Mick LaSalle

One of the most enjoyable pictures of the season.

Blue Chips is in many ways like a modern Frank Capra movie, about a battle between corruption and idealism, money vs. love, the pack vs. the individual. It's an Americana story about white farm boys and black ghetto kids bringing their talents together in a pure endeavor and about the cynical forces that would pollute that. [18 Feb 1994, p.C3]

Sicko will scare people, and it probably should.

This is pure entertainment but smart entertainment, plotted and executed with invention and humor and acted by a winning cast radiating good-movie energy.

There are some brief minutes when the tension drops and the story starts to sag, but Fukunaga almost always fills the frame with something worth seeing, and the story has a built-in suspense.

The new Vanishing fails on its own terms -- it gradually adopts the conventions of a silly monster movie and loses the emotional impact of a psychological thriller in the process. But what makes this failed effort perplexing is the existence of the earlier film and its successful design. [05 Feb 1993, p.D4]

There's no satisfaction and no pleasure to be gained by sitting through it. The characters are ludicrous and, worse than that, boring. And this is despite all the lead actors doing the best they can.

The film takes a bold, intelligent approach to the explorer's story, providing scenes and images that are not to be forgotten. Then, midway into its journey, the movie sails right off the edge of the universe. [09 Oct 1992, p.C1]

Presented without preachiness or affectation, Kandahar is a short, matter-of-fact visit to hell.

But make no mistake, whether the movie is fair or horribly unfair - I know nothing of the actual facts and can't make that determination - its portrait of Zuckerberg is a hatchet job of epic and perhaps lasting proportions.

Even if a certain glibness in the plotting deflates its impact somewhat at the finish, it remains an eerie, playful thriller and an all-around entertaining time at the movies.

A thoroughly satisfying, completely entertaining film that's also, rather surprisingly, an emotionally full experience.

Its virtues can't outweigh the disappointment of a movie that might have been a rousing old-fashioned epic, or better yet a provocative reworking of an old epic, and instead became a muddle.

It's two hours of your life wasted, time once spent that can never be regained. Don't go. Don't do it. [30 Mar 1988]

Remaking Get Smart for the big screen might have sounded like a bad idea, but the movie shows it to have been something else: a REALLY bad idea.

A legit action movie.

Part conscious and part unconscious, Watchmen tells us of a world without hope and then makes us wonder if we're already living in it.

Although the picture's title and promotion might lead you to expect another "Wayne's World," Airheads is something more substantial. It's a spoof of heavy-metal culture that at the same time respects the vitality and pent-up passion behind it.

Gets better as it goes along.

A different kind of Harry Potter movie, a better kind... It's where this fantasy series has wanted to go all along.

The alien attack, taking place in several cities at once, is breathtaking...All the same, Independence Day is consistently funny.

So fascinating and has so many implications that it balances out some real flaws in the story.

For its look and its innovation, and for its ability to suggest shades of feeling with a minimum use of intertitles — and as a classic of the first order — Sunrise must be seen.

Revenge is like a movie about two idiots who jump off a cliff hoping gravity will take a holiday. When they hit the ground _ well, that's just too bad. [16 Feb 1990, p.E1]

A tense, concise and elegantly shot film.

The movie's promise -- to provide a balanced argument -- goes unrealized, and all we're left with is the spectacle of an idiot bullying a genius.

Nothing in her performance in the second two-thirds of the film hints at the shallows or depths that could allow Maggie to be a killer -- before or after. [19 March 1993, p.C1]

A worthy, fascinating film..

The spectacle is nothing short of refreshing.

Terminator 2 imagines things you wouldn't even be likely to dream and gets these visions onto the screen with a seamlessness that's mind-boggling. [3 July 1991, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

For pure, uncomplicated enjoyment, it's the movie to see right now.

An exceptionally well-written script, full of unexpected turns and clever reversals, and a trio of deft actors in the principal roles.

It's fast, snappy and entertaining in a superficial way. But it lacks gravity and authenticity and seems more like a product than an attempt to tell a story.

It should come as no surprise that Jonathan Hensleigh's script was not originally written as a "Die Hard" film. The blend of "Die Hard" and "With a Vengeance" is sometimes smooth but never complete. It's as if "Die Hard" were wearing a rented tux.

A harsh and thoroughly unromantic examination of the scarring effects of war.

Not a stirring piece of drama, and it does not altogether work in the ways it was intended to. But in its own shambling, elliptical way it's an entertaining, memorable movie whose 2 1/2 hours go by without strain.

The movie is really a sexy, emotionally true portrait of a handful of people wrestling with their impulses and trying to find their way to happiness.

Vantage Point has nothing going on. There's no artistic, philosophical or even jolly entertainment reason for adopting this strategy. It's just arbitrary, a gimmick.

More than one joke or one idea. It's a thoroughly satisfying comedy --and a respectable space adventure, as well.

Comes closer than any other recent animated film to the Looney Tunes ideal. Just as Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny entertained without either condescending to kids or lobbing adult jokes over their heads.

Masterful documentary.

No matter how bad things get, you can always be thankful for this: You're not on trial for murder in Russia.

If anyone wants to watch naked men in the shower, naked men doing erotic dancing, naked men in bed and almost-naked men pumping iron, this is the film to see.

There are chase scenes and car pileups. This wasn't fresh in 1980. It hasn't gotten any fresher.

It's a delicate, intelligent movie about modern parenthood and the pressures that children face, and it features a cast of talented actors who were clearly committed to the movie's message.

In the early going "Wild Bill" looks interesting -- an audacious wallow in violence and Western legend. Then 20 minutes in, writer-director Walter Hill puts his cards on the table. It's a dead man's hand.

It's sober, never flashy or exciting but always engrossing.

Prada just feels authentic, from its glossy look to the specific and sometimes curious behavior of the secondary and tertiary characters. To watch it is like being entertained while getting an anthropological crash course.

There's nothing particularly wrong with A Kid in King Arthur's Court and nothing right with it, either. Parents will take their kids to see it and suffer, but the pain is mild.

It's a big disappointment.

It's entertaining and inoffensive.

Convoluted.

It's almost a great movie. For half of its running time, Anderson maintains a distinct and arresting tone of vague absurdity, and then he loses control and the film begins to dip into silliness. Individual scenes become labored. Yet even at its worst, The Life Aquatic is always interesting -- there's really nothing else like it.

It is a colossal bomb, an epic miscalculation, an excuse for actor self-indulgence and for what sounds very much like bad improvisation.

There's an appeal here, for sure, but if you're not 8 years old you may never figure it out.

Williamson's script, which he also directed, is spiteful and shallow.

Angel Eyes is the rare film that presents a family dynamic as demented as ones we know from life.

Directed with playful wit and energy, with steamy sex scenes played as much for laughs as anything else.

You won't see another film like Fay Grim this year, and we should give Hartley credit for making it work on his own terms.

If Species sounds ridiculous, it is -- though as ridiculous science fiction films go, this one has its moments. As usual, these moments come early.

It would be a mildly lovely thing to be able to say the movie isn't bad. But it is.

It's a meandering and rather aimless movie that would be considered trite if made by another filmmaker, and yet it has such a family resemblance to other, better Woody Allen movies that it's easy to stick with it and enjoy it.

Setting out to make a cult movie is almost as strange as setting out to make a camp movie. Or setting out to make a movie that's so bad it's good. If you know you're doing it, you're not really doing it.

For Friday night this will do just fine. It's definitely a good matchup -- Stone's cynical bravado versus Berry's resilient spunkiness in a world-class cat fight.

Take the worst things about independent movies - the wallowing in an unpleasantness, the narrative unsteadiness, the next-to-no story. Then combine those with a hefty dose of light comedy. The result: the big, fat tonal mess that is Happy Tears, a charmless film about two sisters who come together to care for their demented father.

The result is a satisfying and original picture.

Cusack should have been half the picture, but the screenplay keeps shoving him offstage for no good reason, and it's a mistake. One of many.

Emily Rose is the thinking person's demon possession movie, which presents a chilling case history that's hard to explain away.

The movie is equal parts interesting, awful and lovely.

Those who love Nader will appreciate the respect and attention given his career. Yet others, even those for whom the mere sight of Nader's face is enough to cause a spike in blood pressure, will appreciate the film's evenhanded elucidation of Nader's faults.

The result is that after two hours one gets the sense of having seen a panorama of human experience, of having witnessed a moment of time in all its true fullness.

Would have been a stronger movie if it didn't require a strong cup of coffee going in.

The film is dreadfully slow without much in the way of rewards.

Midnight Run has thrills, excellent performances, touching moments, slick plotting, lively dialogue, plenty of laughs, beautiful locations and finely detailed direction. It's an across-the-board success, the best new movie I've seen in years. [20 July 1988]

The result is a genre-bending yarn, an entertaining mix of period drama and flat-out farce that should please history fans.

Though many of Parker's well- known wisecracks make their way into the screenplay, Mrs. Parker ultimately does not give us the Dorothy Parker of legend.

A satisfying story of a grand-scale swindle, but it also retains the impishness and charm of "Ocean's Twelve." Even better, it solves the Roberts problem in the most thorough and economical way possible: She's not in the movie.

Neither a masterpiece nor a remake of one, but its wistfulness is infectious, and its melancholy mood lingers for days.

As depicted here, the political story becomes convoluted and dramatically inert.

On the surface, it's a mystery in which someone is going around stealing personal items, and the women are suspected -- and suspect each other. In a larger sense it's about how corporate culture is not only antithetical to individuality and human kindness but also hostile toward these things.

In the end, Knight and Day isn't really about much of anything besides having a good time or perhaps the meaning of Tom Cruise-ness in the universe.

Palindromes isn't a wise movie, or a particularly true movie, but it's an honest one and a singular experience.

Not only more crazy than “Reservoir Dogs,'' but it also feels more real. [1 Jan 1993, Daily Notebook, p.D1]

Often the movie seems like a lot of empty-headed blather, with one side hating the First Amendment and the other side unable to find a better use for it but to say the f-word.

Higher Learning says nothing new or challenging and is too naive to inspire controversy.

Fresh music and silly dialogue - those aspects of Purple Rain haven't changed over the years. [Review of re-release]

Guare's play is austerely funny and cerebral, and the film stays true to it, neither warming it up nor dumbing it down. [22 Dec 1993, p.E1]

Makes a persuasive case.

The new John Waters movie, Cry-Baby, which opens today at the Kabuki, isn't daring or even daringly undaring. It's a spoof of those dull, corny musicals from the '50s and early '60s and is just as dull and safe as the kind of movie it mocks. I fell asleep, and I haven't dozed off in a theater since ''Dream Lover,'' a Kristy McNichol effort from 1986. [6 Apr 1990, p.E1]

Worthy but dull.

The picture gives us two protagonists and sets up a situation in which only one of them can have a decent life. Then, having devised this sour souffle, the screenwriters find no adjustment to make it palatable. The resolution is flip, at best.

A childish, empty effort.

Has warmth and integrity, but it lacks the urgency of a story that had to be told.

Underneath the seeming blandness of its presentation -- the sparse dialogue, the affectless characters -- there's a ferocious and caustic view of humanity.

The evocative nature of Nelson's stillness is essential to the whole last movement of Fresh, an intricately plotted series of unexpected and related events. In a way, the audience has to read the meaning of the ending in Nelson's face. Fortunately Nelson has a face that can make you believe anything. [31 Aug 1994, p.E1]

A comedy without laughs. The people on screen laugh more than the audience. I'd be willing to bet that the average person laughs more during any given 105 minutes of the workday than they would during all of Ski Patrol. Even if they go to Ski Patrol having had a few drinks. [05 Mar 1990, p.F1]

Fails to engage.

A brilliant piece of construction, and talking too much about its specifics would only spoil the overall experience.

In the end this is Hoffman's movie, and it's refreshing, finally, to see him not as an oddball or eccentric but as a decent, capable guy who is ultimately a lot more intense than most people.

A creeping equanimity is taking over the work of John Sayles, a quality that in personal terms might be wise and coolheaded but in terms of drama is absolute death.

A triumph that goes well beyond Hoffman's tour de force performance.

Nora Ephron directed it and had a hand in the screenplay, but without Travolta this film would have no reason for being.

The picture gives the impression of a director in control of his vision, making precisely the film he intends to make. But the vision is a distinctly idiosyncratic one that will appeal only to certain tastes.

Fascinating in its depiction of presidential leadership in action.

By grounding everything that went before in an earthy realism, Hardwicke earns the elevation of the nativity sequence, one of the more beautiful scenes in this year's cinema.

Yet Apocalypto has to be respected for the sheer audacity of it, for the commitment and ambition behind it, and for its presentation of a complete other world. It is the furthest thing from a cynical or casual piece of work. It's crazy, and it moves.

By the end, a sense settles in that Whale Rider could have accomplished as much -- and been considerably more powerful -- as a 25- minute short.

Maher makes Michael Moore look incredibly likable in comparison.

Chalk it all up to prettiness, if you like, but Lane's case has more to do with spirit -- with warmth and emotional readiness, plus a kind of open-book quality that makes her both lovely and comical, usually at the same time.

There are lots of cameos, as well, too many to count. However, it is worth mentioning that singer Taylor Swift shows up in a couple of scenes, playing a vapid Valley girl, and she's very funny.

It brings together several popular strains of contemporary moviemaking and combines them into one big, shameless, audacious, compulsively watchable, irresistibly likable piece of pure entertainment.

A clever, atmospheric romantic drama that lacks something.

The picture meanders and goes back in time for needless flashbacks, and in the end the comedy mutes whatever punch the dramatic elements might have had.

Mature, thoughtful and occasionally dazzling.

Compelling parable from Canada that's open to a number of interpretations.

Powerfully documents the human cost of the Iraq war.

The film is a methodical and loving examination of two people constructing a fantasy for themselves. [08 Oct 1993]

The result is a children's movie that's almost worth seeing even when not accompanied by a child. It's certainly a painless experience, and at times it's quite funny.

There's a way to love City of Ghosts, and that's to watch it not as a story that should add up to something, but as a series of little episodes with their own specialness and integrity.

If it happens to hit you right - that is, if you happen to catch its wavelength of tear-and-a-smile whimsicality - the movie will speak to you.

For all its surface seriousness, Splice is a regulation monster movie. So however somber it gets, it's never truly thought-provoking, and however outrageous it gets, it's still always 20 minutes behind the audience. It's just too dumb to be serious and too slow to be entertaining. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/03/MVKJ1DOO26.DTL#ixzz0pqYvhKuF

Not for a minute is Mad City anything less than entertaining. Yet it becomes frustrating nonetheless. Its ideas gradually seem to be at cross-purposes -- not complex, not tantalizingly ambiguous, but tangled and undefined.

This may be hard to believe, but there's not a single moment of drama or tension in any of the action sequences. And the film is made up almost entirely of action.

It's a humane and witty treatment of an average life that, incidentally, speaks to the worth and inherent drama of average lives.

An absolute delight, combining the cheap thrills of a biopic with the gentler, but more lasting, pleasures of a brilliant character study.

In "Fatal Attraction" [Close] was a woman out of control. Here she's in control of her emotions, too much in control. When Merteuil finally lets loose and gives way to complete animal despair, Close is horrifying. [13 Jan 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

On its own terms, the movie succeeds. Like a fable, its meanings are unspecific but haunting.

FernGully: The Last Rainforest has a creeping sweetness that sneaks up on the viewer. This musical animation gets off to a slow start, and it's just as slow in the middle. But by the end, it acquires an emotional impact, and later you really feel as though you've been somewhere new. [10 Apr 1992, p.C1]

Inert, incompetent and emotionally fraudulent.

In the same genre as the Farrellys' "There's Something About Mary" and "Dumb and Dumber," only lousy.

Playful and energized enough to keep an audience guessing.

At the finish, the filmmakers give us at least three different endings, probably because they have no idea what Freedomland is saying, probably because it's not saying much of anything. But a film with this many virtues can't be written off as just another average entry.

It's a pumped-up, intricate and fast-moving yarn that never flags and continues to play out in unexpected ways as it unravels.

As the photographer, Baldwin tries to keep his chin up, but he's ultimately sunk by the built-in ludicrousness of the character he plays. But Hopkins -- through wit, luck and imagination -- emerges victorious from the barren wilderness of Mamet's script. He has only himself to thank.

Here, as in the "Friday" movies, the jokes are big and rude and vulgar and very funny.

Eddie Murphy's latest picture, Coming to America, is a harmless, fairly amusing comedy that will delight Eddie Murphy fans and keep everyone else mildly entertained. [30 Jun 1988, p.E1]

Why, if Chase is such a funny guy, does he make such unfunny movies?

Fascinating in its own strange way, not as entertainment but as a cultural document.

What The Banger Sisters offers in place of an eloquent statement is the charm of two actresses at the top of their game in flashy roles and a smart script that's decidedly more coarse than sentimental.

Fascinating.

It provokes nothing but yawns, and the sex it explores is stuff everybody knows about and says, "So what?"

It takes about 20 minutes to catch on that Friday is without narrative drive - and about as long to figure out that the film offers nothing better in place of it.

You don't walk out thinking or feeling anything in particular, except satisfied that you got your money's worth and maybe even got a little tired from laughing so hard. [2 Dec 1988]

The comedy, to the extent there is any, consists mainly of Carrey's verbal asides and strained reactions to people. The script gives him very little to work with.

Won't go down as an action thriller for the record books, but it's a pretty good one for right now. First of all, the villain is a bank. How's that for timing?

Just about everything in The Chronicles of Riddick is impenetrable, from the convoluted story to the dark and baroque art direction. It's an inane film rendered sometimes laughable by an atmosphere of dead-serious reverence.

Brothers has the careful observation, measured pace and lived-in feeling of a good European film.

The movie is rich with music and more than a few moments of painful exaltation.

Mel Brooks has made a movie that's completely free and spontaneous, which at the same time is not in any way lazy or sloppy. [28 July 1993, p.E1]

Clark Gable was at his most virile and Charles Laughton at almost his most vicious and sneering in director Frank Lloyd's vigorous adaptation, the first and best screen version of the Bounty story. [22 March 1998, p.52]

Perry is at his best playing frenetic confusion.

Few who see it will be sorry. Sometimes being humane means not being squeamish.

Something special about it. It's a formula movie, to be sure, but it's Formula One.

Overlong, overplotted and underdrawn.

A sophisticated story of disappointment and accommodation.

As vile, unredeeming and thoroughly unpleasant experiences go, I Spit on Your Grave at least has one thing interesting about it. It's a document of the most paranoid fantasies that urban, Northern people have about a rural Southern people.

Four screenwriters are credited with this sloppy piece of work. Divide the embarrassment into quarters.

Crush is that strange mixed bag -- an otherwise wretched movie in which an actress gets to do some of her best work.

Liotta's acting can't redeem senseless violence.

The finest American Westerns have a characteristic that 3:10 to Yuma shares. In a way that's almost mystical, they suggest a truth beyond the specifics of the tale.

But probably the best thing about The Prince & Me is the way the story doesn't end in the obvious place but keeps going, showing the characters continuing to develop.

Movies don't get worse than Good Burger, a wretched little comedy. It's a movie that inspires wonder -- at how it got made and released.

Father-daughter relationship lacks impact.

Appealing movie, one of the summer's pleasant surprises.

A conventional suspense thriller, but the details kick it up a notch.

Ernest Goes to Jail is a cute picture, good for what it is, which isn't much, but that's OK. [07 Apr 1990, p.C3]

Starts off as a comedy about an unlikely friendship between a white man and a black man who meet over a pick-up basketball game on a Los Angeles playground. Then it switches gears and for a time seems as though it's going to be a more serious look at these men and their world. Finally, it just falls apart completely, and the last hour is a chaotic, meandering mess. [27 Mar 1992, p.D1]

One of the most quietly powerful endings in recent memory.

Welles is lovely in the film, open and vulnerable, and Keith Baxter as Hal is quite good. [28 Sep 2016, p.Q39]

"The Family Stone" did nothing for Parker, but Failure to Launch makes a strong case for life after "Sex and the City."

Depictions of an aide talking about her hospital vigil and her words of comfort to a distraught Laura Bush are creepy and exploitative -- and borderline disgusting.

Significantly, this hyper-stylization of 300 is limited to its visuals. The performances are played straight, and this combination -- straight performances and stylized visuals -- produces an uncanny effect.

It's just a simple thriller whose goal is little more than to keep moving.

Just one big wipeout.

Watch Infamous on its own. It's a worthy film in its own right, with its own virtues.

The film holds no surprises. It's strictly by the book, uninspired and only vaguely sincere. But Michael J. Fox is not by the book; he is always genuine. Fox's charm, his comic ease and his genuine good acting manage to keep this mediocre ''vehicle'' afloat, scene by scene, to the end. I believed he was in love with the girl, even though I couldn't figure out why. [1 Oct 1993, p.C3]

There's something painful about watching Scarlett Johansson, who looks as if she never had an indecisive moment in her life, struggle to seem ineffectual.

The picture is willfully gross, fundamentally stupid and in no way worth the discomfort of watching it. Yet it may be the most well-crafted piece of garbage this year.

Breillat is inviting us to really look at sex as it occurs in life, and to engage with it mentally, as a driving mystery of human existence.

Ambles along and has a feeling of randomness about it, but, in fact, it's tightly plotted. Every moment, however seemingly haphazard and casually presented, is keyed to the progress of a young man from lost to not so lost.

Owen is a magnetic, sensitive presence at the center of a movie that doesn't deserve him and that barely deserves to be seen.

Hook never reaches Nirvana. It doesn't grab the audience, fling it into another world and make people forget where they parked their cars. But it does leave the viewer with a glow, and along the way it has magical moments, even if it's not fully magical as a whole. [11 Dec. 1991, p.E1]

Spike Lee is too passionate and distinctive a film maker to make a lousy movie. So although Mo' Better Blues, his latest, is a misfire, there is a personality behind every camera shot. An audience is willing to go farther down the road with Lee than with another film maker, and even when, as in this case, the road leads nowhere, it's hard to resent the trip. [03 Aug 1990, p.E1]

It eschews obvious effects, but even more impressively, it tells a story without an obvious moral. It assumes that kids can wrestle with a fairly complicated narrative and draw their own conclusions.

There's something in Ned Kelly' that's lost in the translation from Australia to America, and the overly emotional film score is just a symptom.

Now comes this American version, which turns out to be the exception, an American remake that's better than the European original.

John Lennon once said, "There's a great woman behind every idiot." This time, I'm counting seven of them.

Woo's aggressive, cartoony attack in the film, which makes for its biggest delights, also wipes out whatever chance it might have had of making an emotional impact.

Has no truth, wisdom or honesty, and it's barely entertaining.

In a way the faults of New Nightmare are the faults of the horror genre as it now exists. Once you get the set-up, the rest of the film is just incidents leading up to the big confrontation. The problem is not in knowing what will happen, but in waiting for it to happen. [14 Oct 1994, p.C3]

More than on "Prime Suspect," more than any film in recent memory, Le Petit Lieutenant conveys the relentless toll of big-city police work.

It's a movie to feel. Even when the thinking isn't all there, the emotions are, all the way to the film's poignant last seconds.

It has verve, color and energy, but there's something fundamentally bogus about it.

Inventive and intermittently amusing.

It's that rare kind of movie that comes along only a handful of times each year -- gut-level entertainment that's oddly profound.

An entertaining film that's true to its world.

With a thriller like this, details almost don't matter. It's entertaining enough to watch it get to where it's got to go. Liotta is seedy and creepy as the obsessed cop, disintegrating before our eyes. ''The only problem I have is sleazy, low-life whores like you,'' he tells a woman he picks up. Officer Pete has some hostility issues he needs to work on. [26 June 1992, p.G1]

After the heights of "Casino Royale," the series falls back into routine with this above-average thriller, filled with over-the-top action, familiar Bond atmosphere and a story that's impossible to follow - and why bother anyway? Daniel Craig is still the coolest man in the universe. That definitely helps.

When Christian Bale allowed himself to play Bruce Wayne in "Batman Begins," he was slumming - and to good effect. But with Terminator Salvation, this ostensibly serious actor takes up residence in the action ghetto, and it's not a good fit.

Often silly but it's an honest, unselfconscious exploration of the conflict between a man's physical and psychological age.

This is the weird thing, Old Dogs is not that bad.

Clearly, an effort was made to create a serious, thoughtful movie.

Original enough to come up with new ways to go wrong. For one, the film is a blatant showcase to promote O'Neal as a rap artist.

It's instantly forgettable, but smooth fun most of the way.

A stink bomb of a movie.

Both Mastrantonio and Harris are terrific, never missing a beat, always convincing, even when playing the most extreme emotions. [9 Aug 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Great to look at but not much fun to watch… An emotionally uncommitted picture that's smirky and mawkish, by turns, and at heart, empty. [14 Dec 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Either Live Free or Die Hard will go down as the summer's best action blockbuster, or it's going to be one exceptional summer.

Heartfelt but somewhat bloated documentary that's partly an homage and partly a literary mystery.

The most coolheaded of the Iraq war documentaries, the most methodical and the least polemical. Yet it's the one that will leave audiences the most shattered, angry and astounded.

A thoroughly entertaining film by a director at the height of his ability.

What's completely baffling is that everyone in the film thinks Nomi is one heck of a dancer, even though her one move -- throwing her arms out stiffly -- is straight out of "Dr. Strangelove."

So comically fertile and yet so grounded in the reality of its characters that it's really a kind of marvel.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man is one of Chevy Chase's best movies. Though more or less a comedy, the picture gives Chase a chance to do much more than smirk and be a wise guy, while providing a good showcase for his dry style of humor. [28 Feb 1992, p.D1]

The old saying, "It's hard to find good help nowadays" takes on a new meaning in Murderous Maids.

McNally takes a thin story and pumps it up, bringing in waitresses and busboys, all of them lonely, all of them broke. In the hands of director Garry Marshall, the material becomes deadly. He turns on the schmaltz, brings up the violins and shows them in their tiny apartments, alone and miserable but kinda cute, living their small, dull lives. This is the working class as viewed by the clueless wealthy -- condescension trying to pass as compassion. [11 Oct 1991, p.D1]

Automatic weapons versus shot-guns. Silly stuff, but it held my attention. [21 Oct 1989, p.C3]

More than the standard, cranked-out genre piece. Its characters linger in your mind, and the quality of its actors lift the movie into another league. [14 April 1989]

If only the explanation and resolution of the action were more compelling, Dark Water might have been a thriller of the first order.

Stuns with writing, acting, direction.

The film is always at least mildly interesting, because international arms dealing is a fairly compelling issue, but it's never as informative as a good documentary nor as engrossing as a good narrative. It's a hybrid that's frustrating in two distinct ways.

Yet, it's watchable -- not remotely enjoyable, but watchable.

RV is a horrible movie about horrible people, and just because they call it a comedy doesn't mean we have to play along.

The film's appeal has a lot to do with the casting of Juliette Binoche as Sand, who brings to the role her pale, dark beauty and characteristic warmth.

"Spider-Man 2" was a textbook example of how to make a sequel: Deepen it, make it funnier, give it more heart and come up with a strong villain and a good story. Spider Man 3, by contrast, shows how not to make a sequel.

One of the most incisive and perceptive Hollywood films about Hollywood.

Things isn't linear, and it isn't all that lively. But it captures the experience of some modern women, and it feels from the heart.

A melancholy, well-observed film.

A frustrating film that feels cobbled together.

It's a dreadful exercise, tin-eared and sincere, bereft of any truth or inspiration.

This is the old stuff, the good stuff, the tried-and-true stuff of shrewdly accomplished audience manipulation.

For at least a half hour, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a brilliant and exciting film and seems almost sure to be one of the best of 2010. Then it becomes simply good. Then it becomes merely interesting. And then, about 15 minutes before the finish, it becomes dull and interminable.

Reveals essential truthfulness about families.

An elegant-looking picture, carefully made and beautifully put together, but when the gloss wears off, you're left with an experience that doesn’t quite satisfy. [5 Oct 1990, Daily Datebook, E10]

It could have been something special, but two things drag it down to mediocrity -- director Clare Peploe's misunderstanding of Marivaux's rhythms, and Mira Sorvino's limitations as a classical actress.

The fuzziness is suddenly and definitely gone, and Reeves emerges as a mature, charismatic movie star.

Too labored and cliched to incite passion in an audience.

It's hard to tell if Cage's performance is a grand stab at all-out, no-holds-barred comic acting or one of the worst dramatic performances in a film this year. [2 June 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E8]

After a promising opening, with Jason on a rampage and a cold, peculiar bounty hunter (Steven Williams) on Jason's trail, Jason Goes to Hell switches focus midway to the young couple, and from there things go downhill. Still, the film has its moments. [14 Aug 1993, p.F1]

In every way, Miss Potter is a very beautiful thing.

With Boogie Nights, we know we're not just watching episodes from disparate lives but a panorama of recent social history, rendered in bold, exuberant colors.

With its flat story, numbed-out protagonist, and faux artistic lighting and set design - everything is dark or moody or darkishly moody or moodily dark - Max Payne seems a good half hour longer than its running time.

Intelligent, observant entertainment designed for an adult audience.

A film one watches at an emotional remove, but from that distance there are sights and moments to appreciate.

Claude Chabrol has a wonderful way of making audiences nervous.

It's still a good [movie], with its self-contained world of concert arenas and smoky clubs and sad, weird people who linger in the mind.

Benefits from Smith and Lawrence's chemistry. As long as they're on screen together, things breeze along. But when they're apart, the movie flounders.

By the end A.I. exhibits all its creators' bad traits and none of the good. So we end up with the structureless, meandering, slow-motion endlessness of Kubrick combined with the fuzzy, cuddly mindlessness of Spielberg.

If there's a revelation to be gleaned from these youthful entries, it's that much of what made Hitchcock great was there from the beginning. [18 Feb 2007, p.26]

Emotionally sophisticated, humane and worth talking about for hours.

Has all the usual virtues of a good action suspense drama, but it lacks that extra something - that context, that vital interchange - that made the original "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" such a memorable experience in 1974.

At the very least the film can be congratulated for being anarchic enough to explore an attraction between the two oldest Brady kids, Marcia and Greg.

One must be very, very, very, very, very interested in Yorkshire, circa 1980, to embrace and enjoy The Red Riding Trilogy. And yet ... there is something to be said for an enterprise this specific and uncompromising.

Jennifer Jason Leigh (Baumbach's wife) appears in two scenes, as an ex-girlfriend of Greenberg, and she's quietly brilliant, as always.

A third-rate effort, with a weak script, cheap-looking effects and no genuine frights.

A Cinderella story with star appeal going for it and everything else against it.

Entertaining, but it's about one notch below being something anybody really needs to see.

Young Guns is really a modern action movie in the revenge mode, disguised as a western. But with all its faults, it more or less works. Palance is a great heavy, Estevez makes an off-the-wall hero, and there's usually enough happening on screen to keep you interested. [12 Aug 1988, p.E3]

The terseness of Hosseini's prose has been replaced by the sentimentality of the director's approach.

With his crisp intelligence always a step away from collapsing into paralyzing self-consciousness, and his polished good-boy veneer often giving way to hysteria and vulgarity, Grant is a delight. [18 March 1994, Daily Notebook, p.C-3]

With skill and also with love, writer-director Eric Mendelsohn creates a delicate and airy mood, a kind of cinematic haiku.

More than confusing. It's opaque.

A little like spending the holidays with strangers. The spirits are high, the relationships are warm, the personal stories have a shared history, and even though you're on the outside of things, you appreciate the people in a remote and perhaps admiring sort of way. Still, when it's time to leave, you're not sorry.

The main problem with "Pretty in Pink" today is simply that the entire section involving Jon Cryer, as Ringwald's pompadour-wearing best friend, is excruciating to watch. It must have been equally excruciating to perform. Basically, any time Cryer is onscreen, the story ceases to advance. He is there as comic relief only - or comic filler - but there's nothing funny about either the role or the performance. Still, there's a really good, perceptive 50-minute teenage story buried in this 96-minute movie. And a pretty good time capsule, besides.

If all the laughs come from Depp, who gives Willy the mannerisms of a classic Hollywood diva, the film's heart comes from Highmore, a gifted young performer who had a leading role in "Finding Neverland." His performance is sincere, deep and unforced in a way that's rare in a child actor.

Approximately the last hour of Dante's Peak is made up of action scenes, and how well one likes computer-generated destruction will determine how well one likes the movie.

Tremors gets its characters into a series of hopeless situations and then resolves these situations in unexpected ways. I tried to out-guess the movie and couldn't. The movie might be nothing more than light entertainment, but care and thinking clearly went into it. [19 Jan 1990, p.E1]

In slightly less than 1,000 years, the competition for worst film of the third millennium will be fierce. Yet the smart money may well be on the Korean art film Lies.

It turns out that Pepe Le Moko is even better than "Algiers."

In an attempt to be complex and fair-minded, a simple story becomes a jumble of confused motivations.