The movie Gray's Anatomy demonstrates that fully stimulating the senses isn't the same as fully engaging them. Gray still begins talking in his trademark plaid shirt with a notebook and glass of water at his table, but soon Soderbergh is sending him on a Disney ride of scenery changes, lighting effects and moody music. [1 August 1997]

At times Witcher leans too heavily on the familiar, with the ups and downs of the last half hour growing repetitive and wearisome. But his accomplishment is nonetheless impressive. [14 Mar 1997, p.A]

Jungle 2 Jungle, is a shallow, joyless show, whose family bonding comedy is as touching as its dead-bird jokes, as witty as a bowl of cat urine and as penetrating as its analysis of the Russian Mafia. [07 Mar 1997, p.F]

The Watermelon Woman is quite smart, remarkably sophisticated filmmaking for a first-time director.

It may be a bit enigmatic and cerebral for some tastes, but if you don't mind your spirituality being served from a cracked chalice, you may find Touch is exactly what you've been seeking. [14 Feb 1997, p.G]

The movie also features Doug E. Doug (Cool Runnings) as a bumbler of an FBI agent, a fluffy gray-and-white alley cat as D.C., and a climax overloaded with car crashes, pratfalls and forced mayhem.

Between the two Murphys, "Metro" is no waste of time. But it's no life-enhancing experience either -- unless you're into trolley-hopping, perp-snuffing and vows of vengeance. "The Nutty Professor" proved Eddie Murphy still has it, 10 times over.

If it's a necessary piece of history, it's a paltry piece of drama, with intentions so grand, they're absolutely deadening. [20 Dec 1996, p.C]

There's a gentleness and open-mindedness in that touch and throughout the film that's a little at odds with the shallower script. But, in the end, that humanity pays. [27 Dec 1996]

The movie has something of treasure to offer us: two great screen actors, connecting magically. Why show an unconvincing world of crime, incest and violence when, with Deneuve and Auteuil, you can open up a richer world of intellect and thwarted desire? [27 Dec 1996, p.C]

Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. [20 December 1996, Friday, p.J]

Watching actors this good handle material this dopey is like waiting for Itzhak Perlman to pick up his violin and start playing variations on My Baby Does the Hanky Panky. It's funny. But it's also sad. The movie suggests we get the government we deserve, but do we really deserve this movie?

The genetic seeds of John Huston's gift are manifest in his daughter's direction of Carolina. Despite its sorrowful subject, Bastard Out of Carolina offers the deep satisfaction of material that rings true. [15 Dec 1996, p.5]

A hip, funny, knowing romantic sports comedy that gets a little strained when it tries to expose its heart. [13 December 1996, Friday, p.A]

Resonates like the best of Southern fiction.

Nothing in the movie is quite up to Scofield's Danforth. But what a mighty performance that is.

Jingle All the Way has been well shot and imaginatively designed. But somehow that makes it worse. So does the fact that all the actors, Schwarzenegger included, are skilled enough to make you watch them. [22 Nov 1996, p.C]

It's a thrillingly malicious visit, a gorgeous period drama. [06 Dec 1996, p.A]

All but sweeps you away with its dazzling technique and shattering emotion. [27 November 1996, Tempo, p.1]

Boasts the elements of something greater than a love story. Too bad it devotes them to something less than a great love story. [22 November 1996, Friday, p.A]

Compared with the most recent Disney animated features, "Space Jam" is, at times, a hoot, especially when it has fun with Michael's less-than-stellar baseball career and the way his fellow players were starstruck. [15 Nov 1996, p.A]

A movie about the passions of simple people, and it's done with such extraordinary empathy and commitment that it all but pulls you under. [29 November 1996, Friday, p.A]

This new version is quite faithful to Conrad's novel, not only in content but also in tone. [13 Dec 1996]

If Set It Off had concentrated on easy thrills like that well-filmed drive-through-the-walls robbery climax, it might have qualified as pulpy entertainment. Instead, it's that deadliest of beasts: an exploitation movie with pretensions to social significance. [06 Nov 1996, p.1]

Larger Than Life is far closer to Murray's worst than his best. It's a truly senseless, erratic, if occasionally charming comedy that manages to waste Murray, a fine cast, good location photography and a terrific actor: Tai, the 8,000-pound trained pachyderm whose considerable stuff was strutted in 1995's Operation Dumbo Drop. [03 Nov 1996, p.11C]

Thinner has its meaty moments, but overall, it's Stephen King lite. Less taste, less filling, less fun.

Doesn't really add up to much -- except a good time. But it's smart, funny and cute. With all that going for you, who needs to be money? [25 October 1996, Friday, p.H]

Yet the film, no more than the novel, shouldn't be described as depressing. Both of them shine with heightened vision and poetics. [01 Nov 1996]

The picture has such a sweet spirit, sly wit and buoyant energy that it seems to disarm potential rancor, fear or contentiousness. [16 Oct 1996, p.1]

An all-too-familiar barfly story that often seems aimless. [25 Oct 1996, p.A]

It would be a lie to suggest that there aren't some crudely effective moments in Ghost and the Darkness. After all, this is a movie where two man-eating lions pop up every 10 minutes or so, growl and drag off another fresh corpse or two. But crude effectiveness is all the movie has to offer -- and even that is a mark it doesn't always hit.

This astonishingly beautiful documentary employs microphotography of overpowering crispness and detail to create one of the most stunning records of nature the cinema has given us. [11 Oct 1996, p.J]

Yang powerfully evokes a world of pervasive greed and brutality, where conventional moral values have gone dangerously awry and life is cheap. [21 Nov 1997, p.M]

It's strictly rental material. [06 Oct 1996, p.11]

Leigh is an artist not at all blind to the world's darkness and pain. But the generosity and togetherness he and his company show in Secrets and Lies is something the movies -- and the world -- truly need. [25 October 1996, Friday, p.A]

Extreme Measures is a suspense picture that should excite thinking audiences as well as thrill-crazy ones. One possible exception: fans of Michael Palmer's novel, who may wonder why his plot and people disappeared. But after all, in movies as in medicine, extreme measures may be necessary.

May not have the size and grandeur of some of the biographical and political epics being released this fall, but I defy you to find a better written, more honest -- or yes, more satisfying and delicious -- movie this year. [27 September 1996, Friday, p.C]

Surviving Picasso is an intelligent, beautifully crafted and engrossing Ismail Merchant-James Ivory biographical portrait of the century's most famous and successful painter. [4 Oct 1996]

Violent and cynical on the surface, impassioned and celebratory below, Last Man Standing is such a carefully stylized film that sometimes it's hard to respond to it. [20 Sep 1996, p.C]

A fitfully funny retread of "48 Hours," "Fled" and dozens of others.

A sometimes-sharp, sometimes-shallow, cunningly crafted thriller that tries to rely more on ideas and character than carnage and crashes. [30 Aug 1996, p.C]

Evans and Kelleher could have used the same premise to tell a different story -- one in which viewers could relate to some of the perks of being First Kid instead of just the inconveniences. Luke could show kids a more exciting world. [30 Aug 1996, p.C]

It's the simple pleasures that endure, so it would be curmudgeonly not to share Alice's happiness as she innocently sighs, "That Sam is so thoughtful. He promised to slip me a special tube steak."

Instead of an escape from Hollywood’s cookie-cutter plots, it’s a retreat back into them, only the sexes have been changed.

Something about baseball seems to bring out the silly side in moviemakers -- even in a movie like The Fan, which starts out well-crafted and deadly serious and seems to have good enough actors and a savvy enough director to stay that way. But halfway through this thriller things go haywire. [16 Aug 1996, p.D]

Kansas City is a wonderful film, done with all Altman's offbeat virtuosity, maverick humor and creative daring -- plus the acid nip that runs through all his recent works.

What is it about vampires that brings out the worst in filmmakers these days? [16 Aug 1996, p.2]

An erratic but enjoyable sci-fi action movie with an extremely bent sense of humor. [09 Aug 1996, p.F]

I liked Flirt better than any of Hartley's films since "Trust." The playfulness he shows here seems better integrated, more meaningful, than the strange narrative whimsies of 1992's "Simple Men" or 1994's "Amateur." [08 Nov 1996]

A sprightly fairy tale full of darkness and delight from seemingly unlikely movie collaborators: author Roald Dahl and director-star Danny DeVito.

Reeves is immediately on the run after the explosion, one of at least a dozen images of him running from danger in "Chain Reaction." He runs so much, sometimes with a boring female scientist in tow, that you think he's been cast in the role of the bus in "Speed." He's shot at, bombed and chased by fireballs...But no amount of speed can distract us from an unfulfilling story about just who wants to destroy this breakthrough experiment. Only Freeman's rich voice holds any interest; it's a powerful instrument, highlighted by pauses and economy of speech, that is captivating in roles as diverse as this one and the veteran con in "The Shawshank Redemption."

Writer-director Lisa Krueger displays some talent in creating the Mary Kay Place character; I expect more daring work from her next time. [30 Aug 1996, p.2]

Heroin may be a downer, but Trainspotting definitely takes you up…a series of roaring, provocative, outrageous highs. [26 July 1996, Friday, p.C]

A dreary, needlessly violent and ugly comic thriller about a psychic hustler (Michael J. Fox) who gets more than he bargained for with his latest scam. Fox seems to be trying to get hip in the movies, and he's lost his way here.

Striptease has its moments, but by the clunky ending it has gathered more steaminess than steam.

A surprisingly emotional, simplified version of the Victor Hugo novel.

If nothing else, The Cable Guy will make you think twice before trying to pick up a free movie channel. [14 June 1996, p.C]

[Cage] cracks wise throughout the third act and is almost entertaining enough to make this absurdly energetic movie recommendable.

A thoughtful, exceedingly well-produced science-fiction drama about a scientist (Charlie Sheen) who becomes convinced that he's received radio signals from alien beings. Trying to locate them, he runs into a lot of official government opposition, and his pursuit of the truth takes him (and us) to unexpected places. Sheen is not the most appealing of actors, particularly wearing a Fu Manchu beard, but director Twohy carries us through the story with high energy nonetheless. [31 May 1996, p.B]

A big, hearty fantasy-adventure with spectacular fire-breathing effects and a fizzling story. [31 May 1996, p.C]

Mission: Impossible does provide enough old-fashioned fireworks for a big-budget summer spectacle. But despite the cinematic bravado, this mission ultimately represents a white flag being waved at the notion of updating the TV show. The movie seems to argue that because the Cold War is over, all the good global-conspiracy plots have become obsolete. The intrigue, instead, must turn in on itself like a snake devouring its own tail. [22 May 1996]

But writer-director Alan Shapiroisn't content to focus on aquatic mammalian high jinks. Instead, he must pack in virtually every family movie cliche of the '90s. [17 May 1996, p.C]

Watching this movie has an almost hypnotic effect, like being carried along on a river past terrains both familiar and inexplicably, maddeningly odd.

Instead of becoming bewitched, we're caught up in one more gallery of cliches and storytelling blunders. The Glitches of Eastwick. [03 May 1996, p.C2]

Mrs. Winterbourne doesn't amount to much. But it's such a professional job, done with such glow and verve -- and the people making it seem to be having such an infectiously good time -- that it's hard to resist. Good comedies are easy to love anyway. [19 Apr 1996, p.C]

For many, a little of this joking will go a long way; devoted fans, however, will wish for a double-bill. Count me closer to the latter group.

Bold and totally off-the-wall comedy.

A very flashy Hong Kong variation on Mean Streets. [19 Dec 1996, p.7]

A movie as unsubtle as its title suggests, Fear is too seriously intended to work as trash and too ungainly and ugly to register as entertainment. [15 Apr 1996]

It's a candy-flavored blast of a movie. But though children may love it, they shouldn't monopolize it. Adults will want to eat this peach, or ride it to Manhattan, just as much.

For anyone who knew and loved the 1950s TV series The Phil Silvers Show -- in which Silvers played the peerless motormouth Army con artist, Master Sgt. Ernie Bilko -- Sgt. Bilko, starring Steve Martin, will probably be a disappointment. [29 Mar 1996, p.C]

Girl 6 is a snappy, contemporary comedy about an aspiring New York actress who drifts into and out of the world of phone sex. It's an often sexy, funny show with interesting slants on modern New York culture and mores. [22 Mar 1996, p.F]

Kieslowski's beautiful, sad and clear-eyed The Decalogue -- an overwhelming psychological and spiritual epic for our times -- faces the darkness, sends out a song against the storm.

The biggest script flaw is the curious lack of cause and effect in the relationship between Jack and Ed.

Less a movie than a loud, heavy, money machine, a think tank where nobody thinks. The movie seems intended to extract maximum profit with minimum artistry -- and if you like having your pockets picked by experts, this is probably the show to see. [15 Mar 1996, p.C]

The fans of their best work -- "Blood Simple, "Raising Arizona," "Barton Fink" -- now can add Fargo to the list, pushing the Coens to the first rank of contemporary American filmmakers. [8 March 1996, Friday, p.B]

Chungking Express is a breezy little Hong Kong movie that has more life, energy, humanity and sheer visual zing than most other shows you'll see in a month or so. And, an hour after watching it, you may indeed be hungry for more. Not necessarily because the show is shallow or unsatisfying, or doesn't leave a strong impression, but because the spontaneity and high energy of it is what's so much fun.

A bloody mess...The effects are nothing you haven't seen before; the acting is so broad, it borders on the ridiculous; and the story, once intriguing, has become ludicrous. [11 March 1996, p.C3]

A lyrical work of sporadic great power, Neon Bible captures both the neon and the spirit, the heaven and hell.

We're reminded of Police Academy because this is another story about outcasts and rejects banding together to beat the odds in a macho profession. And we're reminded of The Sting because that's how we feel after the movie is over. Stung.

Chan is so good, so much fun to watch, that he often transcends his vehicles. And that's the case with Rumble in the Bronx, his big bid to crack the American market. [23 Feb 1996, p.C]

Mary Reilly is a thinking person's horror movie, done with such obvious intelligence and artistry that it feels strange to watch it and be so unmoved. [23 Feb 1996]

It's a cool breeze of a comedy, with a slant on things that's dark but compassionate. Watching Bottle Rocket doesn't just make you laugh. It makes you smile between the laughs, think beneath the smiles.

Perhaps it is time for the folks at Jim Henson Productions to start thinking up original stories again, or at least find material that lends itself to the Muppets' overall strengths, instead of playing into their weaknesses. [16 Feb 1996, p.F]

Broken Arrow is much better than the average big-time action movie because Woo has blazing style and a unique, even eccentric viewpoint. [9 Feb 1996, p.C]

Scott is able to make it fresh and lyrical, as well as give us rousingly exciting scenes of nature in eruption. [02 Feb 1996]

If one judged movies purely on the basis of photography and sets, Restoration would deserve a place near the top. [26 Jan 1996, p.C]

All of us had at least one teacher who inspired us during our formative years, and Mr. Holland's Opus is a cinematic thank you to all those chalk-stained magicians who were somehow able to spin flax into gold. It's a moving tale of sacrifice that is well worth seeing.

In the new wave of kiddie animal movies -- "Babe," "Black Beauty," "Gordy," "Fluke," "Roan Inish" and all the rest -- Dunston Checks In is valuable only as a new standard of screenwriting ineptitude. Don't play it again, Sam, at least not with this bunch.

There's no reason to look at this movie unless you're interested in computer graphics. But, if you are, why not wait for the video game? It may not be any better,but at least you can turn it off. [17 Jan 1996, p.7]

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]

The film's big lap-dance sequence is impressive, however, if only for the sheer athleticism of Elizabeth Berkley's contortion. Later, when she pulls the same stunt in a swimming pool, we recognize the show for what it is--a male fantasy film in which the women are little more than rag dolls. [22 Sept 1995]

Unstrung Heroes is an extremely moving and surprisingly funny love sonnet to family, tolerance and the joys of individuality.... One of the best films of the year. [15 Sep 1995]

OK, it's a formula picture, but the ingredients are lively and combined with style by director Beeban Kidron.

The actors in Nadja seem to be having such a good time that it's a shame the movie doesn't give them more room, and get even wilder and more eccentric.

A clever, amiably low-key mix of family drama and romantic comedy.[18 August 1995, Friday, p.C]

The Baby-sitters Club movie, written by Dalene Young and directed by Melanie Mayron, winds up seeming just as packaged and programmed as many of its summer competitors. The books, however obvious, don't talk down to their youthful readers. But the movie does. [18 Aug 1995, p.F]

A near-classic blend of mystery, personality, humor and terror, laced with one stunning shock after another. [18 August 1995, Friday, p.C]

A lovely, sprawling romance that turns out to be as much a success story for Keanu Reeves, as he matures into stardom, as it is for Mexican director Alfonso Arau, who proves equal to his first big Hollywood budget. [11 Aug 1995, p.B2]

It is difficult to decide what is more annoying. The complete lack of execution in this film, (despite the presence of some very talented actors), or the realization that these lame screenwriters were so devoid of original ideas, they resorted to picking at the carcass of a tale that has been done and redone to death. [11 Aug 1995, p.28]

The usual bad movie sometimes gives a few chuckles, amuses audiences by making them feel superior. But young director Leonard makes a different kind of bomb. Fascinated with technology, Leonard makes cutting-edge techno-turkeys, with wildly elaborate visuals and ridiculous plots. [4 Aug 1995, pg. I]

More than "Natural Born Killers," it's a real deconstruction of the whole love-on-the-run crime genre: drab, grim but effective.

Something to Talk About, which is something to see, makes us a delectable present of its own bright, brawling little world: wisecracks, venomous Charity Leagues, horse shows, last dances, skeleton-filled closets and all. [4 Aug 1995, p.C2]

Waterworld is often entertaining because it's screwy. Could even Ed Wood Jr. have come up with those cigarette-puffing villains, in a world with hardly enough dirt for a tobacco plant? [28 July 1995]

Irwin Winkler's The Net, which should have worked a lot better than it does, is a glossy, intricately plotted, mostly implausible suspense movie about a woman on the run.

The movie makes a worthwhile attempt to break down some thick emotional walls and, at the same time, tell a good story. That it is mostly successful in providing more than a few solid laughs and smiles--in what, after all, is a war picture--says a great deal. [28 Jul 1995, p.H]

Clueless is no "Fast Times" when it comes to character development or the merging of comedy and drama, and it might have worked better if it had been more story-oriented and plot-centered. But thanks to Heckerling's spirited direction and cutting-edge script, it is, "like . . . majorly and furiously golden." [19 July 1995]

These lessons in multiculturism and tolerance should fall easily on young viewers only expecting to be entertained. [14 July 1995, p.D]

A bomb? Not quite. Anyone who gets a kick of train thrillers should get knocked off the tracks by this one. [17 July 1995, p.N2]

It's a big, smiley, free-floating blimp of a comedy: a farce about reluctant fatherhood that could use some parental guidance. [12 July 1995, p.N16]

Species is an Alien ripoff, but that doesn't make it a bad movie--not when it contains a plausible premise, a great-looking female villain, a wonderful supporting cast of good guys, and genuine tension. Only a routine chase sequence in sewer tunnels limits the excitement at the end. In other words, we're talking about a solid, surprisingly intelligent action picture here.

It's a nail-biter and knuckle whitener of the first rank: a super real life techno thriller that reduces the fantasies of Tom Clancy and his clones to ground zero.

The special effects are surprisingly good. And the too-numerous fight scenes have a certain flavor, since Ivan's henchmen always explode in ooze when they are destroyed, which brings out the eeewww in the audience.

Though Haynes' methods are austere and his style dry, the terror of his narrative becomes more palpable as the film unwinds. The picture's eerie delicacy, meticulous technique and rapt formality may distance us, but they also steadily strip bare the panic at its core.

there's no joy in this movie. It's a safe, compromised, even preachy, fable; a wannabe hip romp that never gets going. [07 Jul 1995]

Streep is an actress known for her uncanny ability with accents, but her quiet performance in "Bridges" proves that she would have made a world-class silent-film star, too.

What charmed me most about the movie was the interaction of the dogs themselves. [02 Jun 1995, p.J]

The film is an epic treatment of a childhood curio. It's also the kind of elaborate movie stunt you can't imagine someone really pulling off. [26 May 1995, p.C]

At its best, it's an exhilaratingly grandiose Highland fling. [24 May 1995, Tempo, p.1]

This is a picture that may sound sappy but probably will enrapture audiences lucky enough to catch it. [19 May 1995, p.L]

Little Odessa is a portrait of New York subcultures, the Russian immigrant community itself and the orginizatsya, or Russian mafia, that employs Joshua. The cityscapes are wintry and menacing. The characters have a strong pulse.

The tone and feel of Wild Reeds keeps shifting between irony and sentimentality, violence and tenderness, rebellion and acceptance. And those oscillations fit the volatile nature of its subject: young love and friendship. Together with his attractive and excellent cast, Techine recalls and invokes the mood swings of youth, the intensity and bursts of near-delirious passion.

In French Kiss--a picture that isn't unusually funny or original but that has expert actors, smooth direction and ravishing French locales--we can get pleasure from the sheer, relaxed polish of it all, the effortless swing. It's a good time passer. [5 May 1995, p.C]

The splendid new documentary Crumb, a sympathetic yet woundingly candid portrait, catches the artist with much the same skill. [26 May 1995]

Soderbergh pretty much failed in trying to evoke a noir-like nightmare world in the 1919 Prague of "Kafka," his 1991 terror film. But here, he dazzlingly hews out a noir landscape in more unlikely territory: modern-day Austin, Texas. [28 April 1995]

It's more of a pastiche, a montage of brutality, a slow descent into Dante's Inferno until we reach the subbasement of a boy's soul. [21 Apr 1995]

There is much that is hilarious about this bleak house of horrors, based on the real-life traumas of writer-director George Huang. Most of the humor surfaces early--including a clever opening restaurant scene--as Buddy (Kevin Spacey, in a terrific performance) gives his new assistant, Guy (Frank Whaley), a harsh lesson in subjugation. [12 May 1995, p.H]

This movie might be better-maybe even a classic-if it were less urbane, if the New York tiger that Nicolas Cage and Richard Price unleashed could bare all his fangs, and not just fill the theater with his magnetic growl. Then Kiss of Death might really be a killer. [21 Apr 1995, p.C]

Exceedingly clever and very sharp. [12 Apr 1995, p.7N]

The flabbergasting scenes here-written by a team of "Tonight Show" and "David Letterman Show" writers and directed by hot, young TV-commercial and music-video director Michael Bay-are slick, fast, loud, mostly derived from other movies and often senseless.

Ultimately, the weight of the film falls on Goofy's powerful shoulders. He does his best, but like Norma Desmond, he can only do so much.

But, as with any other Merchant Ivory film, this one provides pleasures beyond the ordinary. [07 Apr 1995]

Chris Farley is fine at physical gags, David Spade is snappy with wise cracks and Brian Dennehy is a good actor who has the best part in the movie-because he gets to die halfway through it. Tommy Boy, an attempt at populist comedy, has some laughs. But it doesn't really have any ideas, meaning or real feeling. This movie has a heart of plastic. It doesn't beat; it squeaks. [31 Mar 1995, p.C2]

It's a distraction: a buzz in your head that won't go away. [31 March 1995, p.HI]

The whole grand tradition of the humor of movie stupidity, from Laurel and Hardy and Mortimer Snerd to Jerry Lewis and Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, seems to crash and burn in this movie, which ends with Payne's idiotic laugh wheezing away over the end-titles. It almost sounds like the beginning of a laugh track-which "Major Payne" could certainly use. [24 March 1995, p.H]

Exotica may be a gloomy journey up river, but it's a trip worth taking. See it with a friend. One who has something to say. [03 Mar 1995, p.J]

Barker, who wasn't involved with the earlier Candyman, has never yet matched his stunning 1987 writer-director debut Hellraiser-and he never will if he keeps coming up with projects like this. [17 Mar 1995, p.J]

There's too much hardware, too little sense. Too much blood, too little flesh. Too much program, too little mind. That's the virus of the contemporary movie techno-thriller.

You may not want to accept what you see here; you may be unable to accept it. But it's doubtful you'll leave this film unmoved.

The Brady Bunch Movie, which was directed and written by at least five people whom we prefer not to embarrass, looks bad, sounds bad and doesn't make any sense. There's even something nightmarish about it. All these bad jokes and vacant sets become almost horrifying, as if the film were on the verge of proving that life itself is a bad joke on a vacant set. [17 Feb 1995, p.J]

Just one more example of Hollywood cramming any old idea it can unearth into a moneymaking formula. [17 Feb 1995]

Just Cause might better have been called "Without a Cause." Or "Without a Clue." [17 Feb 1995, p.C2]

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]

The arrival of Ra (Jaye Davidson), bearing sci-fi cliches, changes Stargate from a merely hokey movie to one that is truly ridiculous.

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]

Pulp Fiction isn't just funny. It's outrageously funny. [14 Oct 1994]

Hoop Dreams has the movie equivalent of all-court vision. It picks up everything happening in the gym, in the stands and even outside. It gives us the thrill of the game, but it doesn't cheat on either the vibrant social context or the deep human story.

Visually, the movie is a knockout. Craven-who, along with George Romero and David Cronenberg, was one of the real masters of post-'60s low-budget horror-never made a scarier picture than the original "Nightmare." But he's probably never made a better one than this-one that was more fun to watch or had a more satisfying conclusion, that slammed the door on hell with such panache.

The River Wild is more of a family movie, a thrill-ride where all the crazier dips and turns are straightened out by the ride's end. Hanson keeps the action clean, the tensions simmering. As a family movie, it's actually pretty good. [30 Sep 1994, p.C]

Moretti weaves us in and out of high seriousness, crazy satire or sarcasm, political commentary, melancholy reverie and goofball japes. And though Moretti lacks the cartoonish physical presence of a Benigni or a Nichetti (or a Woody Allen) his unextraordinary demeanor-tall, bespectacled, lightly athletic, trim-bearded-fools you again. [25 Nov 1994, p.L]

One of those rare films that communicates the exquisite joy of the moviemaking process. [7 October 1994, Friday, p.B]

Van Damme is compelling only when he takes his clothes off, which he doesn't do often enough here.

The film is organized in episodes, each one leading pretty much to the same conclusion, which is these are not folks we want contributing to our gene pool. Once that's understood, The New Age settles into a tiresome repetitiveness. Even its wittier turns-and, as "The Player" demonstrated, Tolkin has a caustic wit-play curiously flat. [23 Sept 1994, p.N]

Quiz Show is one of the year's very finest films. [16 Sept 1994, p.B]

It should be obvious to anyone at this point in time that Kid is getting a little long in the tooth. As Miyagi might say: Those who keep milking same idea . . . end up killing cash cow.

The movie A Good Man in Africa contains the book's funniest, saltiest scenes, but it's less controlled and assured. [09 Sep 1994, p.C]

A small jewel about a most common experience-a first date. Writer-director Tom Noonan also stars as a quirky, shy guy who comes over to the Manhattan loft apartment of a co-worker (Karen Sillas) for a first date. Their dance of engagement is absolutely riveting and sad. Created as a stage play, it also works on film. A true sleeper. [09 Dec 1994, p.B]

The movie's humor is engaging but odd. The script is pretentious but sweet. And the symbolic use of the flying machine-which pulls you back to "Brewster McCloud"-doesn't work very well. But a flawed film like "Arizona Dream," with its wistfulness and pain, is still twice as interesting as most of the bloated, slick, empty successes that tend to get released here, films that look as if they were dreamed up by used-car salesmen in a desert. [6 Jan 1995, p.L]

Step by step, Yakin and the 13-year-old Nelson-who plays his part with a beautifully wary, quiet calm-take you into Fresh's harsh world, accustom you to its murderous routines, ways and lingo, its boredom and sudden violence. Seeing it through Fresh's relatively innocent eyes gives it harrowing edge and clarity. [31 Aug 1994, p.1C]

This is simply marvelous entertainment that breathes life into a genre that I thought had been dead for a decade-the prison picture.

The movie is slick, good-looking, nicely edited and empty. [09 Sep 1994, p.F]

Natural Born Killers is visually complex and thematically simple. Mixing film and video, black-and-white and color, morphing and animation, Stone breaks visual ground here for a major studio release. [26 Aug 1994, p.B]

Director Richard Rush is one of the more talented and mysterious figures in American filmmaking. But though it has been 14 years since his last feature (the 1980 live-wire classic "The Stunt Man"), his new movie, The Color of Night, is sometimes just as hip, lively and blast-your-eyes funny as ever.

On the whole, though, it is funny and compassionate, silly and sweet. [26 Aug 1994]

Airheads loses its guts and spark halfway through.

A dismal kids' comedy in which all creativity stopped after casting lookalikes for the old rascals was completed.

It's a movie that literally makes your mouth water. A smart, sprightly, lip-smacking comedy about a Taipei master chef who's lost his sense of taste and his tangled family problems with three romantically troubled daughters. It crackles with iridescent style and wit.

It Could Happen to You is the movie that "Sleepless in Seattle" wanted to be, an old-fashioned Hollywood romantic comedy for the '90s, brought candidly up to date for the post-sexual revolution era, yet shimmering with all the cockeyed satin-and-popcorn glamor of the past.

How can Reiner, who has been terrific in the past with both comedy ("This is Spinal Tap," "When Harry Met Sally") and children ("Stand By Me"), come up with something like "North," a movie that may set some kind of record for unfunny humor, forced satire and unappealing kids? [22 Jul 1994, p.C2]

Sometimes, it's exciting to watch a movie formula jell on screen-and that's what you can see happening in The Client, the latest, and best, of three successive films adapted from legal thrillers by John Grisham.

A smooth-swinging fable that lays solid wood on the issues that matter. [15 July 1994, p.F]

Clean up the language, and this little roach of a movie could play the bottom half of a double bill with Rowan and Martin's “The Maltese Bippy.” [26 March 1999, Life, p.9E]

The Shadow shows what can happen when you overdress pulp. You wind up with something gorgeous and suffocated, bejeweled trash floundering in its own oversplendid stuffings. [01 Jul 1994, p.H]

People always complain that movies aren't as entertaining, entrancing or outrageous as the best of the old Golden Age. Yet, memorably and magically, here's one that is. Don't let it dance away unseen. [22 Jul 1994, p.C]

Scheinman, whose long list of producer credits includes Stand by Me and Misery, makes his directing debut with a good sense of storytelling and a low-key comic style all too often absent in this kind of entertainment. [30 Jun 1994, p.28]

Wyatt Earp is a fascinating ride to a West where darkness and heroism mingle, a triumph for Kasdan, Costner, Quaid and the company. It shows how, in this frontier crucible, love and death, honor and slaughter, friendship and a walk toward doom, are all linked together as well. [24 Jun 1994, p.F]

Perhaps blackmail isn't an easy subject to warm up to, or robbery the best ground to rebuild a relationship on, but with a little care, some added ingredients and a bit more spice, Getting Even With Dad could have been a satisfying meal and not just an afternoon snack. [17 Jun 1994, p.H]

It bears repeating that The Lion King is quite entertaining as children's fare goes these days. But Disney has established a standard so high on animated features that anything less than a classic leaves you feeling that something's missing.

City Slickers II, perhaps, isn't really special. But it's the kind of movie Hollywood should churn out more often: a professional, ebullient, formula entertainment that doesn't insult your intelligence and hits its marks with ease, wit and good humor. Unlike most current mega-movies, it's classy, smart, sometimes gaudily tasteless fun-done with such zest and skill that it often makes you smile. And laugh. And maybe even smirk.

We know exactly where this picture is going at all times. Holding our attention, however, is a cast of fresh talent among the trainees. [03 Jun 1994]

If you are offended by jokes about sex, sex organs, sex, bodily functions, sex, the L.A. riots or sex, you should probably stay far away. But if you're up to the challenge, you should find Fear of a Black Hat to be a clever piece of work-a nasty satire with savvy and sass. [17 Jun 1994, p.J]

You might not think of this as a family film, but it is a great one. [27 May 1994, p.B]

The movie contains its moments, charms and felicities-even its sharp stings of pleasure and pain. [20 May 1994]

Too rich, too loaded, Maverick may have misplayed its cards, kept its eyes on the pot instead of the players. In movies, as in poker, you can't always trust a pat hand.

It's a movie that's so personal, naked and vulnerable that you can understand why some of its humor seems rough, some of its visuals excessive. But Crooklyn has a quality not as obvious in any Lee film since "Do the Right Thing": the sense of a whole world opening, rich and real, before your eyes. [13 May 1994, p.A]

The Crow imbues its comic brutalism with emotion and satire. Too raw and pulpy, it probably shouldn't be regarded as a memorial to Brandon Lee. But as an obsessive rock 'n' roll comic book movie shocker of loony intensity, it stands, or flies, by itself.

A sincere but clumsy attempt to capture the pain of a man trying to cope with loss and divorce through the ages. [06 May 1994]

Kika is kind of a mess. But it's a charming, stimulating, talented and ingratiating mess, none-the-less.

Junk food laced with testosterone.

Kazan does have his father's fierce erotic curiosity, that sense that once you unravel a story's real lusts and greeds, you've solved it.

The Favor is a sex comedy without sex-and pretty much without comedy. [29 Apr 1994]

It's not much more than a collection of clever sight gags and one-liners that leaves the door wide open for another, better film about political correctness on the quad. [29 Apr 1994, p.D2]

One of those comedic pieces that steps off smartly but about halfway through starts to stumble home as it disintegrates into farce and squishy sentimentality. [23 Apr 1994, p.19]

Once "Backbeat" catches the beat, it keeps it up, drives right through to the last soul-shattering coda and fadeout. [22 Apr 1994, p.01]

Serial Mom is a typically funny and cheerfully outrageous John Waters' comedy about the conjunction of suburbia and hell, perfect families and serial killers. [15 Apr 1994, p.C]

A racily entertaining, wonderfully sly and goofy comic film noir with more twists than a mountain road-or, to darken the metaphor, than a cartrunk full of rattlesnakes.

More explosive laughs from Leslie Nielsen, Pricilla Presley, and friends (George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson) in another madcap police farce that is often so funny you lose track of the terrorist story. Alas, the comic pace is not sustained to the finish, but maybe it couldn't be. [18 Mar 1994, p.C]

Thanks to director Howard's casual grace and humanism and the cast's talent and agility, The Paper is an entertaining show. But, maybe the reason it looks so real and sounds so phony is that, while it's set in the world of today, it really wants the kick of the old movies, and it never hits the right fluctuating tone between drama and farce. It may have tabloid ambitions and a tabloid look-even a tabloid soul. But it doesn't have tabloid reflexes. [18 March 1994, p.A]

It's a gleamingly cracked tale of romance gone mad played out on a moonlit ocean voyage that turns into a bizarre, floating nightmare of slapstick perversion. [08 Apr 1994, p.A]

In The Hudsucker Proxy, the filmmaking Coen brothers make dark, startling, wittily extravagant sport of the American Dream. The movie is opulent and wry, a bitingly intelligent fable about business and romance. [25 Mar 1994, p.A]

Sirens is a brazen, luscious Australian sex comedy full of nature and nudity, flesh, food and fantasy. With its theme of erotic awakening on a painter's sunny Blue Mountains estate, and its frequent scenes of lush female models scampering around naked, it's often a pretty silly film. But it's also an immensely enjoyable one: a fairy tale in which everything-fashions, scenery, badinage, music, even moments of angst-becomes a kind of goofy aphrodisiac. [11 March 1994, p.C2]

Some of LaGravenese's dialogue crackles, but it's a dry crackle, a hollow cough. And that's despite Leary-and in spite of Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey, two of the best actors around these days.

A better film about love delayed than "Sleepless in Seattle." It's funnier, more credible, more bittersweet and the characters are a whole lot brighter. Naturally, it won't be as big a hit. [18 March 1994, Friday, p.C]

One of the most original, appealing offbeat American films in recent years.

Ploddingly written by Barry Michael Cooper, this shrug-evoking movie has been grimly directed by the numbers by Ichaso, who overlays his production with the obligatory sax music and in-your-viscera violence. [25 Feb 1994, p.A]

O'Neal and Hardaway are likable enough in limited roles; Cousy seems a little ill at ease. But forget all that. Blue Chips is only a triumph of marketing. Its casting suggests an official basketball picture, but its script belongs on the bench. [18 Feb 1994, p.C2]

Underneath, it's a flashy crock-another piece of self-congratulatory formula wish-fulfillment masquerading as hip. This would-be "inside" comedy about not selling out sells out in virtually every scene.

This is a pro's movie, solid, taut and trim, done mostly with exemplary skill. That's its trouble, perhaps. This Getaway knows the score too well, entertains us too effectively, beguiles us too knowingly. [11 Feb 1994, p.A]

My Father, the Hero isn't just a one-joke movie, but believe it or not, that's by far the best joke. [4 Feb 1994, p.K]

At its best moments, Romeo Is Bleeding actually is the wickedly funny, violent black comedy it purports to be. [4 Feb 1994, p.C2]

Anyone who thinks nothing is happening in The Scent of Green Papaya-in the absence of car chases, rapes, gunfights and whatever else we may now demand from our entertainment-is obviously not paying attention. [11 Mar 1994, p.D]

The film has none of the charm of the series.