Rita Kempley

In a performance of enormous complexity and nuance, emotions seem to race across McKellen's face like hurrying clouds.

The throbbing, urgent score by Giorgio Moroder, the cat jokes and the stylish look make Cat People a purrfectly good Meow Mix. [02 Apr 1982, p.11]

Though computer-animated rather than hand-drawn, this wry, rippingly paced buddy movie is as delightful in its own way as any of Walt Disney's traditional fairy tales.

Obliged to go from lost soul to demigod, Sewell's performance is as fascinating as Proyas's mystical vision.

The Mighty Quinn is a sunny Caribbean caper as giddily seductive as a great big umbrella drink. It's sly, wry and ocean-salty, a detective story with tropical punch.

Unforgettable, especially in Pearce's startling performance.

What "The Big Chill" was to baby boomers, the inspirational sex, lies, and videotape is to the mall crowd. It's designer soul-searching, a looking glass for a generation.

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.

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

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

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]

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.

A delectable reworking of the ultimate girl's myth, a corporate Cinderella story with shades of a self-made Pygmalion.

Actress Rosanna Arquette and video vamp Madonna star in this wonderful new-wave mix-up, directed by the difficult but dynamic Susan Seidelman. Arquette is angelic as the outsider Roberta looking to get in, a quixotic New Jersey housewife kept in a yuppie palace by her husband, the hot tub man (Mark Blum).

Weird, warm, monumentally entertaining comedy.

A quirky, tender, splendidly acted fable.

Warmhearted, wonderfully witty.

It's a showcase for Nicholson in an astounding performance as the dim but lovable hit man, Charley Partanna. [14 June 1985, p.27]

A riot from start to finish, Carrey's first feature comedy is as cheerfully bawdy as it is idiotically inventive.

Francis Ford Coppola magically recreates the era, its movies and its music, in this razzle-dazzle celebration, some fact and some fiction.

We've seen it all before, most recently in "Gardens of Stone," most romantically in "An Officer and a Gentleman," but never more elegantly than here as Kubrick sustains the athletic ballet of obstacle courses and white-glove inspections for a breathtaking 40 minutes.

A dexterously balanced killer thriller by the idiosyncratic Frears, whose every scene becomes a matter of life and death.

Amelie is joie de vivre in a nougat.

Tin Men is a tale of transitions and a test of mettle, as sweet as a slow dance, as classy and cumbersome as a Coupe de Ville.

They don't come any cuter than The Adventures of Milo and Otis, a heartwarming, tail-thumping story about a curious kitten and his pug-nosed puppy pal. It's totally awwwwww-some.

Zwick gets the most out of his young cast, and you do believe that Lowe and Moore are drawn to each other against all good sense. Lowe offers the first sympathetic performance of his career. And Moore, her voice husky as burnt sugar, is sure to succeed Debra Winger as our fresh-scrubbed sex symbol. And to think that only last year, they were shallow brat-packers in "St. Elmo's Fire." [4 July 1986, p.N29]

The Brother From Another Planet is brilliant science-fiction with a social conscience. It goes to worlds where men, some of them anyway, have never gone before. And all they really ever had to do was take the A-Train. [16 Nov 1984, p.21]