Mike Clark

Girls isn't fabulous, but you do feel its characters really have connected.

Between Jackson's opining and De Niro's hopeless alibis when he messes up, Jackie is good for a bundle of bloody ho-ho-hos.

The milieu here is unforgiving, which makes fighting for basic rights important. You get a sense of why Bob Dylan -- who performs on this soundtrack -- wanted to bolt this frigid part of the map.

Despite pockmarking racial humor, this is an appealing Fred MacMurray-Barbara Stanwyck companion piece to Double Indemnity and Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow. [29 Sep 1995, p.3D]

The Long Walk Home sounds as if it's going to be one of those primers in contemporary social history with made-for-TV written all over it. This is much, much better - even worthy of the big screen. [21 Dec 1990, p.5D]

Both female roles are unexpectedly meaty, so much so that the film loses something once the far more lively Stone is dispatched. Hour one (more satirical) is better all around, though the falloff isn't fatal. [1 June 1990, Life, p.2D]

A long-on-video 1993 release now restored to its original Cantonese with different music and more audio pop.

Stylish, brisk but lacking in human dimension despite an attractive cast. [22 May 1996, p. D1]

Recalls the pumped-up energy of "Pump Up the Volume," as well as its casting prowess.

Hong Kong's China-born cult director makes his U.S. debut here, serving up so many briskly staged and edited action scenes that you'll wager Sam Peckinpah somehow figured in his gene pool. Forget grenades and assault weapons (though they're here, too); Target deals in bows and arrows, a serpent booby-trap and even one portly hero (Wilford Brimley) on horseback. All this and Brimley's Cajun accent, too. [20 Aug 1993, p.1D]

Thing's opening hour is fast-paced, though not fast enough to obscure the reality that "American Graffiti" and "Diner" had sharper writing and certainly more psychological depth. [04 Oct 1996, Pg.01.D]

Credit McGlone for humanizing and even making funny one of the most insufferable big-screen boors in recent memory. Cheating on his wife, doing what he can to undermine his older brother's already rocky marriage, McGlone is setting himself up for a fall. Burns' lower-key acting style makes him a cool straight man during their frequent bandyings, into which dad Mahoney (also abandoned by his wife) always adds his own two cents. You probably have to love a guy who claims that his failure to believe in God isn't enough to keep him from being a good Catholic. [23 Aug 1996]

The actress may get an Oscar nomination for the wrong movie -- "Moulin Rouge" over "The Others" -- but it would be a double misfortune for audiences to overlook a performance that boosts its movie from moderate to memorable.

Under Capricorn is still stigmatized by its terrible reviews and whopping financial losses, but with one of Ingrid Bergman's best performances, a grabber setting (1831 Sydney) and Technicolor cinematography by the era's greatest color specialist (The Red Shoes' Jack Cardiff), a lot of current movies should be as lacking. [27 Jun 2003]

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]

This also is the rare combat movie that deals substantially with mourning widows on the home front.

This is a comedy far funnier in its throwaway asides and extraneous bits. [30 July 1993, p.5D]

A worthy companion to Towne's underrated 1982 portrait of female runners (Personal Best), Limits may face a similar challenge attracting mass moviegoers, which was certainly the case of the barely released Prefontaine. [11 Sep 1998]

But purely as an exercise in style, this movie has its moments.

Though Robocop is too well-crafted to be entirely loathsome, it's at best an amoral goof. Yet like the comparably silly Lethal Weapon, it cynically pushes all the right action-audience buttons. Better duck - here comes a monster hit. [17 Jul 1987]

It's fairly solid fun, though, without breaking any new ground, just as January's remake of "Assault on Precinct 13" was.

This critical smash was graphic, yet laced with macabre humor. [30 Oct 2007, p.2D]

Preposterous to the extreme.

Though admittedly a minor delight, this is the only movie whose end credits identify the film's grip, then credit Martha Raye for Poli-grip, then define ''grip'' for millions who want to know just what a grip does. For such small favors, Gun 21/2 has the smell of box office. [28 June 1991, p.5D]

At its weakest, Miss Firecracker seems as calculated as Henley's co-scripted True Stories; laughs, though, are a great equalizer. Director Thomas Schlamme's outdoor location work gives an extra boost in the final (and superior) third - enough to give this oddity snap, crackle and pop, if not quite the ultimate ka-bam. [28 Apr 1989, p.4D]

Woody Allen is good for his funniest screen romp in a while, thanks to a few evenly spaced standout scenes of laugh-out-loud intensity.

Compellingly watchable horror-spectacle.

Crystal is such a panic - and normally uptight Patinkin is so attractively relaxed as a Spanish swordsman - that Bride's charms just can't be ignored. [25 Sept 1987]