Mike Clark

It's the actor/director's best movie - and the best Western by anybody in over 20 years. [7 Aug 1992]

A timeless story. [07 Oct 2005, p.8E]

The first movie Montgomery Clift made (but second released) was Howard Hawks' all-time Western Red River. In the interim, director Fred Zinnemann stole some thunder by showcasing the actor in this semi-documentary about European children left homeless and without parents after World War II, filmed on location in the then-U.S. Occupied Zone of Germany. [23 Oct 2009, p.3D]

Let's just say that if you loved Dana Carvey in Opportunity Knocks, you'll thrill to Taking Care of Business. [17 Aug 1990]

Every movie year has one, and now it's Britain's Mike Leigh who's conjured up the professional reviewer's worst nightmare: the picture so original, well-acted and witty that it must be given its ample due - despite being heavy on components guaranteed to bum out all but the most frequent moviegoers. [23 Dec. 1993, p.5D]

A great movie just got greater, thanks to this thorough restoration. [Director's Cut; 27 June 1997, p.D3]

Though the power of some Holocaust documentaries is in part a product of their epic scope and epic running times, The Last Days overwhelms at just 87 minutes. [05 Feb 1999]

Still the definitive 20th-century Texas movie. [13 June 2003, p.8E]

This is one of the best re-creations ever of the early-'50s Midwest. [11 Sept 1987, Life, p.3D]

If the movie finally doesn't know when to quit, its flaws are those of enthusiasm and heart. The central character may be a bus, but the story is really saying, "walk a mile in my shoes." [16 Oct 1996]

News is right, completely right, until it slips just a bit at the end.By that time it hardly matters because you've seen the best of the holiday films, as well as the most all-around entertaining movie of 1987 - a bittersweet media comedy-drama that surpasses its potential. [16 Dec 1987, p.1D]

This thorough original is a wall-to-wall exercise in gallows humor, a movie whose full funny/sad effect doesn't hit until you reflect upon the subject and the cast of characters.

The film's real heart is splitsville Pollack and Davis - he for the comedy his foolhardy fling provides and she for creating a complex character too direct to maintain marital harmony she may well need. It would be heartening if Davis, not scandal, were to be the film's ultimate legacy. Look for her to figure in the year-end supporting actress awards. [18 Sept 1992, p.1D]

The result is almost enough to make an audience levitate.

No movie this year has covered a larger canvas than director Chen Kaige's 2 1/2-hour spectacle. [29 Oct 1993, p.4D]

Mostly engrossing and always worthy of respect, it still hasn't quite the big-movie sweep to make it a tell-the-world experience. [8 Sept 1993, p.1D]

Drivers congest highways, while many of their cars inevitably end up as twisted scrap. The final Monsieur Hulot comedy from France's Jacques Tati couldn't possibly be more topical. [18 Jul 2008, p.13D]

A singular accomplishment so specifically keyed to Spacey's talents that it mandates going out on a limb to say it contains the performance that will ultimately be regarded as "the one."

Glossy or not, the movie is unflinchingly tough-minded, down to its Hollywood-weepy ending, which, if you think about it, may be the year's gloomiest.

Land has a lot of funny moments, which are no less serious for being so, especially when the script turns politically prickly.

A masterpiece. (9 Jan 1998, p.3D)

An intimate portrait of the Bringing It All Back Home Bob Dylan during his final acoustic tour through England, it hits with escalating emotional force as the decades go by, capturing a fleeting musical period as brilliantly as any movie ever has. [07 Jan 2000]

The definitive time capsule of mid-'60s swinging London. [05 Dec 2003]

The flashbacks, functional at best, aren't really the problem. Interminable one-on-one dialogues between the two male leads are. [7 Apr 1995, p.03.D]

But the film's emotional core is father-son reconciliation, and Pete Postlethwaite is very sympathetic as Dad. [29 Dec 1993 Pg. 01.D]

For better or worse, but surely satisfying novelty needs, Jerry Bruckheimer's King Arthur is set much earlier than usual and against the crumbling Roman Empire, which may even (or not) be historically legitimate.

This tough and unsparing film feels authentic; the cops are ever-railing against the FBI, and have sickly skin tones that probably result from too many bad burgers on the run. Homicide is provocative and, in its first hour, even hilarious. Its prestigious closing slot at the just-completed New York Film Festival was deserved. [10 Oct 1991, p.4D]

Thompson has had the good sense and sensitivity to get Austen right, while letting Winslet steal the show.

This is intelligent grown-up entertainment on both a political and a humanistic level.

One of the greatest mixes ever of gritty war drama and roll-on-the-floor hilarity. [29 Mar 2002, p.2A]

Director James Foley deftly juggles expressionistic actor closeups with drab widescreen shots that convey abject seediness. [30 Sep 1992, p.1D]

The movie isn't without style, but the material can't remotely sustain 100 minutes.

Were some group to launch a rival to the Oscars called The Wackys, it could do worse than make crazed Crazy its first recipient.

Superficially gritty yet soullessly slick melodrama.

Despite implied fidelity, we might as well be watching William Shakespeare's The Cable Guy. Yet the film's skewed stylistic flourishes capture enough of the original's spirit to provoke more respect than rejection. [01Nov1996, Pg. 01.D]

A Little Princess is the first of its progeny to blend brains with entertainment. This stylish sleeper easily outpaces the studio's starchy updates of "Black Beauty" and "The Secret Garden", and even betters Shirley Temple's 1939 take on Frances Hodgson Burnett's Princess perennial. [18 May 1995, 12D.]

Even at its best, Adaptation is one of the movie year's most esoteric outings -- more so than even Paul Thomas Anderson's far superior "Punch-drunk Love." Too smart to ignore but a little too smugly superior to like, this could be a movie that ends up slapping its target audience in the face by shooting itself in the foot.

A small jewel. [05 May 2006, p.4E]

It'll never be fast food, which is probably both its virtue and limitation. [26 June 2009, p.12D]

A movie that rudely flings feces at the breakfast table isn't for everyone.

Welcome to the Dollhouse does, with accessible dark comedy and chilling honesty, reminding us right off that school-cafeteria agonies only begin with the cuisine. [24 May 1996 Pg.04.D]

The gritty, Oscar-nominated "Traffic" is a limo ride compared with the bloodletting in this year's foreign-film nominee from Mexico.

A smooth mix of humanism and keen filmmaking instincts.

Lee captures the despair, self-delusion, occasional terror and frequent humor of a praised and popular novel, aided by the potent acting his direction virtually guarantees. [13 Sep 1995, p.01.D]

If it isn't flawless, neither is "Fantasia"... Here's a live-action/animated marvel with no screen antecedent; “Chinatown” may actually come closest. [22 June 1988]

I enjoyed everything about Moonstruck except for its meandering mid-section. On cassette, with vino accompaniment, it may seem perfect. In theaters, with a diet drink, it still rates as the holiday sleeper. [18 Dec 1987]

Landed exactly the right actors for a script that already gets points for respecting its teenage characters.

With special effects so convincing you don't even think about them, a head-case hero and a three-dimensional villain who is his equal, socko Spider-Man 2 has something for everyone.

Is this a comedy, action pic or sensitive Belushi-Harris romance? Director Rod Daniel never establishes a definitive tone, though he comes close in the scene where James Brown's I Feel Good hits the sound track after some canine fornication. You don't need a dog to smell this. [28 Apr 1989, p.4D]

The film doesn't preach against the government in Rock's behalf, but does sympathize with her plight - a genuinely loving mother and former child-abuse victim who probably is unable to live up to her maternal aspirations. [09 Dec 1994, p.8D]

Uniformly robust acting puts still more feathers in the caps of Rush, Winslet and Caine.

This is the kind of well-made movie you wish well but you don't particularly wish to see again.

Bout No. 2 is among the best closed-quarters screen fights ever, as good as (and longer than) Frank Sinatra vs. Henry Silva in The Manchurian Candidate. And Hannah does more for an eyepatch than anyone since the late Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan.

This is the kind of people-driven story that the movies used to give us - before special effects took over.

Express is 80 tight minutes of railroad intrigue, an Oscar winner for cinematography (there's none better) and the film with the enduring line: "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." [22 Oct 1993, p.3D]

The three principals re-screen the Fellini masterpiece at Ekberg's country villa, and it's the kind of privileged moment only the movies can supply. You can bet Scorsese couldn't resist it, and I can't either. [20 Nov 1992, p.4D]

Jaded samurai Toshiro Mifune shows younger warriors the ropes, just as John Wayne used to toughen up tenderfoots on the range. [21 Apr 1995, p.3D]

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.

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

Minnelli's other Oscar-winning perennial. [19 Sep 2008, p.4D]

Kudos go to the great Thomas Newman, whose score contributes as much as either lead to what is finally a two-character movie, though one well-performed by all. [23 Sept 1994]

The movie's biggest drawback is a failure to deliver what's promised.

The borderline Parenthood is either an iffy comedy with lots of compensations, or a good comedy with more irritating flaws than most movies manage to survive. Whichever, the "feel good'' infantry of summer-film escapists will probably love it. [2 Aug 1989, p.5D]

Violence is in the spirit of the hardest-hitting film noir offerings from the '50s, but far more explicit. It's also in the spirit of the Western.

Conceived as froth with an edge and a smash on both counts. [11 May 2007, p.4D]

Doesn't sound like a very prepossessing title, but prepare to be taken aback by "what's in a name." [6 July 1994, Life, p.1D]

Mostly, this movie is what Burton does best, though some of composer Danny Elfman's ballads make even 75 minutes seem padded. Yet the zingier numbers (the opener especially) are terrific - befitting a movie with a literally wormy villain Oogie Boogie, a ghostly pet, Zero, and a mayor who's literally two-faced. So forget Monster Mash, this is a monster bas. [13 Oct 1993, p.1D]

It's so exhilarating (and already such a hit) that even the fogies who choose which documentaries are nominated for Oscars may have to acknowledge its existence. [15 Aug 1991, p.5D]

The longer the movie drones on, the queasier it gets. [6 June 1997, Life, p.3D]

It plays even more like a bent version of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" for the new millennium. Slinging a line of bull but displaying genuine affection for the youngsters he's bamboozling.

It's a hoary Chinatown knock-off wrapped in a seductively novel black-culture veneer, with a dash of Laura added for bad measure. [29 Sept 1995, p.01.D]

Who, though, would assume rambunctious humor would be served up as well? Dickens meets the Beverly Hillbillies, and the movie is handsome, too. [10 May 1996, p.4D]

Back when anthology TV shows such as The Twilight Zone and Thriller were in their heyday, the movies, too, entertained a spate of horror/supernatural multistory features that fans still regard with affection. Director Mario Bava, whose earlier single-story satanic yarn Black Sunday picked up a wide following, turned Sabbath into one of the best. [11 Aug 2000, 8E]

Screenwriter Alan Sharp's dialogue, as edgy as his name, combines with Penn's incisive direction to create memorable characters played by Hackman, Ward, Jennifer Warren and a young James Woods as an auto mechanic you don't want messing with your points and plugs. [22 July 2005, p.6E]

Remarkably, the plot has much in common with "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," yet that bundle of fun has enough vision to make even its Barry Manilow interlude seem appropriate.

Drollness on screen can sometimes be had cheaply, but a perfect cast is tougher to bankroll. Hal Hartley's new comedy has both - enough to defuse the smugness that seems to linger in its soul. [15 Aug 1991]

Mitchum's celebrated skill with dialects has never been more evident. [02 Feb 2007, p.10D]

Modest yet pleasing musical pastiches that typified post-war Disney. [05 Jun 1998, p.6E]

A daring movie in today's current climate - one likely to be remembered at year's end. [18 Oct 1989]

Michelangelo Antonioni's famed mod mystery (complete with a funny scene with The Yardbirds) examines the nature of reality-or-not as captured by photography -- throwing in sexual titillation and brilliant use of sound on the side. [20 Feb 2004, p.13D]

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]

Irritates in the early going when many of the current-day interviews are so intentionally underlighted that we can't see what the group members look like.

It isn't really dull (only dulled), and the leads are remarkable; one could, in fact, lavish a lot more praise if this labor of love weren't burdened by the year's dopiest movie wrap-up. [23 Nov 1990]

Mediocre terrorist melodrama turned even punier by real-life events, and that's before we scratch our heads at its lead-actor choice.

This definitive "life goes on" movie does what Altman does best: juggle 22 characters, deftly switch moods, and offer a comlex warts-and-all characters whose lives seem to extend beyond the screen. Few movies attempt this; Fewer succeed. [1 Oct 1993]

Like the first half of "Best in Show," the movie is so deadpan that sometimes you have to pinch yourself to realize how potently satirical it is.

And novel insights notwithstanding, this is a plain old good movie, too.

The plan in A Simple Plan grows exponentially complex once the first dollar is purloined, an act that makes this unpretentious parable one of the season's better 'what's-going-to-happen-next?' movies.

Here's an ''opened-up'' film of a fragile, sentimental play that doesn't overemphasize every dramatic point, and doesn't tromp on every minefield in the material. [13 Dec 1989, p.1D]

Impressive yet always self-conscious, Perdition has more class and less sass than any movie in a while.

The movie, which ends on an unexpected note of wistful humor, also gleans gentle and non-derisive chuckles out of Fin's physical state.

One of the most challenging movies in years.

One of the best football movies ever, Nights in the end celebrates the game.

With a half-dozen characters sorting out life's woes, the pacing is a couple of beats faster than languorous — just enough to sustain one's interest.

Federico Fellini's first film (co-directed with Alberto Lattuada) would make a compatible living room double bill with FF's 1986 Ginger and Fred...Pleasing all the way through. [17 Mar 1989, p.3D]

Lots of sand but no day at the beach for its characters -- and not, from all appearances, the actors, either. Among the best of director Sidney Lumet's movies not set in New York. [08 Jun 2007, p.8E]

Like many frugally financed movies, director Ang Lee's charmer depends on characterizations, not flamboyant technique. [19 Aug 1993, p.4D]

Well, maybe some of the performances are more serviceable than all-out spirited, but this is certainly not true of the two crucial ones. As soldier Benedick and his spat-match Beatrice, director Branagh and Oscar-winner Thompson (sporting an attractive tan) are all anyone could wish for. If the classiest married couple in movies today can't make the Bard multiplex-accessible, it'll be time for Tom and Roseanne to suit up for Macbeth. [7 May 1993, p.4D]