The more familiar you are with Menace II Society, Poetic Justice, and Boyz N the Hood, the more you will enjoy this picture, which has a lot of big laughs. [19 Jan 1996, p.B]

Sarandon delivers one of her very best performances; her shock at encountering the wrath of the victim's family is registered beautifully. And Sean Penn, who for too long has suffered with the label of being a "bad boy," gives an Oscar-caliber performance.[12 January 1996, Friday, p.B]

By translating the voluptuous Elizabethan sensibility to the drier post-Edwardian era, and then cutting much of the play's great rhetoric and poetry, McKellen and Loncraine actually flirt with ennui rather than excitement. [19 Jan 1996, p.C]

Without Lemmon and Matthau, it's doubtful either "Grumpy" movie would be worth watching -- or even thinking about. But, because these two get much of their humor from reactions, the magnificent friction they create, they can say ridiculous things -- or even make up ridiculous lines (which they seem to be doing here) -- and make the scenes play. [22 Dec 1995, p.P]

There isn't a moment in Shanghai Triad that celebrates or revels in violence, and by movie's end, Zhang has portrayed the Shanghai underworld as a place of irredeemable evil.

It's a superb, thoughtful drama that doesn't claim to be a documentary and shouldn't be judged as such. [22 Dec 1995, p.B]

A love-hate poem to L.A., and when Mann takes in the streets, the freeways and LAX, he doesn't give us shiny "Lethal Weapon"-style travelogues. He shows us an L.A. that's grim, bare, a bit smoggy and ruled by street smarts. [15 Dec 1995]

This remarkable movie is really one-of-a-kind. [15 Dec 1995]

Though the new "Sabrina" has been updated to include micro-chips and corporate raiders, French fashion shoots and the Concorde, it doesn't transcend its time the way the old screwball comedies did. It doesn't even illustrate its own time memorably. Instead, the movie leaves us peeking through the trees like Sabrina, while trying to tell us that old movie fairy tales like this one are eternal, as relevant in our day as in their own. It's doubtful the people who made "Sabrina" themselves really believe that -- though they'd obviously like to. [15 Dec 1995, p.C]

Thompson clearly loves this story, and, even though, she's playing the less spontaneous of the older Dashwood sisters, responsible Elinor, you can feel her spirit rising out to embrace the part. It makes her beautiful to watch. [13 December 1995]

Georgia, written with rare honesty and economy by Leigh's mother, Barbara Turner, and very sensitively directed by Ulu Grosbard, is a tough-minded look at show business and families. [10 Jan 1996]

This film works so well simply because every moment of it is suffused with the joy a new baby brings into the world. Save for a needlessly mean comic shot at an Arab businessman, it couldn't be more appropriate for family viewing. [8 Dec 1995, p.D]

What Kasdan's "Earp" needed was more humor and better villains. "Wild Bill" has the humor and villains, the flash and energy, the fire and style. And when, at the end, Hill seems to throw it all away, it almost hurts. But you can say one thing about "Wild Bill": Unlike most movies, it has a lot to throw away. [01 Dec 1995, p.C]

It's impossible, when we watch "I Am Cuba" today, not to see some poignance in its soaring shots, sadness to its thrilling vistas. [08 Dec 1995, p.C]

You can't praise highly enough the contributions of the ensemble--De Niro and Pesci especially--but it's Scorsese's triumph. [22 November 1995, Tempo, p.1]

Toy Story is a complete joy.

The direction is on auto-drive, the dialogue lacks wit and the story logic is non-existent. [03 Nov 1995]

Total Eclipse is a biographical film steeped in ecstasy and despair, seething with madness and torment.

I don't see how you can get away from calling Cage’s performance a great one. [10 November 1995, Friday, p.C]

For years I've criticized Murphy for not working with the best directors or powerful female co-stars. But he does that here, and his movie is still a clunker. Relatives are listed in the credits; maybe he needs to stop trying to completely control the films he makes. Either that or it's time for another stand-up concert film. [27 Oct 1995, p.B]

The Doom Generation can't help but choke on the poisonous fumes of its own cloudy existentialism. [10 Nov 1995, p.G]

One of the sharper, funnier, better-cast, better-written movies around right now. But there's something about it that, well, comes up short. [20 October 1995, Friday, p.C]

Serves up horrendous lead acting, murky cinematography, bland atmosphere, unengaging romance, mug-crazy cameo performances, bash-on-the-head satire and ill-timed slapstick gags that look like outtakes from a Bozo the Clown show gone berserk. [20 Oct 1995]

American movies about childhood often have a spurious feel. They can be grandiosely phony or sentimental--or both, as in Home Alone. Unfortunately, Now and Then, despite massively good intentions, fits right into the program. [20 Oct 1995, p.J]

Not for a moment did I believe any of these characters. They were not as provocative as the clips Fiennes was selling, and, in a strange way, "Strange Days" is undone by the very product it condemns. [13 Oct 1995, p.B]

Jade, like many another recent erotic or techno thriller, is packed with talent, polished and technically dazzling. But, daring as it might seem in its sexual content and exposure of bad behavior among the mighty, it's curiously soft at conveying what these characters really believe. [13 Oct 1995, p.J2]

Kidman crafts a characterization of breathtakingly controlled artifice, dead-on timing, dizzyingly precise humor. Her part is a knockout--in every sense of the word. [6 Oct 1995]

It's a misfire--but a fascinating, magnetic misfire, a film full of first-rate talents forced into absurdity, struggling to bring believability to nonsense. [22 September 1995, Friday, p. C]