It's a refreshing spin on this type of film that's usually quite white and heteronormative.

Very different than "Kids." Where the earlier film was exhausting in its nihilism, the latest retains a good-natured charm.

Richard Pryor is a scream as a wrongly accused bank robber. Gene Wilder is just so-so as his partner. [19 June 1981]

Some actors are dinner. Kevin Kline is dessert, and his comic brio saves the film version of The Extra Man from its limitations.

Director Ridley Scott's Black Rain belongs to the blunt instrument school of filmmaking. This cop thriller, set largely in Osaka, Japan, is so full of screeching tires, flashing neon and extravagant violence that it's almost physically painful to watch, yet that seems to be the effect the director had in mind. If you smack the audience around enough, you'll be respected for your power.

It's tough to get on board with these monsters. They don't get the banter they--or we--deserve, and the screenwriters lean on wearying stereotypes.

Ruthlessly skilled as Atkinson is, the Bean persona of generic, maniacally grinning ineptitude owes most of its appeal to seeing just how far an actor can pull a face without pulling a muscle.

In the end it depicts its subject as lost, and pitiable--like Richard Nixon, but more a pawn than a dark knight.

There's just enough neurotic or sharp badinage and Rodeo Drive realism to make it all go down easy.

Zack and Miri has a bright, chipper look to it, thanks to cinematographer Dave Klein, a frequent Smith colleague. Wintertime in Pittsburgh never looked so good.

The superfast running effects, with Edward dashing up mountains, or rival, evil vampires swooping here and there at amazing speed, look genuinely cheesy, like the guy running the race in the smart-phone ad. I'm surprised Hardwicke and her colleagues couldn't solve this one more effectively. Set pieces such as a vampire baseball game fall flat as well.

A flawed film but an admirable one that tries to immerse us in a world of artistic abandon and political madness and very nearly succeeds.

Campbell’s film offers not surprises, exactly, but craftsmanship and low, brute, cunning satisfactions.

It's a very small film, undermined by a puttering rhythm and Pinter-worthy pauses in the second half and a resolution neither satisfyingly oblique nor conventionally pleasing.

A fun-for-a-while attempt by writer-director Harmony Korine, American indie cinema’s effrontery kingpin, to go a little bit mainstream. Matthew McConaughey is the reason it’ll get by.

The material, limited payoff; the performer at the center, never less than arresting.

This is a good movie, made by splendidly talented people-including Beatty, Annette Bening and Katharine Hepburn, co-writer Robert Towne, designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and composer Ennio Morricone-but it fumbles some gems, hearts and flowers on the way to the fadeout. [21 Oct 1994, p.C]

Despite its literary origins, the film feels a bit like a writer tossed a few darts at a board labeled with aging action stars and various terrorist groups and just decided to make it work.

Pacific Heights wastes our time and the talent of three top actors, Michael Keaton, Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine. What possibly attracted them to this inconsequential exploitation film about a tenant from hell terrorizing his landlords in an effort to steal their home? We keep waiting for the film to develop some larger meaning or greater purpose. It never does. [29 Sept 1990, p.C2]

Pretty silly. The Hot Spot certainly is, and it's occasionally quite entertaining for it, though the picture never really achieves a dimension beyond that of a Playboy Party Joke. [26 Oct 1990, Friday, p.I]

It's a movie that's too naive to be pornography and too callous to be art. [25 May 1990]

The documentary is strongest when it simply lets Steve — who resembles his father, minus the poof of hair — sift through his memories. There’s a lot of regret and melancholy there. Admiration too. And legitimate anger at how the Ross name itself is no longer his own. It’s a messy and complicated story.

Part III has the more adult emotions of the original, and with the presence of Steenburgen it recalls the quality of her other fine time-travel romance, "Time After Time." [25 May 1990, p.C]

Series 7 does exactly what independent cinema should -- challenge audiences while it entertains.

The movie is a delight in many ways: an unabashed romantic comedy and Capraesque fable that takes Spielberg into realms he's rarely traveled before.

Star Pilar Lopez de Ayala is such a feisty, striking presence, and the film so conventional in its depiction of a jealous and insatiable love, that it is hard to see Juana as anything other than a typical soap opera heroine.

Vision Quest survives by means of a few powerhouse weapons. One of them is Darryl Ponicsan's screenplay, adapted from the novel by Terry Davis, that tells the story with restraint, tenderness and a solid respect for theme. Another is director Harold Becker, who succeeds, most of the time, in touching the sensitive nerves of this tale without fraying them. Best of all are a couple of winning performances: Matthew Modine as a high school wrestler intent on beating an unbeatable state champ and Linda Fiorentino as the hard-as-nails drifter who wanders into his life. [15 Feb 1985, p.J]

A smooth but frustrating third feature with an extremely good ensemble cast.