Ted Mahar

This is padded a bit but still faithful and entertaining. [11 Dec 1992, p.AE15]

A superb production of a so-so story. [10 Feb 1992, p.C05]

Contrivances grow so outlandish as Cain grinds on that De Palma seems to be parodying himself. His intent is seldom humor, but Cain ends up being more inadvertent comedy than thriller. [07 Aug 1992, p.D01]

Godfrey Reggio's Powaqqatsi is just like his Koyaanisqatsi, only different. Its dreamlike mix of forceful imagery and Philip Glass' surging, unique music is the same, but the dream is different, and Reggio uses different techniques to incarnate it. [08 Jul 1988, p.F13]

Coincidental plot puts kiss of death on apathetic film. [29 Apr 1991, p.D05]

Universal Soldier is another goony banquet of violence composed almost entirely of leftovers. It's a Frankenstein-monster of a movie with parts of a dozen or more films stitched and stapled together to make one lurching melodrama. [11 July 1992, C10]

Written by Charlie Haas, Gremlins 2 is more clever than Gremlins, and Dante seems to move everything at a much quicker pace here. Perhaps because things are pretty predictable, Dante lingers on little. Much dialogue will be lost to audience laughter. [15 Jun 1990, p.R15]

The big-screen reissue offers a rare chance to admire the marvelous production details. [2002 Director's Cut]

It is a strange, fascinating hybrid film, but it is Madonna's film, and she plays her role to the hilt. [17 May 1991, p.05]

Languidly paced yet not at all slow, Chocolat is a last, lingering, affectionate look at a comfortable, convenient life that may have been more a mirage than a memory. [12 May 1989, p.I13]

With much dialogue coming from the Charles Portis novel, this is an exceptionally clever and eloquent Western with surprising levity among the mayhem. [01 Jun 2007, p.34]

The film and characters aren't really down on men. They're in a desert. Almost everything that's good or useful is somewhere else. What is in the desert in ``Gas Food'' is a fractured family that is a great experience for the viewer. [9 Oct 1992, p.AE15]

This one wraps up with a melodramatic finale that doesn't really deal with the issues raised earlier. Nevertheless, until then, it is an intelligently written, well-acted film that deals sensitively with the disorientation of guys who find adapting to peace as difficult in its way as adapting to war had been. [13 Mar 1988, p.06]

With his customary sensitivity, director Bert I. Gordon ripped off Them! as well as his own Amazing Colossal Man. Nutty as it all is, it takes a sudden lurch into deeper nuttiness at the end. [09 Aug 1996, p.37]

The last half hour is full of plot twists, turns and pretzel bends. They are imaginative, occasionally funny, and they make some surprises truly surprising. But in the process they leave the last flickering glimmer of credibility back around Minute No. 61. [8 Feb 1992, p.C06]

Dani's feelings are complex, as she reacts to life's new everyday bewilderments, and much of her reaction is wordless. Witherspoon and Mulligan make Dani's feelings eloquent. [16 Nov 1991, p.C10]

What Alive does show is engrossing, a virtually unique experience re-created thrillingly and surely as faithfully as we can stand. [15 Jan 1993, p.13]

Dad is something of a sitcom soap opera in which tragic and desperate things happen, and the participants can always snap out a one-liner for the occasion.[28 Oct 1989, p.C08]

Hook is full of funny and engaging moments, but they are separated by too many moments that are neither. It should have been written to be shorter, perhaps a brisk 90 minutes instead of the 135-minute behemoth it is now. [13 Dec. 1991, p.AE08]

It's difficult to imagine a better film adaptation of Maclean's work. [16 Oct 1992]

This was the first major film to depict a benign extraterrestrial visiting Earth since the postwar flying saucer phenomenon began in June 1947. Few alien visitation films have surpassed it for suspense, narrative economy, acting and a just plain good story. [09 Apr 2004]

For all its improbability and rigorous emotion, Desperate does have its moments of quiet suspense and tension. Cimino often gets good performances and does so here. But when it's all over, nothing really unexpected has happened, and it has taken a lot of unpleasant moments to get through the desperate hours. [11 Oct 1990, p.C09]

Empire of the Sun is such a grand, successful blend of epic filmmaking and personal drama, it's hard to believe Steven Spielberg made it. [11 Dec 1987, p.G15]

There is a formulaic inevitability to the ferocious finale, but good writing and superb, intelligent acting keep the movie fresh and tense to the last moment. [27 June 1992, p.C08]

It sounds like, maybe, a cute Saturday Night Live skit, but as a serious drama, or even as an adventure melodrama -- well, it has plenty of humor, all the wrong kind. [15 May 1988, p.B06]

Directed and co-written by Ron Underwood, Tremors maintains a good, steady tongue-in-cheek tone while working nicely as a suspense thriller. [22 Jan 1990, p.D5]

Texasville is replete with events and complications, but the same three or four seem to recycle themselves every 15 minutes for two hours. The film is already written off as a bomb, a sunbaked soap opera. Its often sly humor does not offset the sense of slow repetition. [12 Nov 1990, p.C07]

All this pain and growth occurs in a story whose plot elements turn over so rapidly that it's hard to track them. One furiously violent episode follows another, each seeming to step on the heels of the one ahead. [29 Dec 1989, p.F09]

Lonely ends up being confused and repetitious. [27 May 1991, p.B08]

Robert Redford makes a convincing member of the U.S. Olympic Ski Team in this exciting and thoughtful Michael Ritchie film about the sacrifices and compromises made -- or not made -- for a chance at a moment's glory. [26 Feb 1999]

Richard Linklater's ingenious social comedy is a tour de force, at least in a minor way. [25 Oct. 1991, p.19]

For all the film's patness and lame predictability, Candy gives it a strange charm. He seems to be inherently funny, and his subtle weirdness, so useful on SCTV, is handy here as well. It helps make seeing Uncle Buck marginally worthwhile. [18 Aug 1989, p.E13]

If there is a drive-in classic, this is it. [04 Jun 1999]

It's moderately pleasant most of the time, mildly amusing now and then. Young Schlatter does a reasonable impersonation of Burns. But it's such a formula script that it would be just as predictable even without the first two films. [13 Apr 1988, p.C08]

Roughness at least has a few good laughs in the formula. [30 Sept 1991, p.D08]

Vincente Minnelli's 1949 film is patently made on the MGM lot, and Van Heflin makes cloddish country doctor Monsieur Bovary a bit too pleasant. And Emma Bovary's grotesque death is tidied up. Still, the film conveys the story and Emma's naive romantic thralls. [13 Jun 2004]

Spaced Invaders is a cute comedy-- cuter and funnier than you might expect. [02 May 1990, p.E07]

Unbelievably, "Prelude To A Kiss" works. [10 Jul 1992, p.15]

Directed by Lili Fini Zanuck, Rush is well-acted, stylishly filmed and intense. Leigh is convincing as an accidental tourist on the road to ruin. [10 Jan 1992, p.20]

Sidewalk Stories is nobly intended and has many moments of humor and ingenuity. But it's ultimately a sermon with a point so general as to be almost meaningless. And it sure ruins the fun. [25 Nov 1989, p.C08]

The film is so-so, but producer/writer Bob Kaufman, flush with the success of Love at First Bite said High Cost was the forerunner of a new way of life. [04 Aug 1991, p.34]

Those who don't go for horror films, period, won't go for this, but those who do will find this one of the more intelligent, better produced outings of late, with a good, continuing stream of sarcastic humor. [30 Oct 1987, p. E13]

They Live has such a clever idea, it's disappointing that scenarist Frank Armitage and director John Carpenter did so little with it. It's like a ``Twilight Zone'' tale inflated from 30 minutes to 90. Or like a film made from a rough draft. [9 Nov 1988, p.C06]

Eating is probably the best date movie in years. It is replete with food for thought, and its ideas are sure to keep percolating for days. [17 May 1991, p.13]

Gere and Foster play out an exciting love story that is heartfelt, romantic and thoughtful. It slows a bit at the end but is beautifully produced and vaguely suggests the tale's original medieval setting. [05 Mar 1993, p.E16]

Reinhold and Savage play off each other well, and Savage is impressively convincing as a 35-year-old trapped in his son's body. You've seen worse. And will again. [11 Mar 1988]

Considering that Margin is a familiar and predictable story, with options severely limited, it's a good, suspenseful adventure. [01 Oct 1990, p.D05]

It's a safe bet that those who like the music will like the film, and those who don't would find it uncomfortable. But as a combination of historical homage, docudrama and concert film, it is well acted, well filmed and well mixed. [3 Dec 1987, p.E07]

This film put Cassavetes on the cinematic map, even though at 90 minutes, it was 4.5 hours short of Cassavetes' intended version, which exists now only in published script form. [19 Sep 1997, p.36]

Rita Hayworth plays her, doing good work as a Gay '90s gal finally revealed as shallow, conceited, greedy and mean. But that glorious hair distracts dentist James Cagney long enough to think he lost a lot when a rival got her. And that glorious hair is seen only in black and white. [13 Jun 1997, p.39]

Alexandre Dumas pere's 1844 novel has been filmed more than four dozen times, but this lavish and hilarious rendition is the pinnacle. [21 Sep 2007, p.38]

Lumet's films are always well-acted. Q & A is no exception. And the story has more than enough rich, lively characters to go around. [27 Apr 1990, p.R13]

Pacific Heights is the latest sort-of-Hitchcock film and a pretty good one better than most of Hitchcock's post-``Psycho'' output. [28 Sept 1990, p.G11]

The film simply plods through an endless list of horror movie cliches and accumulating contrivances. For long-suffering viewers, Dr. Giggles evolves into Audience Yawns. [27 Oct 1992, p.D05]

John Huston's classic film noir, adapted from W.R. Burnett's novel, is a forerunner of dozens of heist movies, few of which surpass it. [26 Feb 1999]

Juice is well done and sincere and the cast of newcomers is pretty good. As the story progresses, it leaves a realistic story and settings for routine chase melodrama. Its pacifist message is inarguable, but too obvious to be exciting. [17 Jan 1992, p.AE13]

As before, Uys succeeds in creating uncomplicated, largely visual comedy through clever contrivance in a simple landscape that is somehow full of surprises. [13 Apr 1990, p.R13]

The message is troweled on far too thickly at the end, but up to then, Robinson raises legitimate issues with a lively, sardonic and inventive sense of humor. [15 Jul 1989, p.C08]

This film is the first to deal with Earp's obsession to kill all Clanton gang survivors after the shootout. Garner is not ideally cast here. [20 Oct 2000]

The film has a rich visual tone and a sparse narrative quality. [05 Oct 1990, p.E15]

Like Father, Like Son is amusing, occasionally funny, and swift. [02 Oct 1987, p.E13]

The sense of visual texture is vivid. The cast performs as openly and energetically as if they were making the film for a Western audience. [03 May 1991, p.21]