atrocity. Some people, looking for an excuse to do evil, will jump right in. A very tiny faction will risk all to fight against them.

What a shrewd achievement for writer-director Henry Selick ("The Nightmare Before Christmas"), to have made a movie that everyone will acclaim as beautiful, when perhaps the most beautiful thing about it is the sheer ugliness of it all.

It’s extraordinary how Luhrmann is able to tell this story honestly, while still making it palatable. It’s equally extraordinary that he can take this short and tragically misdirected life and make it feel like a triumph.

The moments between the characters are absolutely full. It's a pleasure to watch such consummate professionals.

Home for the Holidays strikes such a perfect note that it's hard at first to realize what an impressive balancing act it is.

Homicide is a haunting picture that nags at you, days later. It provides no neat answers to the questions it raises about the merits of assimilation vs. maintaining one's ethnic, racial or religious identity, but rather captures something of the times. It might not be the most satisfying movie out there, yet there's a sense about it that, years from now, Homicide will seem even better than it does today.[18 Oct 1991, p.D1]

A delightful, witty picture that's short and sweet and presents one of the most accurate depictions of the behavior of teenage boys you're ever going to see on screen. [22 Mar 1991, p.E1]

Living in Oblivion is a rarity, a dark comedy that takes place almost entirely on a film set. Written and directed by Tom DiCillo, this is a very funny picture that presents the world of independent film making as a nightmare of conflicting egos, budgetary squalor and incompetence.

With Woo, violence is not just a means to an end. It's something pretty; it's fascinating. His talent is an original and peculiar one. Woo brings an esthetic sensibility to bear on the phenomenon of a good guy beating people up -- and to the spectacle of a violent shoot-out. Explosions aren't just impressive but beautiful. [20 Aug 1993, p.C1]

"Human Resources" was a good, straightforward tale, but Time Out is better. It's haunting. It's like a poem.

There are lapses in character motivation, and at times the film takes on a cartoony feeling. But if you worry about those things, you shouldn't be watching action movies. For its genre, Broken Arrow is a class act.

Disclosure is a frankly adult picture. The seduction scene is protracted and genuinely sexy -- though what this woman sees in Douglas is a mystery. The talk in Disclosure is also frank -- and unusually explicit. People talk about sex in this picture as they would in life.