That conscious absurdity is at the core of The Quick and the Dead. It's a rousingly grotesque, often wildly entertaining western horror-comedy, with co-producer and star Sharon Stone as a sexy lady gunslinger taking on all comers in the gunfight tournament from hell. [10 Feb 1995, p.C]

There's something in Shallow Grave that is admirable, beyond its obvious display of youthful talent. [24 Feb 1995]

The story ceases to make sense. It sounds clever on paper, but on screen it degenerates into a series of random scenes that don't connect until, by the end, there are more questions than answers, and more goo than resolution. [03 Feb 1995, p.J]

Stirred by the winds of nostalgia, lapped by its ocean of dreams, "The Secret of Roan Inish" is one of the loveliest surprises of the year. [03 Mar 1995, p.C]

There's a lot of beauty and excitement in Legends of the Fall - not least from the actors. [13 Jan 1995]

It's a simple-seeming but luminous movie, an intelligent, very funny and dead-on small-town comedy-drama adapted and directed by Robert Benton from Richard Russo's gently humorous 1993 novel. [13 Jan 1995, p.C]

It's not classic horror, but it'll do. [13 Jan 1995, p.18]

A powerful experience. [20 Jan 1995, p.B]

John Singleton stumbles badly with a terribly awkward but well-intentioned drama about political correctness and race at a contemporary university. [13 Jan 1995, p.B]

Blessed with a biting script by playwright Alan Bennett, a veteran of the old satirical revue Beyond the Fringe, Hytner's Madness rollicks through its tragi-comedy of royal humiliation and political maneuvering, winking at the follies of today's royals and anti-royals as it does.

It's a spree of a movie, one of the most impishly entertaining of Altman's career. Smart, sparkling, almost sinfully amusing.

I.Q. has a commendable idea. Brains aren't everything. You should follow your heart. Fine. Agreed. But just like E=MC2, you gotta prove it. With brains and heart.

This is nothing more than a half-hour Ramar of the Jungle episode, blown up to motion-picture length.

There's something so charged and beautiful about Jodie Foster's performance as a Smoky Mountains wild child in Nell that it carries you past a lot of glossy bumps in the movie. [23 Dec 1994, p.C]

It is beautifully shot and the production design is first-rate. Another strong point is the presence of some excellent actors in small roles. Unfortunately, they all have to work opposite Van Damme, who keeps trying to be witty and smart, but still comes across as a bit of a lunk.

Director Suri Krishnamma, depends on Finney for its power. His great performance carries the film over its shallow spots, its wish fulfillment, its pull toward caricature. [03 Feb 1995]

It's hard to create snap-crackling languor or laid-back frenzy. And there's also something condescending in the entire conception of Mixed Nuts. [21 Dec 1994, p.7]

Armstrong and screenwriter Robin Swicord have pared the work's sentimentality and bolstered its intellectual content, [21 Dec 1994]

In Richie Rich, the cliches are generic, and the film runs out of gas early on. [21 Dec 1994, p.7C]

Disclosure is pure and simple trash masquerading as significance. [9 Dec 1994, p.B]

Jones lets it all loose here. It's the performance of a lifetime: full of menace and venom, eloquence and fire, rot and pathos, crackling rawness and realism.

Perhaps if writer-director George Gallo ("29th Street") had tried to simplify this potentially sweet story, instead of mucking it up with all sorts of chases and shtick, it might have worked as a modern Christmas fable, complete with charity, kindness, and Three Not-So-Wise Men. But instead, we are presented with a Christmas buffet of overstuffed fruitcake and overspiked punch. Too stale, too sweet, too much. [02 Dec 1994, p.J]

Mrs. Parker is a comedy even though it's sad, and a sort of tragedy even though it's funny, with such foggy borders between the two that pathos and humor seem to smear all over each other, like makeup running with tears. [23 Dec 1994, p.N]

It's a shiny, glib, hollowly good-looking movie that always seems to be cooing at us-coldly. [23 Nov 1994, p.9C]

The performances are all superb, but special mention should go to Melanie Lynskey, a first-time film actress, who brings a frightening calm to the role of Pauline, and Sarah Peirse as Pauline's mother, whose main fault seems to be exhibiting too much care and concern for her strong-willed and imaginative daughter. [25 Nov 1994, p.M2]

There's so much emotion and so many ideas in this film that it's both angering and exhilarating. The acting is fine, the writing superb, the production crisp.

By using the author's name [Branagh] sets us up for something closer to the text of the Gothic thriller than James Whale's classic 1931 horror film. But Branagh's version is too respectful and ultimately, well, lifeless.

Perhaps if you are a Sega-head or Nintendo freak, and your mission in life is to rack up awesome scores on Double Dragon, you may find this loud and tedious movie more enjoyable than I did. But I doubt it. [04 Nov 1994, p.M]