It wants to be a movie in search of a truth, but it's more like a movie in search of itself.

Sandler is making a tactical error when he creates a character whose manner and voice has the effect of fingernails on a blackboard, and then expects us to hang in there for a whole movie.

Gods and Monsters is not a deep or powerful film, but it is a good-hearted one.

This feature film debut by Williams is an ambitious, gritty and at times downright scary urban drama with a message of hope and redemption. [04 Nov 1998, p.44]

A series of well-drawn sketches and powerful scenes, in search of an organizing principle.

It's the film you need to see in order to understand why the ending of "As Good As It Gets" was phony.

The movie has a certain mordant humor, and some macho dialogue that's funny. Woods manfully keeps a straight face through goofy situations where many another actor would have signaled us with a wink. But the movie is not scary, and the plot is just one gory showdown after another.

Finds the right notes to negotiate its delicate subject matter.

The kind of parable that encourages us to re-evaluate the good old days and take a fresh look at the new world we so easily dismiss as decadent.

When bodies are buried in cellars and cats are thrown into lighted ovens, the film reveals itself as unworthy of its subject matter.

The very soul of sophomorism. It is callow, gauche, obvious and awkward, and designed to appeal to those with similar qualities.

I get letters from people who would like to make a movie. My advice could be, find a subject like Speed Levitch and follow him around with a video camera. That's what Bennett Miller did--directing, producing and photographing The Cruise.

In Spielberg's Schindler's List there are the famous shots of the little girl in the red coat (in a film otherwise shot in black and white). Her coat acts as a marker, allowing us to follow the fate of one among millions. The Last Days, directed by James Moll, is in a way all about red coats--about a handful of survivors, and what happened to them.

It is not a film for most people. It is certainly for adults only. But it shows Todd Solondz as a filmmaker who deserves attention, who hears the unhappiness in the air and seeks its sources.

The film had a curious effect on me. I was sometimes confused about events as they happened, but all the pieces are there, and the film creates an emotional whole. It's more effective when it's complete than during the unfolding experience.

The movie doesn't seem sure what tone to adopt, veering uncertainly from horror to laughs to romance.

A clever movie until it turns excessively gory, "Bride of Chucky" leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. [19 Oct 1998, p.33]

A love story about two people with no apparent chemistry, whose lives are changed by a stranger who remains an uninteresting enigma. No wonder it just sits there on the screen.

It's a tribute to The Celebration that the style and the story don't stumble over each other. The script is well planned, the actors are skilled at deploying their emotions, and the long day's journey into night is fraught with wounds that the farcical elements only help to keep open.

Slam is a fable disguised as a slice of life, and cobbled together out of too many pieces that don't fit smoothly together. It's moving, but not as effective as it could have been.

It's sharp and funny--not a children's movie, but one of those hybrids that works on different levels for different ages.

The sad thing about A Night at the Roxbury is that the characters are in a one-joke movie, and they're the joke.

So breathtaking, so beautiful, so bold in its imagination, that it's a surprise at the end to find it doesn't finally deliver.

Within Clay Pigeons is a smaller story that might have involved us more, but it's buried by overkill.

I enjoyed the film on two levels: for its skill and its silliness.

The film is competently made, and the attractive cast emotes and screams energetically.

Waters follows these characters through their 15 minutes of fame without ever churning up very much interest in them.

There is a whole genre of films about childhood friends still living in the old neighborhood and going down the drain of crime and drugs. Few of them capture the fatigue and depression, and the futility, as well as this one, in which the characters hold on to their self-respect by obeying the very rules that are grinding them down.