Rita Kempley

More than just one of the best movies so far this year, it is a revolution in young-adult entertainment.

Nobody hits the jackpot here, certainly not filmmakers Michael and Mark Polish, whose audacious, empathic first film, "Twin Falls Idaho," showed such promise.

It's a good ride, briskly paced, well played and vividly photographed by Caleb Deschanel.

The proficiency of the actors powers the movie despite a stiff script and Attenborough's preference for choreographed crowd scenes over intimacy.

It starts slow, but finishes fast with some clever plot twists. In the end, all is not lost with these boys.

Allen, the schlemiel, has humiliated himself and hurt his family, disillusioned his fans and become a case in point for the GOP, but he has also hit upon an issue that is universally applicable, the stuff of Oprah Winfrey shows and the trend punditry of newsmagazines.

Clearly Oz sees Housesitter as a screwball caprice, but the Muppeteer-turned-director delivers a stale couple's counseling movie. The message -- if your partner is a deluded liar, then you might as well be too -- must have been thought up by Pinocchio.

Whiny, quirky and urbane.

A happy, scenic, sumptuous film. [12 Apr 1995, p.25]

This little charmer both celebrates and kids the corny conventions of family sitcoms.

Glory is a big movie for a big moment in America's hidden history. [12 Jan 1990, p.D1]

Unlike "Heathers," a satiric treatment of teen suicide, Pump Up the Volume is passionately caring. It's a howl from the heart, a relentlessly involving movie that gives a kid every reason to believe that he or she can come of age. It appreciates the pimples and pitfalls of this frightening passage, the transit commonly known as adolescence.

An intriguing, visually startling murder mystery that showcases the virtuosity of Samuel L. Jackson.

Benefits from affecting performances from a gifted cast headed by R&B heartthrob Usher Raymond.

This rapturous romance is not only laugh-out-loud funny but demonstrates how little humankind has evolved in matters of the heart.

Isn't really a movie, it's only impersonating one.

An entertaining, light-hearted cops and robots action adventure decked out in high-tech finery. [14 Dec 1984, p.31]

Chechik has crafted Benny & Joon not as a seamless whole but as a tumble of scenes. Unfortunately, too many of them are inspired by Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton, and they seem to spill from the screen like Bozos from a kiddie car.

Written by former deejay Audrey Wells, the observant and funny script includes some wonderful scenes for the leading ladies.

The Fabulous Baker Boys is like a beloved movie from the glory days of Hollywood. It transports you. It's an American rhapsody.

A gooey romantic comedy that sticks to everything except its principles.

Sorry, Antz has no show-stopping song and dance numbers, no catchy melodies and no love songs either. The score, made up of old standards, does, however, enhance one of the movie's wittier episodes.

A spotty documentary of the Rolling Stones 1981 concert tour. [11 Feb 1983, p.23]

Katheryn's summation was meant to be the final flourish, but McGillis gives a flat-footed performance. However, Foster overcomes McGillis' inertia, as the sweet-natured Sarah, a lonely little waitress who makes her home in a trailer park. Under her tight jeans and tough talk, she proves as fragile as a ballerina on a music box. Foster creates the ultimate victim without ever becoming a wimp, mixing dignity with defenselessness. The Accused must be acquitted of its misdemeanors if not for its good intentions, for this vibrant performance.

The Gods Must Be Crazy is like nothing you've ever seen, a one-of-a-kind experience that's both strange and wonderful. It's most like an anthology of vintage Disney -- a wildlife narrative, a fairy tale with little people, and a love story suitable for general audiences. [02 Nov 1984, p.29]

Chock-full of celeb cameos, puns and contemporary camp, the movie is annoyingly hip. It wants to belong even more desperately than its title character, who yearns to be a god almost as much as Pinocchio wanted to be just plain human. Hercules, alas, is hardly in the same class with the emotionally compelling Pinocchio -- although on many occasions its hulking hero seems just as wooden.

A trite, bantamweight "Bull Durham," hasn't a single line, gibe, gesture or twist that hasn't already been chewed up and spat out in many a movie baseball dugout.

These folks are so blase, you'd think that scientists had predicted pennies from Heaven instead of world's end within the year.

A zombie comedy that gradually builds from a teasing take-off to a genuine, gross-out thriller. It's definitely not for all audiences, but its visceral effects and old-fashioned scare tactics make it a real scream for chiller fans. [16 Aug 1985, p.19]

Directing with an eye to "Rebecca," Branagh brings more mood than suspense to this apparent hommage to Hitchcock. Still, he raises no goose bumps.

We should be asking ourselves why so noble a nation would produce swill like Joe Dirt.

The movie updates Disney's blueprint without altering it in any meaningful way.

All the performances are exceptional.

For all of its departures, Luhrmann's largely successful reinterpretation is far from irreverent. He takes liberties with the world, but never the words of this achingly beautiful love story.

If we lived in a just universe, Captain Ron, a farce filmed in and around the Devil's Triangle, would simply have vanished into another dimension. But we don't and it didn't.

Gattaca may be all done up in new-fangled notions, but underneath all the guff about designer babies, it rests on a notion that was a staple of the original "Star Trek" series.

David Zucker and Segal seem to thrive on the formulaic tomfoolery that propels these rapid-fire spoofs. Naked Gun 33 1/3, as pointlessly plotted as ever, manages to be not only still funny but energetically slapped together and occasionally inventive.

The relationships feel contrived, less a drama than an exercise in cuteness.

The only thing that's truly scary about the movie is the escalating vulgarity of the latest in a string of skanky comedies by filmmakers determined to out-gross the other.

The Bodyguard is a classic of show-business hubris, a wondrously trashy belly-flop, proving that no amount of glittering sets and star power can save a story that should have been buried with McQueen.

It's saying something when Tom Arnold's performance is among the movie's highlights.

Coppola, who both wrote and directed this entertaining adaptation, follows the well-thumbed scenario, but with the help of his winning cast he disguises the absence of invention.

The Sure Thing is fresh, funny, sure-fire stuff. And much of the credit for that goes to an energetic comic actor named John Cusack, who was only 17 when he made the film.

Everyone is convincingly miserable, and audiences are likely to follow suit.

It's like a chick flick for men--and the women who love them, sniff-sniff.

A pooped, poorly executed buddy-cop comedy with more cliches than expletives.

Sonnenfeld, who demonstrated a knack for Gothic comedy in "The Addams Family," brings the same mischievous gleefulness to this deliriously macabre enterprise.

Doubtless better than it deserves to be, thanks to Fraser, whose Costner-esque dash serves as an antidote to the dated material. Director Robert Mandel, best known for the flashy techno-thriller "F/X," brings a surprisingly sensitive touch to this earnest story of intolerance. Meant to serve as a "Gentleman's Agreement" for the '90s, it's actually got much more in common with "The Outsiders" or even "Pretty in Pink." The moral is the same whether you're a greaser, a tomboy, a gentile or a Jew. You've got to be you.

Director Joe Johnston, a veteran of Industrial Light and Magic, brings a wry Rube Goldberg approach to his first-ever feature. The sets are definitely plastic, but that slightly homemade look is refreshing in the hardware movie decade.

Like the jokes, the brothers' rapport seems recycled from childhood. Sheen and Estevez are hardly working.

And while it's intermittently engaging, the drama's flatter than a sucker's wallet.

Puerile bluster.

Tim Burton remains the Wizard of Odd with this eye-filling if problematic confection.

Though the Oscar-nominated documentary captures the fight and the fighters, it also explores Ali's role in reintroducing black Americans to their African culture.

Short Circuit fizzles a little at the end when the script becomes even more predictable and mawkish. But Badham's technological know-how can't be denied, and the pleasures of Number Five are considerable. [09 May 1986, p.27]

The picture is not a social satire. It’s a mess.

Though appealing in its wispy way, "Manon" is only a continental soap opera.

A convoluted psychosexual thriller that promises the moon and gives us Bruce's butt.

It's worth seeing at the very least because it is so different from standard Hollywood fare.

A chiller that, except for the last half hour of ghoulish effects, is undeadly dull. [02 Aug 1985, p.23]

It's as much fun as ever, a ground-meat-and-potatoes movie, with guys beating hell out of each other to a disco beat. Stallone pulls no punches; the familiar refrain features the Rocky I score, along with its characters and moral simplicity.

Wickedly clever.