Rita Kempley

The movie is sleek and shiny as a new bullet, reflecting Scott's patented surplus of style.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being leaves an afterimage as insistent as a flashbulb's ghost. It is a haunting, glowing thing that won't let go.

Yet much of the movie's validity stems from time and place recreated with such authenticity that you can sense the wet chill in the morning air and the new wax pungent on the old gym floor. [27 Feb 1987, Weekend, p.n29]

An engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable adaptation of the bestselling spy thriller by Frederick Forsyth.

Perceptive, powerfully acted psychodrama.

Trouble in Mind, a striking comic confection, is like nothing we've seen before: "Casablanca" meets "Blade Runner" in post-post-modern terms. [25 Apr 1986, p.27]

As a good fairy tale should, The Princess Bride teaches but never preaches. It's a lively, fun-loving, but nevertheless epic look at the nature of true love.

Nolte is not only made for the role, he's also rehearsed it in real life.

Stand and Deliver is inspirational, but never sentimental. It resists all too many temptations. It cries out for schmaltz. But this is a drama as honest as its hero, a work that comes from the heart -- the heart of a computer programmer.

A wonderfully acted, heartwarming family film, it suffers from a goopy score, but not in the least from its potentially stalemated subject matter. Zaillian can make a chess tournament look like the Threepeat.

A hip, hilarious new animated feature.

A brainy, superbly acted buddy movie.

The real story lies beneath the surface of this superbly acted, strangely moving film.

Eating Raoul is an American film that's good enough to be European. [05 Nov 1982, p.19]

Michael Apted (who was due for a hit film) directed this fiery film, brilliantly layered scene-on-scene without a wasted frame. The odd camera angles presage the evil that will infect the happy home and put us on an eye-level with the boys whose spats gradually disappear as the two come to rely on each other. [26 Oct 1984, p.21]

It's an incredible show of flexibility on Tavernier's part, as improvisational and exploratory as the be-bop itself. "Round" is living sound, as "Sunday" was canvas come to life.

Oliver & Company, the directorial debut of veteran animator George Scribner, is Mouse Factory magic with edge. It's the claws ce'le`bre.

Never mind that Best Intentions, which was filmed both as a six-part TV miniseries and a three-hour movie, is occasionally uneven and sometimes confusing. It remains a rare August pleasure, a film for grown-up audiences that challenges and enriches.

It crackles with comedy, but it's no space cartoon, nor self-lampoon. It's a happy, heartfelt chapter that reunites the original cast with the original TV format, shying away from the cold and epic scale of the preceding movie adventures.

The usual complement of classy Brits and a host of Indian extras add the final touches to this vastly enjoyable, sprawling entertainment. Lean truly catches the sunset over the British Empire. [18 Jan 1985, p.25]

An enchanting, staggeringly beautiful epic at sea, is poetry in motion.

It is a wonderfully wacko work, sparked with Cook's oomph, Dunaway's cackle and the superstar power of the sensational Slater. What a face! As long as people prevail over effects, Supergirl glitters, she glows. [23 Nov 1984, p.27]

Tender, touching and downright delightful.

Yaphet Kotto, as L.A.P.D. Detective Harry Lowes, and Larry Hankin, as his partner, pull the bench out from under the rest of the players. Show-stealing is their only crime -- they add the necessary guts and good humor to bring the Star Chamber down to earth. [5 Aug 1983, p.17]

It's rambunctiously entertaining, a loop-de-loopy bumper car ride through a firecracker sky, all bright lights, sonic booms and impossible heroics.

Like the director, the cast seems to have burrowed into the material, made all the more wrenchingly realistic by Dogme precepts.

This first film from Sesame Street is this summer's sweetest surprise, a wholly good-natured children's comedy with enough wit and whimsy left over to win parents' hearts, too. Like the TV series, it's not violent, not threatening and not to be missed. [02 Aug 1985, p.23]

It practically celebrates convenience of plot, over-the-top acting and follow-the-footprints dialogue, but mostly it is a salute to sequins and sashay. With just a hint of sarcasm.