Has a melodramatic glow.

There are better holocaust dramas than Grey Zone -- "Schindler's List" for one, and due later this year, Roman Polanski's magnificent "The Pianist." But few will disturb you like The Grey Zone -- mostly because it won't try for tears.

An idealized, dreamy fantasy of life in the business world-harmless as airplane reading, a bit dull on the big screen. [2 Mar 1990, Friday, p.C]

Bigelow gives this film edge, tension and something you aren't expecting: a woman's touch for teasing out the buried emotion beneath those stoic surfaces.

Easy Virtue may be a bauble, as Larita's described at one point, but Coward's examination of hypocrisy demands real skill. The style should suggest "whipped cream with knives," as Stephen Sondheim once described "A Little Night Music." Elliott's film is more like curdled milk with a spork.

Martin's a smooth enough director to make fuller and more ambitious pictures than Dean. This one's a promising start.

There are few marquees that could contain the title The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: the Metal Years, but Penelope Spheeris' documentary on the heavy metal bands of rock 'n' roll turns out to be much more graceful than its name. [05 Aug 1988, p.B]

The film works best when widening its focus to include the Federal Communications Commission's often baffling and hypocritical stances regarding what's OK to say, or show, on TV and radio, and what isn't.

At the end of Jojo Rabbit, you’re just left wondering what the point of it all was.

There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers, and had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop stardom instead of an Oscar-winning acting career, she’d be one of our top icons. Her Mother Mary performances are so fantastic it leaves you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Too often The Express sidelines its own main character in favor of the lemon-sucking, jaw-jutting glower patented by Quaid.

More happens in Eclipse than in the previous "Twilight" zone, "New Moon," and yet it's duller

Palmer and Bello really do seem like world-weary, spook-addled daughter and mother, and they play the stakes just so, favoring neither blase understatement nor yellow-highlighter melodrama. They're strong enough to take your mind off some lapses in narrative judgment.

Cry Macho may be fond and foolish in equal measure, but it has a few grace notes to remember, in addition to a fine gallery of images of Eastwood in silhouette, at dusk, against a big sky, alone with his thoughts.

A surer hand behind the camera might’ve finessed the jokes more effectively, or established a consistent and satisfying tone.

It's not that the movie is bad; it's merely uninspired and relatively clueless about Kaufman.

Chan and Wilson's easy camaraderie remains eminently watchable, but the rough edges from last time out are missed.

Jonah may resemble an 83-minute Sunday school lesson, but at least it's a playful, colorful one, with spunky peas and tomatoes, chirpy kids' tune-- and bright animation that may not rival "Monsters, Inc." or "Shrek" but gets its points across.

Presented with such confidence, such care, that we love all of the characters, even if we don't like them.

A routine Neil Simon comedy with Goldie Hawn ,Chevy Chase, and Charles Grodin mixed up in a story about an innocent bank robber and a power-hungry district attorney. Hawn has been married to both. Not very funny, but the dogs are cute. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]

A word of warning. Big Fish is so strange and so literary that audiences seeking conventional fare may get impatient with it. But it always takes effort to catch the big ones. This one is worth it.

Director Peter Markle, whose credits include TV documentaries and commercials as well as "Young Blood," has taken pains to make this a craftsmanlike production, shot in Malaysia, full of laborious attention to detail and enterprising stunt flying. Regrettably, the script doesn`t fly quite as smoothly.

It's fairly absorbing though, increasingly, a bit of an eye-roller, and it's designed, photographed and edited to make you itchy with paranoia.

This should've been a really good picture, especially with Hillcoat's crack ensemble. Instead it's a stilted battle waged between the material and the interpreters. It's up to you, the thirsty customer, to decide who won.

At 79 minutes, Love and Other Catastrophes is more of a snack than a meal -- one that could use a little less sugar. Now that Croghan has figured out how to bring characters she likes to the screen, her next lesson is to learn how to flesh them out without resorting to emotional shorthand.

The film is gripping---an honorable and beautifully acted addition to the tradition of homefront war stories.

A play based on the most delicately nuanced interactions inevitably loses electricity as a movie. Worse, it becomes predictable. [28 Apr 1989, p.L]

Too loud, bright and shallow for its subject: a movie that pushes too many obvious buttons to build naturally to the big, heartbreaking climax it obviously wants.