Mike Clark

A cool and clinical reportorial remembrance whose very title reminds us who Solanas was. [3 May 1996, p. 10D]

Brian De Palma's Casualties of War, with a script by playwright David Rabe, is the most overwrought (and likely to be overrated) Vietnam movie since The Deer Hunter. Or maybe since Robert Altman's film of Rabe's Streamers. Or maybe (why split hairs?) ever. [18 Aug 1989, p.4D]

Warren Beatty's uproariously rude Bulworth is 90% triumph.

Director Richard Rush's unique moviemaking saga is one of the consummate screen treats of its day, though its offbeat subject matter and tone caused it some problems. [23 Nov 2001, p.8E]

His (Cameron) movie may not be perfect, but visually and viscerally, it pretty well is.

Moviegoers of rarefied sensibilities will easily identify this anti-captain-of-industry as a "typical Eric Stoltz role," just as moviegoers of extremely rarefied sensibilities will pick up on Kicking's "typical Chris Eigeman role." [23 Oct 1995, Pg.06.D]

Numbers abound ('Round Midnight and Pannonica are just two), and the film addresses the mysterious psychological malady that shortened Monk's career. Has anyone ever been more fun to watch play than Monk? [26 Oct 1990, p.3D]

A cautionary tale very well-told.

The final third is slower until a somewhat contrived finale that's still the funniest thing in the movie.

Just a good time at the movies, but it's still a smarter two hours than most "good times" are.

A fresh-slant Vietnam picture in which lead Tom Cruise achieves indisputable greatness, July is otherwise a "more often than not'' achievement. But though it's as full of itself as Stone's watchably windy Talk Radio, the film's roundhouse punches propel you into remote Mike Tyson-land when they connect. [20 Dec 1989, p.1D]

Catch offers mild fun but never as much as its animated '60s-retro opening credits portend. They're the cutest of the year.

Naked Lunch is so well-acted and so amusingly warped that it's a shoo-in to become a cult movie. [30 Dec 1991]

This movie is more wistful and winking, though it's obvious Mario is still working out emotional baggage with his tyrannically driven old man.

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]

Filmed for the cost of about two Snickers bars and given a bizarre voice-over narration in the second person, this seductively weird pioneer independent feature is the ultimate in grimy period atmospherics. [25 Apr 2008, p.5E]

Flashily nihilistic Killers is easier to admire than love, but credit Stone for putting it on the line with a yarn tailor-made for his hopped-up vision of media-engendered white-trash immortality. [26 Aug 1994, p.1D]

The granddaddy of prison pics opens with a lecture on overcrowding and ends with a high mortality rate, in which Chester Morris, a bald Wallace Beery and stoolie Robert Montgomery (Elizabeth's father) are players. [24 Jun 1994, p.3D]

Black Hawk turns nightmare into great cinema.

Grimly claustrophobic movies can make viewers put up a shield, yet Tim Blake Nelson (who directed O) invests this unusual Holocaust drama with dramatic intensity that in no way cheapens its subject matter.

Eddie Albert's Oscar-nominated slow burn as the loathing father in The Heartbreak Kid is the funniest portrayal of Midwestern WASP-ism in movie history. [08 Feb 2002]

Kidman gets kudos for giving the enterprise a touch of class, while the film gives the studio's library a rare pedigreed addition.

De Niro's widely praised performance is like the rest of the film: competent, a product of hard work and borderline mechanical. I like much of Awakenings, including several supporting performances - but like Big, it left me just a little cold. [20 Dec 1990, p.5D]

A little of this will go a long way.

Despite dashes of droll dialogue from screenwriter Ted Griffin, the remake aims for cool but instead gets chilly.

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.

Stately but static. [23 December 1997, p.3D]

This is a smart and often tense work whose ultimate merit isn't completely calculable now.