Mike Clark

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]