We're No Angels is a small, quiet film trapped inside a big, noisy one; no longer a tale of transcendence, its a sad lesson in the weight of Hollywood machinery. [15 Dec 1989, p.C]

A feature-length commercial for the Nintendo electronic games system, so thinly disguised that it wouldn't even fool a Reagan-appointed FCC commissioner. [15 Dec 1989, p.G]

The film doesn't move to a satisfactory conclusion as much as it fizzles out in a series of protracted anti-climaxes. [15 Dec 1989, p.A]

Blaze is a high-spirited, though slightly botched follow-up to Shelton's appealing Bull Durham of 1988, drawing on the same combination of enthusiastic heterosexuality and cozy male bonding. Politics here takes the place of baseball in the earlier film: another all-American team sport, with its veterans and rookies, official rules and unspoken scams, high idealism and casual corruption. [13 Dec 1989, p.1C]

This has to be one of the greatest casting coups and consequently blown opportunities of recent years...Streep isn't that funny in what is a frivolous role, and Barr is only mildly successful in her angry moments. [8 Dec 1989, p.A]

It can't be easy to keep a comedy on track when the underlying emotions are so vicious, and indeed DeVito's staging slips more than once -- too realistic here, too broad there -- resulting in a film that is at least as often funny-peculiar as it is funny-haha. [8 Dec 1989]

The third and easily the worst in the series of hapless adventures of the Griswold family of suburban Chicago. [1 Dec 1989, p.A]

A movie that must spend most of its running time explaining its hopelessly complicated premises, which leaves very little room for anything much to happen. [22 Nov 1989, p.C1]

Valmont is a superb piece of craftsmanship, impeccable in every detail from lighting to costuming, but as a work of art it remains tentative and blurred. [17 Nov 1989]

In Harlem Nights, Eddie Murphy continues his one-man war against the female gender. Those women he doesn't kill outright are punched, maimed and slugged with garbage cans. But apparently they deserve it-there isn't a single female character in the film who isn't a prostitute. [17 Nov 1989, p.A]

Charlie, who owes an obvious debt to Chuck Jones' Wile E. Coyote, comes equipped with one of the most expressive faces in cartoon history: Bluth keeps his features-ears, snout, mouth, eyes-in constant flux, a beautiful blend of line and volume that represents the pinnacle of the animator's art. [17 Nov 1989]

It may not be a transcendent masterpiece of the Disney canon, but The Little Mermaid is still very heartening: It suggests the Disney magic isn't lost after all.

My Left Foot celebrates the nurturing, healing power of the family unit while avoiding every cliche about the disabled. [2 Feb 1990, p.C]

It's a deeply, creepily dishonest piece of work. [27 Oct 1989, p.G]

There is a great deal of value in Branagh's version, not least in his own lead performance as a soft, indefinite Henry who defines himself over the course of the play. [15 Dec 1989]

This one is a winner. [27 Oct 1989, p.F]

Fat Man and Little Boy tries to cover too much territory by introducing corny romantic subplots involving Oppenheimer's mistress and a relationship between a young scientist (John Cusack) and a nurse (Laura Dern). These awkwardly written sequences remind us that we are watching a conventional movie and destroy any documentarylike reality. [20 Oct 1989, p.A]

Though the film has a plot a simpleton could follow, its hallmark is confusion. Its sense of time and place and its point of view are muddled. [13 Oct 1989, p.L]

Smooth and smoky, The Fabulous Baker Boys is an impressive debut for Kloves; he's a filmmaker who will be heard from. [13 Oct 1989, p.A]

A study of junkie culture from the inside (not a fashionable point of view these days), Drugstore Cowboy is funny, depressive and strangely noble, often all at once. [27 Oct 1989]

This 1989 movie looks much of the time like an old idea that's been too enthusiastically colorized. The prison sequences work best, and they seem almost like a completely separate film.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser is quite probably the finest documentary about jazz ever made. [08 Dec 1989, p.C]

Johnny Handsome does indeed put Hill back in the ballpark, close enough to his best work to make its imperfections seem that much more maddening. [29 Sep 1989, p.A]

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.

This is filmmaking meant to engage the heart-and other visceral organs-more than the mind; its effects are simple, broad and directly put.

Both Pacino and Barkin are quite good playing battle-scarred veterans of mature relationships. Just like New Yorkers who lock their doors, these two characters have locked their hearts. This is Pacino's quietest and best performance since The Godfather Part Two. Credit director Harold Becker for helping to keep Pacino from spitting his way through another role.

One of the smartest and funniest films of the year, at least for those who care about its subject. Every regular filmgoer should. Through the story of a talented but naive film school graduate (Kevin Bacon`s Nick Chapman) who suddenly becomes the hottest property in Hollywood, Guest assembles a deadly accurate sociology of the contemporary film industry-and its accuracy makes The Big Picture both hilarious and terrifying.

One of the freshest, most exciting first features to appear in a very long time. [19 May 1989, p.1]