Peter Stack

Touch of Evil is a savvy starter because Welles' astonishing cinematic invention and his persuasive presence as star are prime noir at tractions. The look, a deftly arranged climate of odd shadows and angles, neon lighting and flawlessly choreographed action scenes, keeps interest piqued through a contrived plot and mannered acting.

Maybe the best shoot-'em-up ever made, the one that turned meanness into a haunting pictorial poetry and summed up the corruption of guilt, old age and death in the American fantasy of the Old West.

A gem of fast action, sophisticated wit and inspired comedy.

Walt Disney Pictures' Beauty and the Beast is an enchanting feast of extraordinary animated film making that magically revives the classic Disney style with genial humor, memorable music, fluid grace in its drawings, and compelling romance. [15 Nov 1991, p.C1]

The movie takes on a somber, fitful atmosphere of straining epic proportions. But it strays into an episodic bog that leaves it gasping for dramatic life.

By any measure, the horrifying yet powerfully uplifting Schindler's List from director Steven Spielberg is a milestone in the art of filmmaking. [15 Dec 1993]

It's a violent yet occasionally funny film - thanks to some inventive gags that pop up - and it hits some of the same blood-splashed chords as "Terminator." [17 Jul 1987]

A mesmerizing film that is the most stunning, tempestuous love story in a decade or two of movie making.

Among the great American crime movies, 1973's Badlands stands alone. [13 Feb. 1998]

Leaves an unintentional unpleasant aftertaste.

Brother's Keeper is a thoroughly engaging examination of the whole curious affair by two New York City-based film makers, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, who document with a distinctive underlying humor and a feeling for contrasts between urban and rural America. Sometimes that contrast is touching, sometimes painfully hilarious, and often a little gloomy as the film delves into the lives of the surviving brothers to reveal a community with genuinely humane values, but one ripe for exploitation by the big city media. [16 Oct 1992, p.C4]

This wonderful romp of a movie looks magical on the big screen: colors are a picnic for the eyes, details loom so clearly you can practically touch them and there's a sense of the larger-than-life with a film that's already larger than life.

Robert Redford's exceptionally handsome and provocative Quiz Show manages a trick that few films even dare try -- to take a hard look at personal and public moral issues and still provide dazzling entertainment.

Riveting.

Best “performances,'' however, are given by the movie's almost agonizingly beautiful historical settings -- luxurious households, rich architecture, furnishings, ornaments, draperies, fineries and such are often more captivating than the hushed tones of the lovers. [17 Sept 1993, Daily Notebook, p.C1]

The crack in the pretty picture of America goes a lot deeper than we thought, thanks to Ray's brooding vision.

If it all sounds rather heady for a Disney movie, well, it is. And it is one of the curious delights of The Lion King that a moralistic patriarchal drama can be played out in a Darwinian setting and still emerge shining in a dream coat of Hollywood entertainment values. [24 June 1994, p.C1]

It will be the most talked-about comedy of summer.

A crime gem that is darkly funny even when it's chilling -- and certain to become a classic.

The most entertaining movie of the year. Funny and action-packed, it's also got that rare thing, heart.

Life Is Sweet, a comedy with wonderfully touching moments by off-beat British director Mike Leigh, is an absolute gem of eccentric humor about family life. Fresh and quirky, the film dishes up astonishing vitality in its look at what is ostensibly a plain, lower middle-class family in Middlesex. [22 Nov. 1991, p.C5]

My Neighbor Totoro is drawn in an expansive, naturalistic way that makes an atmosphere of trees, rice fields and hills unraveling in the distance a hypnotic shadow character. In some scenes this nature is so delicious it becomes a poetical presence. [08 May 1993, p.C3]

An extraordinary entertainment that personalizes the world of insects and other invertebrates and leaves audiences with an itching conviction of the poetry of nature.

It's not a deep film, but there is a certain poignancy in Luke's situation and in the earnestness with which the burly Sinbad approaches the boy. Simms has a warm style and lets Luke know he's not a nut for feeling the need to explore the world a bit.

Though much of Like Water For Chocolate simmers with humor and the stumbling plight of human life, the movie takes its soul from deeper strains -- unfulfilled longing, the tyranny of social customs in a macho-dominated world, and the final outrage that love and death are inseparable, often indistinguishable companions. [26 Mar 1993, p.C1]

It is far too sophisticated and operatic to be dismissed as simply a cheap-thrills, blast-'em blowout. [19 Aug 1994, p.C14]

A little abhorrent yet strangely appealing. I found it arty and pretentious, but still couldn't turn my eyes away from its almost hypnotic coolness and fascinating psychological horrors. [23 Sept 1988]

There may not be a better- acted film this year.

Beautiful, romantic and frantically funny. In its brief, often frenetic 85-minute running time it manages to be a riot of entertainment, embracing the best of old-fashioned merriment as well as savvy, up-to-the-minute contemporary humor, thanks in large part to an extraordinary performance by Robin Williams. [25 Nov 1992, p.E1]

Intelligent and crackling with crisp, provocative visual energy, Copycat, the new thriller starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, is so creepy and dangerous-feeling that it's like a knife edge pressed against the jugular.

Has unusual visual vitality in a John Cassavetes vein. For the adventurous, it's worth checking out.

The darker this visionary film gets -- and it gets very dark -- the less comic and the more chilling it becomes. At the same time, it grows more brilliant as a view of modern society poisoned by a battering incivility or cruel exploitation that, in Leigh's view, is played out most profoundly in gender conflict. When ''Naked'' isn't beaning your brain, it's twisting a screwdriver between the wires of your nerves. [28 Jan. 1994, p.C1]

Heart and tenderness are rare in cartoon movies. But in an age of frenetic children's fare, the new animated adventure The Iron Giant dares to show a lot of both, and it comes up a winner.

It's impossible not to be moved and shocked by The Last Days, the haunting documentary about five Hungarian Jews who survived Hitler's "final solution" to exterminate the Jewish people.

The pieces of the drama are put forth like the shapes of the five fingers of a hand, and finally they find a kind of awkward unity that was predictable from the start. And yet, the gesture of it all is utterly captivating, the way a dream would be if it ever really came true. [27 Feb 1987, Daily Datebook, p.74]

The movie never catches fire with the emotions.

A beautiful work that could easily have turned into a four-hour-long affair but, at just a tad over two, is enticingly rich and shines with humanity. [8 Sept 1993, p.D1]

It's troubling to watch it stray and ramble as first-time director Antonio Banderas struggles to pull disparate elements together.

Infused with a dark charm that will appeal to some girls, A Little Princess, based on the classic novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is as near to a mannered, lushly photographed Merchant/Ivory-style film as you'll get in a kids' movie.

If there is no other reason to see An American in Paris than its fabled 18-minute ballet scene -- well then, that, during the last reel, is worth the price of admission. Choreographed by Kelly -- no doubt with a smile -- it is a stunning series of homages to French painters Toulouse-Lautrec, Dufy, Utrillo, Renoir and the like. It is a masterpiece of filmic creations -- nothing quite like it before or since. [11 Dec 1992, p.C11]

Solondz ("Fear, Anxiety and Depression") is almost unrelenting in his quirky fixation with the adolescent outsider and he pursues visions of everyday human injury nearly to the point of caricature. But he stops just short, and this amusingly twisted film mixes humor and heart-tugging sadness with a disturbing vitality.

What is astonishing about this movie is how all the elements are so deftly mixed - the technology of real sets and people interwoven with the cartoon world, and yet Zemeckis hardly sacrifices a beat in laying out a curlicuing '40s-style thriller. [22 June 1988]

Rush is amazing throughout this absorbing, provocative film.

The all-time great talking-pig movie, a lovely, intelligent gem of G-rated entertainment that is also rib-tickling funny.

A solid family movie, "Fly Away Home" is a constant feast for the eyes, with rich photography by Caleb Deschanel.

A wild ride through nonstop visual effects yet a warm wallow in the cinema of the dumbed-down.

Some of "The Shawshank Redemption'' comes across as outrageously improbable. Yet the film keeps pulling you back with its sense of striving humanity slowly turning the tables against evil.

The new film Parenthood is a challenging, funny, affecting and mostly rewarding effort - like parenthood itself. It makes good use of a large ensemble cast led by Steve Martin as a man striving to be a good dad. [2 Aug 1989, p.E1]

The balance between action and mysticism in The Empire Strikes Back provides fascinating energy. It's as if the kids are given one set of delights, the bravado of battles and elaborate warships zooming through exotic space, and adults are given another, a layered explanation of what it all means in the grand scheme of things. [Special Edition]

In addition to being a visual treat, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a musical whose handful of songs delivers elements of the plot in the manner of a '40s MGM musical comedy. Songs by composer-lyricist Danny Elfman (founder of the rock band Oingo Boingo) are amusingly vital throughout, and even pretty. Andrew Lloyd Webber could take some tips from this guy. [22 Oct 1993, p.C1]

One of the most haunting and vital movies of the year.

It's engaging as a non-drama of people doing nothing, but suffering a lot.

In spite of its downbeat subjects, Drugstore Cowboy becomes a satisfying drama of redemption. [27 Oct 1989]

Long segments of The Killer are devoted to people getting blown away, the bloodbaths played out always with guns. But the highly choreographed action, featuring point-blank shots of writhing victims, takes on a numbing aspect after a while. Reduced to cartoon overkill, it becomes as tedious in its way as carpenters working with nail guns.

One of the year's most fascinating flicks.... Brilliant performances by Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith and a newcomer named Ray Liotta give sparkle, and shadows, to Something Wild. [7 Nov 1986]

Delicately flavored as much by the inherent appeal of its classic Cinderella-like story as by its pictorial beauty, The Scent of Green Papaya is a lovely experience in the dreamily exotic.

An unforgettable, poetic romance from Italy whose disarming humor, blushing encounters and bittersweet flavors are certain to set off a groundswell of smiles, tears and regret.

That's Entertainment! III aims mightily to please, and it's a fascinating, unpretentious journey through a garish, opulent, often breathtaking American art form. [13 May 1994, p.C3]

Exceptional, powerful new documentary.

One of the most hauntingly beautiful mysteries ever created on film.

Director Jacques Audiard beautifully lays out the story of a charming nobody named Albert who becomes a master of the half- smile and nonchalant gestures of deceit. But the story is also a cogent metaphor for French collaboration with the Nazis.

A poetry of love, longing and affirmation bleeds through the music of Cuba, and some of the best sounds the island ever created are captured with embracing humanity.

Subliminally speaking, you may not like this movie because it goes so far. Or, you may not like it because it stops short. Or you may like it for one of the above reasons. [21 Feb 1986, p.68]

The movie keeps a snappy pace and the suspense pot boiling. The snippy interplay between the two cops adds enjoyable twists of comic chemistry. Constant rain and slick streets, though a cliche, set a moody tone. [07 Oct 1996, p.D2]

I laughed so hard, my eyes watered. I laughed so loud, I lost track of whether anyone else was laughing. I laughed so much, I ached afterwards. [29 July 1988, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

Both a delightful story and a great food movie that ranks with "Like Water for Chocolate'' or "Babette's Feast.''

It's a lyrical, lulling, beautiful film that children may relish.

An inspired mix of spirited family entertainment and harrowing drama.

Although the movie goes too far, you can hardly get enough of its delicious atmosphere - and of Turner, in particular, who has never looked better on the big screen. [8 Dec 1989]

Though the dialogue is laced with the colloquial, the film has an inviting tone that even stuffiest of old fogies may find refreshing. Everybody gets put down, but with affection.

El Cid goes for the big scenes as well as any Hollywood epic, but sometimes the smaller, more intimate ones work better, partly because the architecture is stunning. [17 Sep 1993, p.C3]

Achieves a rare interweaving of the darkly poetical and raspy, cockeyed comedy.

The action is so fast that the viewer almost breaks out in a sweat...Ultimately vapid. Lola never does develop as a character, and the fuss seems ultimately pointless.

A rare spectacle on the big screen.

One of the great movies -- a triumph of storytelling and character development, and a whole new ballgame for computer animation. Pixar Animation Studios has raised the genre to an astonishing new level.

Kinda cute, occasionally amusing and very, very slow... I just wish [it] had more momentum, more oomph. [9 Oct 1987]

It's a stunning, delightful image adventure like nothing done before on the big screen.

Denzel Washington is riveting.

Coppola infuses her movie with a dreamy poetic tone, and deftly translates the essential metaphors of youth, sexuality and death without sacrificing an earthy humor.

Director Leon Ichaso (A Kiss to Die For) is intent on presenting the Harlem story in near-operatic terms, but ultimately the beautifully rendered, photographically engaging Sugar Hill is crippled by its own self-importance. [25 Feb 1994, p.C1]

Haunting in its charm, Children of Heaven opens a window on both contemporary Tehran and the hopeful heart of childhood. This lovely, amusing film deserves a big audience -- especially families. It touches on the innocence of children with tremendous affection.

Zellweger has the most interesting new face in film, and she knows how to use silences to say what the heart wants to get across.

They fractured Greek myth but slapped mountains of comic muscle on the hunky hero in Hercules. What fun! The great old Greek is turned into a '90s-style athlete who gets endorsements, sandals named after him and a chance to stand tall among nymphs and muses after whipping the villainous lord of the underworld, Hades, personified as a Hollywood movie mogul type.

Mixed Nuts, opening today at Bay Area movie theaters, is laced generously with chuckles, though it neglects one little detail that helps make movies satisfying: a plot. [21 Dec 1994, p.E1]

Kirikou and the Sorceress is definitely a sunny spot in the mire of frenetic, violent and often dopey cartoon films produced by Hollywood. It's also far more imaginative that most.

Sloshes between comedy and drama, never quite hitting stride as either.

The kind of little film you can get cozy with, laugh at in odd places even when nobody else is laughing - and yet people will not turn around to glower at you because they understand. [12 July 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Beautiful in both its brevity and its vision of contemporary Indian culture, the film abounds in easygoing humor.

The film is energized by the naturalness of its characters and the way in which it plays a game of mixed signals and double illusions.

The Beverly Hills Cop formula shows serious signs of wear in its third outing as Eddie Murphy tries desperately to hold onto his tough-guy, mock-grin edge while screenwriters and director John Landis do little more than stir-fry lame gags with furious but tiresome fusilades of gunfire. [25 May 1994, p.E1]

Bound by mother-daughter ties that are complex, touching, ultimately so powerful they yield the kind of tearful joy rarely experienced at the movies.

Paradis, an actress and pop singer, is sensational.

A grandiose cinematic invention, cleverly turning the present-day urban American world on its ear.

Jumbled and stupid plot, bad acting and a few predictable gags that fall flat.

Stone's feisty, intensely personal style of film making is well-known. With Born on the Fourth of July we are treated to a poignant, spirited and captivating - for the broken heartedness of it all - performance by Tom Cruise. [25 Dec 1989, p.E1]

Director Manuel Poirier (Antonio's Girlfriend) is easygoing in the way he uses Paco and Nino to poke through veneers of machismo.

Gorgeous but dark -- not the usual Disney experience. Audiences will find much to embrace in this animated drama, yet they may not walk away humming the kind of catchy tunes contained in Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King or Aladdin.

Stunning, odd, glorious, calm and sensationally absorbing.