Mike Clark

This definitive "life goes on" movie does what Altman does best: juggle 22 characters, deftly switch moods, and offer a comlex warts-and-all characters whose lives seem to extend beyond the screen. Few movies attempt this; Fewer succeed. [1 Oct 1993]

The crucifixion is the strongest such scene of all time. [26 Aug 1988]

This is a great movie, but it needs a sales job because it's in Mandarin.

Director Francis Ford Coppola's revamping of his Vietnam epic, Apocalypse Now, with 49 added minutes, has significantly improved the troubled blockbuster. The film now seems both mellowed and — thanks in part to the most vibrant-looking prints in its 22-year history — revitalized.

Even in the classiest movie summer of the decade, Mob is destined to demand respect for Pfeiffer. [19 Aug 1988]

A premier boxing movie and a forceful Depression remembrance for the socially conscious, Cinderella Man also ices it for stargazers that Russell Crowe is the dominant screen actor working today.

As son Tom Joad, Henry Fonda gave the screen performance of his career. [09 Apr 2004, p.10E]

A perfect fit between filmmaker (Memento's Christopher Nolan) and material (Norway's same-name psycho-chiller from 1997), this remake gets all there is to get out of a peculiar premise with promise.

Judged strictly as a movie (especially a subliminally disturbing movie), Vertigo hasn't lost a thing. You watch this guy going slowly over the brink and realize, good grief, this is Jimmy Stewart. [Restored version; Oct 1996, p.3D]

This is a building-block movie: Its stand-out excellence becomes apparent only gradually.

If artist R. (Robert) Crumb can dispense immediately with his resume in Terry Zwigoff's superb Crumb, we can, too. [21 Apr 1995]

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]

Heat is in the cop-movie pantheon with Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low," and that's as "right" as the genre gets.

The generally faithful script is by Anne Rice herself, the director is "The Crying Game"'s Neil Jordan, and both seem true to themselves and as true as they can be to artistic and visceral expectations. [11Nov1994 Pg. 01.D]

One of the rare sports films that devotes extensive screen time to heartbreaking losses is full of other surprises as well. [13 Oct 1994, p.1D]

At 65, Boorman flawlessly handles his actors and expertly orchestrates action in one of the widest-looking black-and-white Panavision frames since 1967's In Cold Blood. [18 Dec 1998, p.13E]

A contender for the year's best film.

Despite the film's sporadic lulls, both director and star are on full beam. The first and third hours of this 20th-century epic are as dazzling as big-scale movies get.

Williams is only adequate, but nearly everyone else here is great, including Jerry Orbach (Ciello mentor) and Bob Balaban (hardball Justice Department creep). [25 May 2007, p.4E]

[Olivier's] greatest Shakespearean movie. [27 Feb 2004]

Albert Finney and Susannah York look impossibly young and attractive, and it's easy to see how Oscar nominations went to four supporting performers; Richardson's chosen style, a self-conscious amalgam of silent films and the French New Wave, somehow worked when it shouldn't have - and still does, to my amazement. [13 Mar 1992, p.3D]

A Casablanca-influenced love story set against a French Resistance backdrop in Martinique. [07 Nov 2003]

If it isn't flawless, neither is "Fantasia"... Here's a live-action/animated marvel with no screen antecedent; “Chinatown” may actually come closest. [22 June 1988]

Campion's script is very well received, but the film finally makes it on cinematics: bleakly beautiful photography, haunting score, and good acting. [12 Nov 1993]

The movie is so fun that it wouldn't need the mystery to be top-notch entertainment.

A movie this diminutive can be easily oversold, but we might see it on some year-end best lists. It eats at you, just like renewed love.

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]

The best news the G rating has had since the ratings system was instituted in 1968.