A surprisingly effective slice-and-dice cheapie; cool, controlled direction by Jack Sholder, who also wrote the script. [31 Oct 2012, p.G27]

Ted Kotcheff's First Blood is a cute, slick anti-Vietnam war film carefully treated to go down for the pro-war constituency it's made for. [23 Oct 1982]

An Officer and a Gentleman has so many echoes that it never finds its own voice. [29 Jul 1982]

Producer Ray Stark and director John Huston have relied more on the rigid style of the comic strip than on the high-steppin' pizazz of the Broadway show. They've transformed a big-hearted hit that won seven Tonys into a small- minded musical. [18 Jun 1982]

Music for the eyes. That's why it has become a treasured classic. That's why we'll see it again and again. [2002 re-release]

What has aged well in Diva is the grave beauty of that aria and the wry, painterly camera shots - you should see the new print for the colors alone - conceived by Beineix but executed by the great French cinematographer Philippe Rousselot. They're enough to tide us over and maybe convince the kids that hip date movies existed back when their parents and dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Unfortunately, except for one raucous routine, this "Animal House" clone is an overblown, over-publicized, overwrought exploitation flick that's about as funny as the first dirty joke my father told me. [09 Apr 1982]

Deathtrap is slick enough that you can't disengage from it without missing something. [19 Mar 1982]

Barry Levinson's Diner is an extremely clever, slick male fantasy that takes some time to work out its mood and tone but ultimately blossoms into a moving film. [16 Apr 1982]

Except for the evocative sets and Randy Newman's upbeat musical score, Ragtime is better read than seen. [18 Dec 1981]

Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat--an homage to film noir--gets off to a nice start before it becomes entangled in its convoluted and somewhat uninteresting plot machinations.

The film is more interesting as a phenomenon than as a movie. [27 Feb 1981]

One of the major problems facing Hollywood today is the lack of will and energy to make movies that can charm youngsters without boring their parents. Popeye is an important contribution toward the solution. It's not a sophisticated film. But it's a gratifyingly engaging one. [12 Dec 1980, p.1]

If you enjoy laughing at a movie, rather than with it, then you might get a few chuckles. [18 Dec 1980, p.1]

The Visitor arrived at the height of a sci-fi and horror film revival, when “serious” directors... embraced genre conventions and made them their own. Paradise stole from them all. But unlike these directors, his ambition was coupled with delusional ineptitude.

The film that many consider the finest of its decade, Raging Bull, has aged well, and not just because it was filmed in black and white.

Somewhere in Time is a glossy, flossy and intermittently interesting piece of kitsch which, with more sensitive craftsmanship, could have been one of the more dazzling screen romances of the year. It's too bad that it's held down by its more overt commercial impulses. [7 Oct 1980, p.1]

Moore's conception of the character is compelling. She rivets us. She's assisted by the superb performances Redford has elicited from her co- stars, Sutherland and Timothy Hutton, who plays Conrad, the guilt-ridden surviving brother of the dead boy. [26 Sep 1980]

There are sequences in The Big Red One that you can't forget, and every one of them could have been made better with a bigger budget and a realism that was beyond Fuller's grasp at the time.

The "troubles" in Northern Ireland would seem to be an excellent dramatic vehicle: tension, violence, a people torn apart by religious, political, and economic differences. But writer-director Tony Luraschi turns it into a polemic. Speeches replace action and the dialogue is wooden. [14 Feb 2014, p.G31]

When you sit down to The Shining, you sit down with normal expectations of being diverted, perhaps even being gripped, but not being undermined. But the film undermines you in powerful, inchoate ways. It's a horror story even for people who don't like horror stories - maybe especially for them. [14 Jun 1980, p.1]

Generations from now, when people talk about horse movies, they won't be talking about "National Velvet" or "My Friend Flicka," they'll be talking about the majestic beauty of Carroll Ballard's The Black Stallion. [07 Feb 1980]

"No God and no religion can survive ridicule," wrote Mark Twain, but for once the sage of Hannibal was wrong.

Nick Nolte electrifies the football-cum-drugs saga with a remarkable performance as Phil Elliott, a pot smokin', beer swillin', cocaine sniffin' tight end for the North Dallas Bulls. But the erratic direction of Ted Kotcheff and the wayward script are strictly second-string. [10 Jun 2014, p.G15]

What's most unusual about the original 24 years later, though, is its elegant minimalism.

This thoroughly stripped-down thriller simmers in a way that's still unsettling 25 years later. [24 Oct 2004]

Eric Roberts, making his movie debut, shines as a Travolta-ish hero who wants to surmount his family origins. [19 July 2015, p.N]

The animation techniques are sophisticated but the story tends to get bogged down in pop philosophy. [01 Mar 2015, p.N]