Mike Clark

Shots is intermittently funny - but never, even on its own terms, important. [31 July 1991, p.6D]

This breezy farce has lost just enough of its luster to seem no longer disproportionately funnier than its oft-televised Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis remake You're Never Too Young. [29 May 1998]

It's gratifying to see a comedy can have no redeeming social value yet be full of hearty laughs.

T&H isn't art, but it's surprisingly good ''arf'' - and I know what I like. [28 July 1989, p.5D]

Smith is looking more and more like a developing major talent, so it could be years until we get a handle on this movie's legacy. The film is not only defensible as a cute one-shot, but also as a positive sign for the future.

For the first time in years (even counting his excellent work in “Internal Affairs”), Richard Gere's acting gears aren't too obviously apparent; Julia Roberts, though the breadth of her emotional range remains in question, is beautiful and can act - a not-bad blueprint for continued employment. [23 Mar 1990, Life, p.4D]

JFK is provocative, a technical primer and an ensemble treat with unusually well- realized star cameos. [20 Dec 1991]

The "Age of Innocence" oozes anthropological dazzle, but Dazed and Confused may some day rate its own Smithsonian showings for clinically re-creating the High School Experience 1976. [20 Sept 1993]

Look out for everything, and listen, too, because Suspects is one of the most densely plotted mysteries in memory.

The new version has the zip of a 96-yard punt return and all the ingredients to inspire the celebratory crushing of empty beer cans.

Richard LaGravenese's flashback script craftily tones down Waller's wind, adds a germane subplot and strengthens the novella's framing device. [02 Jun 1995, p.D1]

Ultimately grim, Liam is ripe in humanity --and even comedy.

The film, technically deft, is about as erotic as Mona Lisa on a hardwood floor or on a water bed. [23 Dec 1992, p.8D]

Deliberately downbeat, it's best as a two-person character study, stumbling a bit whenever it extends its parameters.

Though Hour 2's heavy emphasis on physical and emotional confrontations stimulates dramatic momentum, this respectable superstar meeting is finally, of all things, ordinary. [26Mar1997 Pg04.D]

Compared with other films Costner has directed, Range isn't a folly like "The Postman," nor is it quite as over-elaborated as "Dances With Wolves."

Emperor is like Full Metal Jacket - uneven, fuzzy, imperfect, and one of the reasons the movies were invented. [20 Nov 1987, p.1D]

There's a cold intelligence at work here. Though its pleasures are plentiful enough to reward a second viewing, only Nicholson has saved Warners from a wing-clip. [23 June 1989, Life, p.1D]

Overall, though, the movie commands mild respect. Cinematographer Kenneth MacMillan, who also shot Rush, has an ability to keep squalid surroundings from turning into eyesores without polishing them too much. Casey Siemaszko puts his own spin on Curly, the sadistic malcontent who'd like George and Lenny fired from his father's ranch. And however futilely, Sinise and scripter Horton Foote even try to make Curly's doomed Mrs. (Sherilyn Fenn ) more than the one-dimensional sexpot she often is. Bottom line: More mouse than man - but occasionally, a mighty mouse. [2 Oct 1992, p.4D]

A film dealing fully with Hoffman's final years might have had a lot more punch.

A promising debut by young writer/director Jacob Estes, this story of a botched revenge plot still isn't likely to break out even in multiplex August dog days.

Rob Reiner's competent-plus wax job on William Goldman's script is keenly orchestrated manipulation. [30 Nov 1990, p.4D]

It won't be a waste of time to watch these people — on cable, and probably not too far in the future.

The story itself is surprisingly seamless, yet it's the individual components that linger.

Has the unanticipated craft and artfully ambiguous appeal of last year's "Croupier," a movie whose art-house word-of-mouth success could be duplicated here.

More Mexican mayhem with a you-know-what in 1957's The Black Scorpion, with effects by Harryhausen's mentor, Willis O'Brien. [24 Oct 2003]

It's a sweet tale, but the movie's real subject is Zhang, the camera's muse that the lens adores.

If it's conventional, it's also competent. Thanks to director Charles Stone III (of the famed "Whassuup?!" Budweiser spots), the clichés at least have a good beat.