Somehow, against considerable obstacles, it has captured something true about families and friendship, creating a texture of believable emotions on screen.

A gloss on the disillusion that came with the embracing of communist ideals that is part playful farce, part dark satire, this unclassifiable film, both comic and strange, always holds your attention even when it doesn't seem to know where it's going.

Clockers, Lee's eighth feature in nine years, demonstrates how accomplished a filmmaker he has become, securely in control of plot, actors and imagery.

He [Caton-Jones] has made the film all of a piece, making sure that the three lead performances complement rather than overwhelm each other. [9 Apr 1993, p.F1]

The movie musical may not have been dead after all, just resting up until this lot came around. [12 Feb 1993, p.F10]

If you want the true, jaw-dropping details of Pu Yi's life, try the biography by Edward Behr, Newsweek International's cultural editor. If you want a staggering and certainly singular movie experience, The Last Emperor will do very nicely. [20 Nov 1987, p.1]

Depardieu and MacDowell seem to share an uncommon honesty and generosity of spirit. So as the sexual tension between their characters grows, their scenes together are charmingly open and uncompetitive. The sense is that if these two ever become lovers, it will be because they have first become friends. On that startling note, in today's climate of explicit, loveless love, the film floats to its heady conclusion. [11 Jan 1991, p.6]

The film is as faithful to its subject as perhaps any film biography has been. As Eastwood said, Parker was a paradoxical character, both self-destructive and full of life, and the movie, simultaneously dark and exhilarating, takes that as its theme. [22 Sep 1988, p. 1]

Strangely enough, Married to the Mob, which may prove to be Demme's long-overdue passport to mass audience adulation, may tickle everyone but die-hard Demme fans. [19 Aug 1988]

Despite a level of lurid violence that may offend many, this movie has a motor humming inside. It's been assembled with ferocious, gleeful expertise, crammed with humor, cynicism and jolts of energy. In many ways, it's the best action movie of the year. [17 Jul 1987]

There's a hushed, rapturous quality to its best parts, though, and the emotional interplay between Ricky and Marina has a scary immediacy that the movies rarely achieve. Almodovar dares a lot in this film. [4 May 1990]

Maurice's slow, agonized dawning of his true nature and its consequences are as beautifully evoked on the screen as it is on the printed page, thanks to James Wilby's wonderfully unaffected portrayal of Maurice and to Ivory and his co-adapter Kit Hesketh-Harvey's graceful yet succinct script, a miracle of both apt selectivity and development that does full honor to its distinguished source. [01 Oct 1987]

Stylistically, the film is a dream. But in every case, the style has a reason. [12 Aug 1988]

Weir's orchestrated The Mosquito Coast's action to match Fox's progressive mental state, from rage to explosion to squalls and finally to hurricane velocity; however, the film leaves us not with an apotheosis, but exhaustion. [26 Nov 1986]

Georgia is not an easy film, but in the American independent arena, it outperforms everything in sight.

Woo has turned out a slick piece of business, filled with explosions and assorted acts of violence brought off with considerable movie-making skill.

First-time director Anjelica Huston's frightening film about child abuse is a jolt. And be forewarned: The violence is brutal and the molestation and rape scenes of a child are repugnant. [15 Dec 1996, p.3]

The filmmakers set themselves to the daunting task of involving us in two people they couldn't remotely ask us to like or care about. But Plummer and Reeves create two profoundly damaged and dangerous people with such wit, insight and comprehension that if you're so disposed you can actually see in them your own frustrations, anger and capacity for denial and easy rationalization.

Though its unhurried pace and ultimately sweet nature give Mad Dog and Glory the feeling more of a diversion than a major work, those who get into its eccentric comic rhythms will definitely be charmed. [5 Mar 1993, p.1]

Minor reservations aside, The Man Without a Face is a moving and substantial achievement. [25 Aug 1993, p.1]

Natural Born Killers is both audacious and astonishing, a vision of a charnel house apocalypse that comes close to defying description. [26 Aug 1994, p.1]

Class Action s good, chewy entertainment, part courtroom pyrotechnics, part Machiavellian legal maneuvers. [15 Mar 1991]

It's one hell of a ride and a real, roaring rock movie. [01 Mar 1991]

The comedy of Quick Change is city-dweller humor, honed to a fine edge and site-specific to New York because the Big Apple is more or less on its knees, civility-wise. All it needs is a lethally funny comedy like this to give it the coup de grace. [13 Jul 1990, p.1]

Disturbing, infuriating yet undeniably effective, less a motion picture than an impassioned. [20 Dec 1991]

As well-meaning and "sensitive" as Awakenings is, it never rises much above the level of a grade-A tear-jerker. It achieves most of its effects by tenderizing raw material into something marshmallowy. [20 Dec 1990, p.1]

The Corruptor manages to make a meat-and-potatoes action flick into a cunning little meditation on personal loyalty and situational morality. [12 Mar 1999]

A dense, faithful and absorbing adaptation of the Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel. [08 Nov 1996]