Paul Attanasio

No Small Affair is a good example of the revised teen sex movie, which centers on a Morose Young Man unimpressed by the wild life swirling around him -- he'll take romance. But even the facile crudeness of a movie like Porky's seems to have demanded too much of screenwriters Charles Bolt and Terence Mulcahy.

Before it turns slack and sentimental, Power, Sidney Lumet's foray into the world of political consultants, crackles with a kind of moral static. Lumet lets you enjoy the pleasures of sleaze all the while he's shocking you with it -- the movie feels like a joy buzzer. And for a while, at least, you think this is exactly the acidulous, pell-mell satire you've been waiting for.

In Short Circuit, there's nothing at stake, either emotionally or artistically or howsoever -- and I mean nothing -- but the movie's so diverting, and so giddily oblivious to its own faults, that it almost doesn't matter. Funny and paced at a gallop, it's a melt-away movie made for summer nights. [09 May 1986, p.D1]

A cut above the usual hack 'em up, and perhaps even a hack above the usual cut 'em up.

There are movies that make you want to mince words, and then there's Poltergeist II: The Other Side, a movie so ineffably bad, you can't even find the words to mince. [23 May 1986, p.D2]

Such an attenuated plot might be fine if Hines were allowed to dance (he isn't) or the jokes were funnier (they're not). Director Peter Hyams has the comic timing of a tax auditor, but at least he can build a car chase, and if you stick around till the end (you shouldn't), there is an expertly photographed shoot-out staged in the Illinois State Building, a 14-story glass and metal bird cage that would have fit nicely into Hyams' previous film, "2010." [30 June 1986, p.C3]

The movie is full of half-witted Hollywood satire (the Devil's an agent -- get it?), lame wordplay, and easy moralism about family being more important than career blah blah blah. [09 Nov 1984, p.F8]

Heartburn is a masterpiece, a collaboration of mature artists at the peak of their craft, and something of a summing up for Mike Nichols, who, more successfully than any other American director, has staked out the terrain where men and women meet as his own. Here it is -- a movie that is seriously funny.

The Razor's Edge gives us the quintessential '80s sensibility, Bill Murray, indulging a nostalgia for the '60s masquerading as the '20s. An adaptation of the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, this longtime pet project of Murray's will only disappoint his many fans.

Heckerling directs this mess with no sense of pace and less sense of where to put the camera. There are pixilated, MTV-style sequences that simply slow up the story, car chases and car crashes, and, of course, aerobicizers boinging out of their leotards. The best thing in the movie is the catchy theme from the last Vacation, which, unfortunately, hasn't the slightest thing to do with Europe.

Secret Admirer is a cut above the usual teen sex comedy, which is sort of like Caspar Weinberger saying, "Six hundred bucks, sure, but it was a heckuva ashtray."

Perfect is a trashy movie about women jumping up and down in leotards, but it's also more (and less) than that, a look at the wages of the free press. Despite a number of fine performances, a few good hoots and more daunting bodies, it's far from perfect. It touts the First Amendment like a corny romance from the '40s -- stars and stripes in spandex. [7 June 1985, p.D1]

The best cartoons recognize the dark side of kids, their penchant for violence, their fearful fantasies. The Care Bears Movie just patronizes them.

Rydell shoots the movie as if it had been commissioned by the Department of Agriculture. His scenes have such brute intentionality, they never come to life -- they're instant, airless cliche's. And who can believe that Mel Gibson is a down-and-out farmer? [11 Jan 1985, p.B1]

The most elementary requirement of an action movie is that the hero know the score, be in command -- it lends tension to the moments when he's not in command -- a requirement that screen writer Christopher Wood blithely neglects. Aw, forget it -- just tell me when it ends.

Easily the worst of the four movies drawn from S.E. Hinton novels to date, and that's saying a lot. [9 Nov 1985, p.G14]

The movie is one of those can't-miss projects that, uh, misses...Altogether, this is about the most listlessly paced thriller you could imagine: Ashby's penchant for letting his actors improvise just results in endless dithering; and the image is weirdly flat -- the movie's shot almost entirely in profile. Actually, there aren't just 8 million ways to die -- now we know there are 8 million and 1. [25 Apr 1986, p.D2]

Yet another tiresome pastiche of old Hitchcock films, particularly "Rear Window" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much." We've seen it before, done (needless to say) better. The craftsmanship of the film aspires to the second rate. And it's a little wiggy to try to create a silky kind of glamorous intrigue in Baltimore.

On the whole, Deadly Friend is a routine horror movie, poorly photographed (by old-time cinematographer Philip Lathrop) and poorly performed (with the exception of New York stage actress Anne Twomey, as Paul's mother).

A mostly tedious, cheaply made shoot-'em-up from the always classy Dino De Laurentiis. [07 June 1986, p.D5]

According to the press kit, "Producer Daniel Melnick's personal stamp on films has always been to avoid the obvious, the cliche'." Uh, Dan . . . you lost your stamp.

Chuck Norris fans will not be disappointed by Missing in Action, a bang-bang-you're-dead exploitation flick from the Cannon Group in which the action is rarely missing. [19 Nov 1984, p.C3]

The movie, in short, rides on a revenge plot and a beauty-and-the-beast subplot, and there's some nice photography and production design; screen writer L.M. Kit Carson lends some Texas texture and funny lines. But mostly, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is straight blood and guts. [23 Aug 1986, p.D11]

Clue is based on the popular Parker Brothers board game in which the players try to guess, well, whodunit, and where, and with what weapon. You leave it with one conviction: stick with the game.

A ridiculous rabble-drowser with the heart of a bully and the soul of a thief.

I suppose there's not much point at this late date to complain about how all movies look and sound alike today, how dull stretches in the story are pumped up with loud music, how handy, so-called "comic" hooks (one character has a flatulence problem, another will do anything for sex, another will do anything for money) have taken the place of characterization, how directors don't even try anymore to create a real milieu. [15 Feb 1986, p.G6]

Into the Night is billed as a comedy-thriller, but the thrills are nothing but a generalized nastiness, the comedy an uneven collection of gags. Few of the jokes have anything to do with the characters (nor, for that matter, do the characters have anything to do with the characters); and few of the thrills have anything to do with the gags.

Director Jeannot Szwarc could have done more with the action scenes, but he has a snappy sense of pace and comic timing. Blond, blue-eyed Slater brings an engaging sweetness to Supergirl; and she plays Linda with an awkward, gawky girlishness, subtly different from her Supergirl role.