Mike Clark

Burt Lancaster's second movie also gave Hume Cronyn his most memorable screen role. [31 Jan 1996, p.5D]

A provocative dissection of human dynamics.

Bugsy is a gangster film around the edges, a '40s love song down the middle, and the year's breeziest live-actor movie through and through. [13 Dec 1991, p.1D]

Nothing in John McNaughton's script and direction is exploitative; there isn't a frame of wasted action in what may well remain the year's most tightly constructed movie. As such, you're with this qualified classic all the way, you believe in it all the way, and you're thus forced to take its sporadic atrocities seriously. How many movies (and how long has it been since we've seen one) have really pulled this off? [20 April 1990, p.4D]

The most un-MGM movie that the studio ever made gave Dracula director Tod Browning the chance to tell a story that horrified audiences. [13 Aug 2004, p.4E]

Stripped of all bravado, Cruise delivers a raw and probably detractor-proof performance. Spielberg does what he did right in creating a novel milieu for "A.I. Artificial Intelligence," but this time the writing is fresher and anything but unwieldy.

Happily, there's nothing to misconstrue about the film: It's fabulous.

The only things missing from making this showdown worthy of a Western is Murrow's sheriff's badge, a dusty street and maybe a spittoon for McCarthy's infamous invectives.

Borderline amazing and borderline dull at the same time.

This smashingly filmed and performed one-shot is (uh, so to speak) the year's best romantic comedy. [8 Dec 1989]

It has an elusive, haunting quality, but it's too long at 133 minutes, and there aren't many movies these days that get more involving as they progress.

Beauty is about two-thirds the serious-edged romp it would like to be, which still leaves a lot of room for tony fun.

Its interpersonal dynamics are constructed with care to equal chef Lung's elaborate concoctions. [19 Aug 1994]

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.

A strong first half has Jill Clayburgh oozing bile when weasel husband Michael Murphy dumps her. Writer/director Paul Mazursky's sexual-political screen landmark wobbles some when she takes up with artist Alan Bates. [13 Jan 2006, p.14D]

This is one movie in which you don't feel the long-ish running time, in part because there always seems to be a surprise (as well as a new street guerrilla) around every corner.

The three-hour dramatics are occasionally stilted, but here's the real non-CGI deal. [01 Feb 2008, p.6D]

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]

On paper, this sounded like a winner. In reality? We have met the Enemy at the multiplex, and he's silly. [08 Feb 1991, p.4D]

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.

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

It's a mess with sporadic flashes of creativity. Someone should have gone back to the drawing board. [19 July 1996, p.13D]

In the movie's high point, (Jeremy) Northam conducts an antagonistic interview with the boy, who eludes well-placed lawyerly traps.

[A] socially conscious sprawler... Sayles' latest never bores during its 21/4-hour unreeling. But neither does it soar, despite finessing a complex flashback narrative set in 1957 and present-day. [21 June 1996, p.3D]

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

Tim Robbins plays the working dad, and the movie misses him once he bails out early.

Forman finesses the story's grimmer aspects as he did in "Cuckoo's Nest," and his ability to switch moods on a dime remains unsurpassed.

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]