A true storyteller, able to easily mix and match moods in a playful and audacious manner, he (Anderson) is a filmmaker definitely worth watching, both now and in the future.

In addition to its terrifically bratty performance by the epically bratty Posey, House of Yes contains some of the smarter (and smarter-assed) writing of the year.

Though Pitt is as attractive as ever, "Seven Years" offers other things to look at and in fact functions better as a travelogue than as a drama.

By getting out of the way as much as he does, Jarmusch makes Year of the Horse as much a statement about creative freedom as it is about music itself. [17 Oct 1997, p.F20]

"Implausible" is a mild word for the shenanigans Gang Related expects us to swallow. Writer-director Jim Kouf has loaded a lifetime's worth of ploys and contrivances, feints and jabs, into this unpleasant, interminable, more-than-usually pointless film. [8 Oct 1997, p.F4]

Fleder has directed three-quarters of a terrific movie and one-quarter of pure Hollywood baloney. After carefully building up the suspense and tension through Cross and McTiernan's search, spiked with nail-biting encounters on both coasts, Fleder lets it trail off in anti-climax and banal violence.

The latest in an unending series of bleakly comic, nihilistic neo-noirs to reach the screen, U-Turn's story of a bad day in an Arizona hell invests a lot of skill and style in a trifling tale. So it manages to sporadically amuse even while it's wasting your time.

As frigid as its name. Burdened with a story of some of the world's least interesting people going through a holiday crisis, director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus get as close as any creative team could to making matters involving, but the task is finally too much for them.

What The Peacemaker doesn't do well, though it tries, is bring much in the way of emotion or character development to the table.

Humor, sentiment and melodrama strike a balance as he brings to life nine major characters and a host of others as well.

The Edge's fusion of Mametspeak with a true life adventure remains brawny entertainment, even it it is difficult to take as seriously as the filmmakers intend. But when Bart is on his game, nobody is going to notice anything else.[26 Sep 1997, p.F4]

L.A. Confidential, with an exceptional ensemble cast directed by Curtis Hanson from James Ellroy's densely plotted novel, looks to be the definitive noir for this particular time and place.

Pellington bestows on the film a distracting, if occasionally effective, amount of video technique, and Wakefield’s story is rich and often truthful.

It's a decorous film, conventionally well-made, but don't be fooled. Its emotional impact is considerable.

Smart and provocative.

Excess Baggage, a scruffy romantic comedy about a despairing rich girl who hatches a kidnapping scheme to test her father's love, is an aimless waste, a star vehicle without a compass. It wants very much to be both funny and poignant, but is more often just noisy and pointless. [29Aug1997 Pg 14]

The second half, picking up 10 years after Eddie was institutionalized, is pure screwball comedy. It's as if Cassavetes had written the first half for himself to direct, and the second for Carl Reiner. [29 Aug 1997, p.F10]

Laurence Fishburne is one actor who has charisma to burn, but even his incendiary performance can't ignite Hoodlum, a would-be gangster epic that generates less heat than a nickel cigar. [27Aug1997 Pg 8]

Director Paul Anderson, whose last film was "Mortal Kombat," well knows how to build suspense and increase tension. But counterbalancing all of that is Event Horizon's position as a sci-fi splatter film, intent on drenching the screen in blood and gore whenever possible. [15Aug1997 Pg 16]

Sachs' ability to draw deeply affecting, completely open and unself-conscious performances from Chan and Gray and other nonprofessionals as well is most impressive and highly effective. Working with masterly New York cinematographer Benjamin P. Speth, Sachs has created in The Delta an achingly poignant portrait of alienation and longing so evocative that it is poetic in its impact. [15 Aug 1997, p.F4]

There's a funny, entertaining, good vs. evil movie built around O'Neal--lots of plot and strong support from "Suddenly Susan" boss Judd Nelson, Richard Roundtree, Annabeth Gish and the city of Los Angeles, home of Shaq's day job with the Lakers. [18 Aug 1997, p.F4]

If you don't go expecting the depth and subtlety of a Mike Leigh working-class film, The Full Monty can be heart-warming fun with more serious undertones than you might have expected. [13 August 1997, Calendar, p.F-5]

It might even have made a good film, but it hasn't. In the hands of stars in denial about their stardom and a director who can't be bothered to take things seriously, it has come out implausible and unsatisfying, a comic thriller that is not especially funny or thrilling.

Though its plot frequently falls back on coincidence, so much so that the characters joke about it, Career Girls has the almost magical ability to involve us emotionally with these women even though there are points when we would've sworn that wouldn't be possible.

A one-trick pony, a movie that has a gift only for making audiences squirm.

It only serves to remind one of better movies, at a time when one needs no reminders.

The special effects are effective and aggressive, although one might occasionally confuse a divine vortex with a flushed toilet.

The most disheartening line in 187 is its last, written in bold type across the screen just before the credits roll: "A teacher wrote this movie." It's enough to make you weep, and not just because it's painful to think that this muddled and manipulative film was penned by someone in a position to mold impressionable minds. [30 Jul 1997, p.F1]