Rick Groen

Always well-meaning, not always well-executed, In This World ends by suffocating us in its good intentions.

A maniacal, hallucinogenic dip into the bloodbath drawn by a pair of mass murderers, it's the quintessential Stone opus - topical, testy, and wildly controversial, as brilliant or egregious as you wish it to be. [26 Aug 1994, p.C1]

The only country in the Western world without a universal system – is indeed Sicko. But if that social wound is gapingly obvious, so is this documentary.

Radio Days, is an occasionally charming trifle, a cinematic bauble that - held up to just the right light, soft and undemanding - sparkles quite prettily. But add just a hint of the glare cast by a raised expectation, and this lightweight thing fades right out of view. [30 Jan 1987]

I doubt that Jean-Michel Basquiat would have endorsed the subtitle. Indeed, The Radiant Child seems to inflate the very cliché that the rest of this film is keen to refute.

You can’t feel for anyone when nothing feels real. Memo to Christopher Nolan for future outings: Kill the dream, tell a story.

Outrageous Fortune is a genuine waste of talent (Midler, Long and Coyote all have it) and time (the standard 90 minutes' worth). [30 Jan 1987]

Before it turns into a thriller, and goes badly awry, Red Lights paints a devastating little portrait of a marriage on the rocks.

Living in a part of the world where politics, and the pursuit of politics by warring means, are the rule, director Elia Suleiman is the exception.

After a solid start and a strong buildup through two acts, the movie fumbles the resolution. Ethical lines that were convincingly wavy suddenly straighten out, too quickly and too neatly.

Indeed, like all bureaucracies, the educational version is a bit of a bully itself. In Sioux City at least, the official response to bullying is to recognize its existence but to deny it's an "overwhelming issue," and retreat behind the comforting bromide that "kids will be kids."

Bouncing about from one flawed movie to another, Steven Spielberg has lost his way of late, and Munich finds him more disoriented than ever.

This is a movie that works well when it works, and lazes around the rest of the time.

The film's quiet realism demands from us our own act of faith: We're asked to watch closely and to listen intently in the promise of a greater reward to come. Well, the promise is partly kept.

The emotional geometry is familiar enough to be credible yet odd enough to be creepy.

The film, like its subject, is more adroit with pictures than with words.

By Herzog's lofty standards, the result is mildly disappointing. The film lacks the sociological depth of "The Executioner's Song" or the emotional wallop of "In Cold Blood." But it sure is a surpassingly, and compellingly, strange tale.

The pat inspirational formula is followed to a sweaty T, although it comes here with an inadvertent side effect -- more than a few nagging questions never get answered.

A delightfully satiric comedy. [29 May 1987]

This is a piece engineered to run on the high octane of clever dialogue. It's chatty, it's wordy, but a passion for the well-written word lies at the thematic heart of the thing, and cinematic flourishes would only clog the arteries. Purists can rest assured -- there's no clogging.

The film takes its cue from the widow, neither sermonizing or even villainizing, content to serve quietly as an admirable exercise in restraint and a moving example of the grace under pressure that is the essence of courage.

Breakdown is a taut little thriller, the kind of well-crafted yarn that sets itself attainable goals and then meets them.

Two Lovers is two movies – the complex, alluring one we want, and the simple, pedestrian one we'll settle for.

WAG the Dog is a cozy political satire, the warm-and-fuzzy kind that is always entertaining yet never disturbing.

Sin City gives sin a great name -- it's never been more plentiful or looked so gorgeous.

The problem here isn't how the figures look; rather, it's what they do and say -- the story is lame and the dialogue no better.

Under better circumstances, Cooper might be said to have stolen the picture outright. But as it is, and compelling as he is, there's just nothing here to steal.

The story in Japanese Story grabs you precisely because it's so wonderfully hard to define.