Mike Clark

Worth a look. It's easy to overrate -- but just as easy to undervalue.

Bottom-line funny, often convulsively so. [2 Dec 1988]

Knowing and original, Men's comedy never quite soars. Yet jump it does, and high enough. [27 Mar 1992, p.1D]

Another of director David Cronenberg's queasy early horror films that, like The Brood and Videodrome, gets under your skin. [04 Jun 2004]

The movie wouldn't be imaginable without its commanding star. Nicholson is in virtually every scene underplaying to great effect

Without making a big deal of it, this film says a lot about assimilation and the ability to change. [05 Feb 1992, p.5D]

This time, Lee fails to do the right thing, but he may have come up with a cult film. And compared to too much of this summer's sludge, that's almost mo' better enough. [03 Aug 1990]

Gives Dennis Quaid one of his best screen showcases.

Sky High gets Kurt Russell back to his retro Disney roots, and he's still in good enough shape at age 54 to wear a supernatural hunk's cape.

Victor Mature became a star in the 1940 original, which was simply called One Million, B.C. Happy New Year, Vic, but nothing in your version can compete with a blond Raquel Welch -- she wearing the latest '60s open-navel cavewoman garb here [27 Dec 1996, p.3D]

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

Though some have taken this '94 film fest fave fairly straight, it strikes me as eerily arch and quite the sly hoot as it connects maybe two-thirds of the time. [07 Mar 1995, p.4D]

Flowers is smartly observational -- but a little screen heat would be worth a bouquet.

This is a movie to be knocked, chewed and gummed, but not dismissed. It's the first 2001 release I've rushed to see twice.

Once you're onto its wavelength (it doesn't take long), Linklater's passing parade starts to ring true. [15 Aug. 1991, p. 5D]

Though this is a tough movie to dislike, it plays more like a second draft than a final product.

Often a cinematic marvel and often the year's most pungent movie medicine, Beloved always feels as if it's carrying the world's weight, and maybe it is. [16 October 1998, p. 7E]

Peter Hyams, who merely wrote, directed and photographed this loose remake, has refined (and in many ways, improved) the material by adding a helicopter-car pursuit and other nifty boondocks action. But mostly, it's Choo Choo Ch'Boogie - just as it is in the punchy RKO original, a 70-minute staple of cable TV. [21 Sep 1990, p.6D]

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]

A good little movie dominated by a great central performance that's likely to endure. [30 Jan 1998, p.D2]