Mike Clark

This is a filmmaker who instinctively knows that a shot of Santa sitting at a bar as Ricky Nelson sings Jingle Bells will be no-frills funny.

The rap sequences are shot and edited with the excitement of a crisply broadcast sporting event, which in a way they are.

Director Roman Polanski co-stars with and directs wife Sharon Tate in their only collaboration. That's one reason this box office bomb, which came out less than two years before Tate was murdered by Charles Manson's crew, has picked up a following. [08 Oct 2004, p.4E]

If Martin Scorsese's staggeringly ambitious one-of-a-kind finally has too many flaws to be great, it has as much greatness in it as any movie this year.

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]

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]

Filmmakers of Bernardo Bertolucci's magnitude don't often take on sexual coming-of-age movies, but judging from the pleasures of Stealing Beauty, maybe more of them should. [14 Jun 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.

Blisteringly fast, Bourne also has a strong or striking supporting actor around every corner: Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles and Clive Owen in roles that range from meaty to amazingly small.

This sleek adaptation of James Ellroy's dauntingly complex novel has the black-and-white tabloid soul of an old "Confidential" magazine.

Damon convincingly matches Williams recrimination for recrimination in this portrayal of mutual tough love, even with the latter giving what may be the best performance of his career.

You get the sense that there's probably more to the story than you get here. But the movie's moral will soon be indelible: You just can't fake it in the Internet age.

Haphazard in its narrative but consistently mesmerizing until an overdose of communist rah-rah in the late going. [08 Dec 2005, p.4E]

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]

Romantic comedies with two low-key leads can be asking for trouble, but one senses that the actors must have clicked on some fundamental level.

Bill re-establishes that Tarantino ranks with "Boogie Nights'" Paul Thomas Anderson as one of the few Hollywood filmmakers of the past 25 years with the stuff to win a lifetime achievement award.

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

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]

If Silver is superb, Irons is transcendent. As some forgotten comic once said of George Sanders: A grapefruit wouldn't dare squirt in his eye. [17 Oct 1990]

There isn't much depth to The Fugitive, but you'll never know it (or care). In addition to a spectacular train/bus smashup and an exciting sewer chase, there's one of the funniest public confrontations since Cary Grant broke up the art auction in North by Northwest. Result: Warner Bros. has what it had last August with Unforgiven - a commercial movie with real class. [6 Aug 1993, p.1D]

As for the breathless 45-minute climax, no screen fantasy adventure in memory can match the showmanship.

Though the comedy is sometimes more frenetic than inspired and viewer emotions are rarely touched to any notable degree, the movie is as visually inventive as its Pixar predecessors.

Sweet (maybe) - but also painful (for sure). So painful that it's initially easy to resist this slice-of-Middlesex-life from Brit director Mike Leigh. Yet gradually, a mom, a dad and late-teen twins prove overwhelmingly winning through sheer willpower. Theirs, and the willpower of an idiosyncratic filmmaker who loves his characters no matter what. [24 Dec. 1991, p.4D]

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]

A rousing state-of-the-art cartoon capped by an aerial-combat climax that, to its credit, isn't anti-climactic. [2 July 1996, p.D1]

Majidi tells his simple story with dazzling vision.

Linney is a match for Neeson, and the only thing that might keep Lithgow from getting a supporting-Oscar nomination is the brevity of the part.

This is the most enjoyable film of its type in recent memory.

This is a very funny picture, though it's never burlesqued and is, in fact, occasionally poignant.

Bernard Herrmann's great score punches up a brutal urban crime pic suddenly turned tender romance between a tough cop (Robert Ryan) and a blind woman (Ida Lupino). [21 Jul 2006, p.14D]

In a watershed year for black filmmakers, Singleton has made the punchiest feature debut in recent memory. Those who complain that Lee's characters tangle up his plots will savor Singleton's flawlessly crafted edges. [12 July 1991]

Not since Tuesday Weld in "Pretty Poison" has an actress so played off her fresh-faced beauty for such pointed black-comic effect.

A weeper poised to endure as one of the dominant independent features of the year.

The movie, a Technicolor remake of Gable's own 1932 smash Red Dust...is among Gable's best, and it also has underrated Gardner's best performance. [23 Jun 2006, p.8E]

Twenty years ago, you could view early works of big-splash directors and often tell where they were coming from - or going. Yet Soderbergh and his debut project are mysteries. What can possibly come next? You won't be able to drag me out of line opening night. [4 Aug 1989, Life, p.1D]

Both the material and the way it's delivered by the movie's comic quartet are so funny.

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.

With his coolly objective moon's-eye view serving a story that's bizarre by even his long-established career standards, the great documentarian Errol Morris examines the perils of vanity - though others will understandably make more sinister interpretations.

One of the most challenging movies in years.

A long movie that almost wears out its 21/4-hour welcome, yet it's full of surprises.

Goldoni is spectacular here as a light-skinned black woman with a white admirer and an apartment full of her brother's hooligan buddies. And, oh, what shots of the era's New York movie marquees. [22 May 1998, p.6E]

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

So original that it'll be years before a major filmmaker attempts another one. We're talking black-belt cult-movie status here. [30 Mar 1988]

An emotionally honest low-ebber that builds to a satisfying wrap-up.

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

A robustly imaginative sleeper

The movie grows on you, lingers in the mind and may pick up a cult. Take away Heat and Dust, Howards End and The Remains of the Day, and it's as satisfying as any movie the filmmaking team's ever made. [18 Sep 1998, Pg.03.E]

This is the definitive cinematic Cyrano; only the pickiest critics or peasants will dare or care to thumb their noses at it. [16 Nov 1990, p.4D]

Though the music is helping market the movie, it's really an omnipresent backdrop to the two intersecting stories. Audibly and visibly, Kansas City nearly equals Ed Wood for period verisimilitude. Yet it's also character-driven, in particular by the women stars. [16 Aug 1996, p.4D]

Though Roger & Me's editing plays somewhat fast and loose with the juxtaposition of real-life events, it qualifies as an event itself. For once, have-nots get to lambaste haves in a documentary likely to be seen. [20 Dec 1989, p.5D]

An easy movie to pick apart, but it lives, breathes and switches moods from humor to despair better than any American release this year.

The picture is solidly crafted, performed to the hilt and full of humor.

So with its smart writing delivered by an in-synch quartet, savor Duplicity as the ideal spring gift.

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]

Writer-director Andre Techine, who's been on a recent roll with Wild Reeds and Ma Saison Preferee (also with Deneuve and Auteuil), is in even better form here. [23 Dec 1996]

Breakdown exploits so many traditional thriller situations that any suspense fan vet can easily devote a hand to counting off the predecessors it plunders. [02May1997 Pg 12.D]

Sci- fi classic. [20 Dec 1991, p.3D]