Mick LaSalle

Worth seeing, both for the ways it's timeless and for the ways it encapsulates an era.

The Ref, not just about a premise but about people, is the rare good comedy that actually gets better as it goes along. [11 Mar 1994, p.C1]

Talk about disturbing.

Unlike "Pirates," Stardust is anything but a wretched mess. It's a charming and smartly plotted fantasy.

In thematic terms, Cassandra's Dream could be looked at as a rebuttal to "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Drop is the kind of film that separates the real movie lover from the conditional movie lover. It is manipulative, fundamentally ridiculous, obvious, far-fetched, gut-level in its appeal and irresistible. As such, it embodies the true soul of movies.

The great strength and slight weakness of “How to Have Sex” is that it’s just like being there — except you might not want to be there.

As the documentary shows, while it lasted, it was really something.

If there’s a weakness to The D Train, it’s only in the filmmakers’ ultimate choice to stop the pain right before the finish, as if any good might really come to the characters they’ve created. Perhaps the assumption was that, by then, audiences will have suffered enough. But some misery you really can’t get enough of, especially when it’s happening to other people.

This time it’s not too big. Thor: Ragnarok has a lot of human appeal and a spirit of silliness that it never loses and yet always carefully manages, so that the silliness remains an ongoing source of delight without ever undercutting the impact of the action.

As Mister Rogers, Tom Hanks does something very important, besides looking and sounding enough like Fred Rogers that we can accept him in the role. He captures the supreme self-confidence it takes to be that nice and giving.

Captures the flavor of putting on a show on Broadway.

A gentle comedy, offbeat but never cute, never lewd and never going for shortcut laughs that might diminish character.

An action blockbuster extravaganza that's sadder than sad and never pretends otherwise.

Red Rock West' is filled with delightful twists of plot, and the twists start coming early -- so we'll leave off talking about the story. [28 Jan 1994, p.C3]

It's fascinating.

It's probably the only love story you'll see this decade that will make you half-expect the camera to swerve and pick up the sight of Rod Serling, standing there in a black suit.

The movie is long, and here and there it seems to meander. But when it arrives at its anguished last scene, there's no doubt that Eustache knew where he was heading all along.

I Care a Lot is notable for its colorful supporting and featured roles — Chris Messina as a mob lawyer, Peter Dinklage as a Russian mobster and Eiza Gonzalez as Marla’s girlfriend. But the main attraction is Pike, who doesn’t try to make us like her. She commits to the character’s nature and holds us with her honesty, her intensity and her unmistakable pleasure in getting to play someone appalling.

It's a lovely film that grows along with the characters. At first, it seems like a pleasing but inconsequential comedy. But it deepens as their connection deepens and opens up into a place of poignancy and insight.

It’s a wail of grief, an expression of love, a testament to the body. Cronenberg puts it all on the line here, and he gets his actors to put it all on the line with him. If you don’t feel its visceral charge, you’re not paying attention.

Jurassic World is an intelligent action movie that’s saying something simple but true: Yes, people are that stupid.

Has some faults, but it manages to keep its audience either angry or jumpy from start to finish.

It's a one-of-a-kind experience -- dark, bleak, twisted carnival noir.

With a movie like this, we know what has to happen. The fun is in seeing how it happens. Ryback is an explosives expert, so there are some delightful bomb interludes. He makes a bomb for the microwave, takes a missile apart and puts it back together and comes up with original ideas, such as rigging a hand grenade to a door so it will explode when the door is opened. Under Siege is a lot like Die Hard moved to a battleship. [09 Oct 1992, p.C3]

Very good at pointing out the social difficulties surrounding the Dickens-Ternan relationship, the power dynamics within it and the lasting effects of it.

An impressive and imaginative fantasy.

In The Chaperone, Brooks is something of a fixed entity, a fully-formed force of nature already heading toward her peculiar form of glory. She has stuff to do all day — studying by day and partying by night, while Elizabeth McGovern as Norma has time to look inside.