Ted Mahar

The length and delay of the project is evident from Brian Eno's participation. He composed and produced the subtle, evocative musical score for the film. [31 March 1990, p.C08]

Clearly based on the Japanese film series about Zatoichi, the blind samurai, Blind Fury is also openly tongue-in-cheek. It is little but violence and gags, but the violence often is so cleverly and improbably staged that it's funny too. [19 Mar 1990, p.B08]

Candy Mountain is filmed offhandedly and is full of in-joke casting. It works far better than Alex Cox's pointless, bizarre ``Straight to Hell,'' a home movie with musicians. [01 Nov 1988, p.D06]

Henry Fonda's perplexity is palpable. [26 Jan 2001]

The air stuff, aided by 10 Army and National Guard units, is super-duper and excitingly filmed. The ground stuff is choppy and perfunctory. Jones is good, Young is OK, and Cage looks distracted for most of the film. [02 Jun 1990, p.C08]

Always has the benefit of likable characters and actors. Dreyfuss, Hunter and Goodman are good. But several scenes seem needlessly slow, and the film as a whole would be better if it had been pared down from 120 to 90 minutes. At times it seems the title and the running time are one and the same. [22 Dec. 1989, p.R13]

It hasn't the flash and style of Fatal Attraction or Jagged Edge, but its contrived finale is better than those contrived finales. [21 Apr 1990, p.C08]

Slow, contrived and monotonously grim. [18 Aug 2006, p.45]

It is a colorful tale in an exotic location, with excitingly staged action scenes, exotic desert locale and a richly colorful musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. It is also rich in satirical cynicism about international relations and political expediency. [09 Oct 1991, p.D07]

The writers keep the funny lines coming steadily, and Frears gets good work from all. [02 Oct 1992, p.17]

High and Low is more than a crime melodrama; it's a philosophical drama as well. [23 Nov 1988, p.D06]

The action is fast, tough, energetic and extravagant. It is smoothly and stylishly made but more inscrutable than intended. [28 June 1989, p.D05

The film is uncommonly evocative. [19 Dec 1990, p.D6]

Kennedy fills this with Western cliches, character actors and sprawling action. [09 Mar 2001]

Joffe does a good job of making a complex project comprehensible to a mass audience with no memory of World War II. Moreover, he infuses drama into an often cerebral project by highlighting the tensions among the characters. [20 Oct 1989, p.E13]

Landis keep things moving smoothly as both a director and supervising editor. He too has an uncharacteristic light touch. The film is simply a happy surprise. [26 Apr 1991, p.R13]

About an hour after an engaging, suspenseful start, Millennium seems to thrash itself to bits. [26 Sep 1989, p.D04]

Loaded is draggy and repetitious in spots. But consider its task -- poking fun at a genre that is more than half comedy to begin with. And the remainder is so silly that restaging it is lampoon enough. [6 Feb 1993, p.C07]

Snipes and Sciorra give fine matched performances. They make the impulse and the complex following relationship credible so that it matters what happens to these pawns in a game beyond their grasp. [7 June 1991, p.B06]

The film is funny, odd and real. [18 Sept 1987, p.E18]

This genuinely irreverent film is one of the few to dabble in theological humor. It's wicked, but only up to PG-level heresy and impiety. [03 Apr 1998, p.38]

Given its defiant adherence to cliche and avoidance of originality, Memories of Me should be boring, but the cast keeps it interesting, and many of the lines, fortunately, are amusing. [07 Oct 1988, p.F13]

Best Intentions should be engaging for those unfamiliar with Bergman -- and at three hours, it had better be engaging. To Bergman buffs, it is fascinating -- a lively, clever drama of opposites powerfully attracted. [14 Aug 1992, p.17]

Director Claude Berri plays the story out steadily, beautifully and thrillingly. [25 Dec 1987, p.F20]

Shrunk is a sometimes funny, occasionally clever comedy adventure. But the fun stuff consumes only about one-fourth of the film, nowhere near enough for a feature-length movie. [24 June 1989, p.C06]

This 1983 film is well-staged, well-acted and backed by a suitably nervous Jerry Goldsmith score. [25 Sep 1998, p.36]

it feels as if it is going extra innings, due partly to a present day prologue and epilogue. But the banter stays lively, humor never slumps.

Even without the eyeglasses that gave viewers a headache, this film is a classic because it is one of the earliest and best of the wailing-music-in-the-desert-after-the-UFO-has-landed genre. This movie is a cut above some of the truly awful, tacky aliens-behind-the-cactus space operas of that era, possibly because the script was adapted from a story by Ray Bradbury. [29 Nov 1987, p.11]