Sheila Benson

Not even Seth's elegance and worldly warmth, nor his short speech about the virtues of his country's culture, is enough to give balance to the film's nearly two-hour portrayal of harassment, inequality and suppression. [11 Jan 1991, p.F1]

The movie is grisly, illogical, contradictory, borderline tasteless, riddled with plot holes--and at the same time, decently photographed, cleanly edited and crisply directed. All in all, the waste it represents--of talent, of intelligence, of fine craftsmen and of the audience’s good will--is enough to make one howl like a dog.

The cast is fine; Alda’s casts invariably are, but this collection has only stick figures to play.

You go to Peggy Sue Got Married expecting '60s nostalgia, "a blast from the past," Buddy Holly and lime-green leisure suits. You get all that, but nothing prepares you for the rush of real emotion the film generates, for its poignance, its reassurance or its high of pure pleasure.

The imagination of the opening is a hint of what the movie might have been: a view of our world that made kids consider it from another angle--as well as a spoof of the superhero. But what are all the pleasant duck effects in the face of any of this numbing waste?

One Red Shoe has trying moments (the sewer-man joke; the awful fate of Belushi’s character), but the rest of it whirls by as summer comedy ought to, and rarely does.

Dick Tracy is brash, irresistible fun. Warren Beatty's vision of a comic strip on film comes in paint box-bright colors with nicely irreverent dialogue, a gaggle of crisp performances and one with million-dollar moxie. [10 Jun 1990, p.3]

An intermittently funny if unsteady mixture of first-rate Brooks Angst, and set-ups that never quite pay off. [22 Mar 1991, p.F6]

The actors, many of whom are part of a loose Mike Leigh stock company, are miraculously deft at erasing that line between performing and being.

Ruben’s stylistic devices, his high angle shots and his black-and-white recountings of courtroom testimony, become just so much cinematic corpse-rouging.

In the air Memphis Belle is unstoppable, giving us--earthbound and safe--a clear-eyed look at the nuts and bolts of bravery.

This is the most cheerfully preposterous film of a jaw-dropping summer, which is not to say it's not fun, it's simply orchestrated Looney Tunes.

The production is as clean and effective as Red October herself; there's not one dial or glowing radar screen too many; the underwater hits and near-misses are clearly choreographed and the undersea intensity is captured perfectly by Jan De Bont's camera work. [2 Mar 1990, Calendar, p.F-1]

GoodFellas is "Raging Bull" squared. [20 September 1990, Calendar, p.F-1]

It's big, cartoonish and empty, with an interesting premise that is underdeveloped and overproduced. [3 July 1985, p.Calendar 6]

All and all, it adds up to a delightful, unpretentious movie, hands down the richest work Whoopi Goldberg has done on the screen.

Joyous, daft and hauntingly original, True Stories is Byrne's magical mystery tour of Texas: an introduction to the imaginary town of Virgil and its faintly surreal folks.

The movie’s tone is light, absurd; its sharper comments lie a little below the waterline.

For all its genuinely funny moments and its mix of outrageousness and insights, Down and Out remains curiously unsatisfying in the way it resolves the Nolte character.

Mellow, beautiful, rich and brimming with love, "Hannah" is the best Woody Allen yet and, quite simply, a great film. [7 February 1986, Calendar, p.6-1]

Possibly because Stone empathizes so enormously with co-writer Kovic, who came back from Vietnam at the age of 21 paralyzed from the chest down, the director has lost the specificity that made "Platoon" so electrifying. In its place he uses bombast, overkill, bullying. His scenes, and their ironic juxtapositioning, explode like land mines. [20 Dec 1989, p.1]

For all its mosaic of nice details, Silverado is still a faintly hollow creation-constructed, not torn from the heart. For a generation of kids to whom the Western is a new adventure, there probably will be action and distraction enough to dazzle. Those who need to be deeply stirred by this redoubtable form will still have to wait: Silverado is good but not great. [10 Jul 1985, p.1]

If "Back to the Future" made you bored and querulous, then the tumbling inventiveness in its sequel may come as a pleasant surprise. Of course, if you were among the 92% of the world who loved the ride in Dr. Emmett Brown's diabolical DeLorean back in 1985, then Part II is your oyster. [22 Nov 1989, p.F1]

The humor of Down by Law is marginally easier to describe than Stranger Than Paradise, but only because, by now, we have a small idea of Jarmusch's style. It's still a kind of humor that evaporates as you try to explain it. Also eluding description is the beauty, the street poetry and the precision of the images caught by Jarmusch and his cameraman, the great Robby Muller, whose black-and-white photography illuminated the early films of Wim Wenders. They have created a dream New Orleans, more succinct and more haunting than the city itself, and Lurie has set it to music.

The animal photography is what gives Benji the Hunted its greatest appeal for both children and their parents, but the film makers' notion of wild animal behavior is peculiarly suburban and misleading.

A love of the world of movies permeates the first-class, crackling excitement of F/X, giving a rare dimension to this thriller.

Eventually the film's suspense underpinnings take over its personal story, yet that tension Quaid and Barkin generate still holds.

Don Bluth (An American Tail) has gone to the trouble of differentiating between the species, of being careful of the scale of one in relation to another and of giving very little children a sort of primer of dinosaur lore.