The script remains the big problem, however -- all its roots are showing, and they are very old. In Lucy's day, a story like this would end with restoration of the comfy stereotypes -- Dad would get his job back at the plant, enhanced by his new appreciation for what Mom has gone through, and Mom would forsake her business success, more sure than ever that her place is at the sink. That's just what happens in Mr. Mom. In Hollywood, time stands still. [27 Aug 1983, p.5]

There are not as many jokes as a 95-minute movie needs, however, and most of the good one-liners are doled out to the supporting players rather than to Dangerfield, who goes ahead and rolls his eyes anyway. He's a good sport about it, but his fans are going to wish instead for one of those "concert" movies, such as the ones that showcase Richard Pryor. And those without an abiding affection for Dangerfield are going to wonder what the rest of us have been laughing about. [23 Aug 1983, p.C5]

Cujo is one of those nightmares that does not require even the suspension of disbelief. Anyone who can accept that there are dogs, people and cars that don't work can be scared silly by this movie. And, of course, the caveat: Anyone who takes a young child to Cujo needs to have his head examined. [15 Aug 1983, p.C6]

This is mildly amusing, and the scenes with Niven -- his last, and reportedly dubbed by impressionist Rich Little when Niven's illness had taken the strength from his voice -- are poignant. But there is no restoring the force that made the earlier Panthers work. [12 Aug 1983, p.C5]

Smokey aims very low and still doesn't hit. [17 Aug 1983, p.D4]

The Star Chamber has the slippery feeling of a movie made with optional endings, and the narrative sag of pulled punches. You can tell it was meant to be a thoughtful action picture, a B-movie with smarts. But it's too slick, and ultimately it's too careful. [6 Aug 1983, p.7]

This is, in other words, an adventure film for the 6-to-12 set, a movie for the void left by Disney's forays into the elusive teen market. All but the most easily frightened children should enjoy it; all but the most easily diverted adults are likely to find it tedious. [01 Aug 1983, p.C6]

Strange as it sounds, the failure of this tawdry little odyssey into mammalia is that it doesn't make any sense. The smallest effort by writer, director or producer could have meant a movie with laughs as well as the capacity to anesthetize adults. [02 Aug 1983, p.C5]

This is a nearly universal theme and might provide the spine for a funny comedy. [29 July 1983, p.C1]

Yes, it's all pretty silly. But for those who can stand the annoyance of the cardboard glasses, there are worse ways to kill a hot afternoon. [23 July 1983, p.D6]

The unfortunate aspect of Class, which is glossier than Private Lessons and marginally more believable than My Tutor, is that its laughs are built around the suffering of a prime candidate for intensive therapy. Thus while the kids are watching one movie -- boy loses virginity, ya-hoo -- adults in the audience will be watching another -- wife and mother has an emotional breakdown at the hands, literally, of a 14-year-old. The latter, of course, is not funny. [25 July 1983, p.C6]

It's hard to believe there could be so much slack in a film only 96 minutes long. Director Needham blows off the last 25 or so with a race sequence. We're treated to one uninteresting crowd shot after another while a Dixieland band plays Dixie -- all of Dixie -- on the soundtrack. [02 July 1983, p.C5]

At a preview showing Thursday night, Porky's II was greeted by laughter that ranged from hearty to thunderous. That's definitely OK. By all means, let the good times roll. Go for $120 million this time. Just keep that snake out of my comfort station. [25 June 1983, p.C1]

With director Mel Damski making his debut at the helm of a feature, Yellowbeard is a film adrift. [27 Jun 1983, p.C6]

Credit goes to Richard Lester, who is much more than an action director and whose erratic brilliance occasionally transcends this material, and to Reeve, who has manfully refused to let on that he is tired of the part (as opposed to the Jedi principals, who phoned theirs in). [17 June 1983, p.D1]

Octopussy is not very good. Though there's a good car- and-train chase scene and the usual schedule of narrow escapes, this one has fewer adventure sequences and less drama even than the last half-dozen. There are more gimmicks. [10 June 1983, p.12]

It's almost wonderful. For an hour or so, it is. Funny, scary, occasionally wonderful. On the strength of that first hour, this should be one of the summer's big pictures. Nonetheless, when WarGames goes wrong, it's a great disappointment. [3 June 1983, p.D1]

This is a silly movie, yes. But since it works as a humorous homage for students of Hitchcock and his B-movie masterpiece, and since it works as a high-grade slasher film for the rest of the audience, there's no hating it. In fact, this is the most likable gore film in years. [04 June 1983, p.D4]

Chained Heat is your basic visit to the snakepit, with a few twists. One is the presence of Linda Blair, as the innocent (she's in for vehicular homicide, "an accident," which makes her cell-hardened fellow inmates snicker with anticipation). Another is that rarely in the history of either movies or the penal system have prison officials and guards been seen to be quite this despicable. [30 May 1983, p.D5]

No one creates fantasy like George Lucas, and there's nothing quite like a big, cornball fantasy to start the summer. This one is the biggest yet, and it is hard to imagine anyone not being entertained by it. It is, as we used to say around the galaxy a long time ago, a tour de force. [25 May 1983, p.D1]

When the action founders on cliches and implausibilities, there are only the characters to fall back on. And this time, they're papier-mache. [13 May 1983, p.C2]

Breathless, on the other hand, earns its style -- it uses that style against its characters, so that the film's good looks serve as background while the characters, trying to live up to the scenery, grind themselves down. 18 May 1983, p.B1]

It's hard to dislike Cheech and Chong, even now, in the wake of the most tedious 90 minutes of "feature" film in 1983. "The boys" have been at work on their curious subgenre -- drug references and large breasts in ceaseless combination -- for far too long now, and you can tell, watching them sleepwalk through the material, that they're tired. [10 May 1983, p.B5]

Doctor Detroit is Dan Aykroyd's first big solo vehicle, and it has some traditional Motown problems: It sputters and wheezes and lurches, never does run smoothly, never does satisfy. In the spirit of products from another troubled industry, this is a raucous comedy that just doesn't have very many jokes. [10 May 1983, p.B5]

An almost-horror film called The Hunger has in common with Flashdance an apparent obsession with style over other considerations, and the result, though weird, is no more satisfying. [02 May 1983, p.C6]

Except for several scary moments, notably the tarantula assault, Something Wicked is harmless -- but it is never bland. And it has Jason Robards in the pivotal role, the wise but timid father who will have to make his stand. [03 May 1983, p.B7]

Though My Tutor contains many scenes meant to provide comic relief, there is only one that works: Hired to deflower Bobby in the early going, the local drive-in slattern is caught flagrante delicto in a well-used backseat by her fiancee, the leader of a motorcycle gang. "He hates it when I do this," she says to Bobby, and one wants to love this movie...Otherwise, alas, My Tutor is witless. It seems to take forever for Bobby to learn to conjugate, and he's pretty slow at French, too. As for the double standard, note that simple role reversal -- older man deflowering teenage girl -- produces not a softcore sex comedy, but a crime drama. And that's a different genre altogether. [23 May 1983, p.6]

So it's all pretty silly. But it does move along, and the range of weapons is formidable. Steve Carver, who did Norris' An Eye for an Eye, knows how to handle action, though Lone Wolf might have been more convincing had he let any of the bad guys shoot straight. [5 May 1983, p.B10]

And because it is less bound by formula -- less stupid, if that can be comprehended -- than Porky's, Screwballs is funnier. That is not saying much, but Screwballs was not conceived as a film for scholarly inquiry. If you like naked women posing as high-school cheerleaders, your moment has arrived.

You will not necessarily know any more about life after the film is done, but you'll have killed a couple of hours painlessly, and you will have laughed a lot. [18 Apr 1984, p.C6]

Though Rosenthal is slick enough to lure us into the big Rocky climax, his movie isn't serious enough, or good enough, not to leave a bad taste in the mouth after it's over. [27 Mar 1983, p.L4]

But whether even kids will be able to take The Outsiders seriously is a hard question. Whether by fidelity to his source or by director's embellishments, Coppola has come up with a story about tough kids who appreciate sunsets and recite Robert Frost from memory, about members of a mid-American urban underclass who ponder their situations with the dispassionate acumen of sociologists. The Outsiders is about "greasers" who are not greasy, and it seems likely that even kids will see through it. [29 March 1983, p.5]

Implausibly, irretrievably boring -- an affront to its undemanding genre. [28 March 1983, p.C6]

No more than a mild diversion. [21 March 1983, p.C6]

The final scene is so foul that even ya-hoos have trouble mustering much applause; it's the kind of film that makes you feel dirty. As for Bronson, whose box-office appeal has faded as the viciousness of his films has increased, Ten to Midnight is a kind of milestone: It's time to write him off. [22 Mar 1983, p.B5]

Scorsese and Zimmerman seem to be building on Andy Warhol's proclamations about the nature of celebrity. What they've added is the sourness of it and the pointlessness, and their King of Comedy, for a while darkly funny, winds up being terribly sad. It's the most unpleasant fine film in years. [20 Mar 1983, p.L1]

The movie is happy and bright and thoroughly nice, and every now and then it's loud and funny and at least as large as life. And it could have been larger, and better. [22 Feb 1983, p.C5]

Local Hero is almost magical, it is so unexpected. It is whimsy raised a power or two by the skills of a filmmaker who looks at life slightly askew. He sees enchantment in small, off- center encounters, and gets the enchantment onto the screen. [05 Apr 1983, p.D5]

Hershey isn't bad in the role of the victim; she looks durable and acts like a survivor. And Furie does throw in a couple of nifty scares between the rapes, which are gratuitous and disturbing. The rest of the film is by-the-numbers B-movie thriller. [09 Feb 1983, p.D6]

This is a movie that didn't have to be well made --its emotional impact has been assured by the daily news. But Jaffe took care. He made a solid Hollywood movie of a story that is terribly sad. He plays the heartstrings like a virtuoso, and that's not always a bad thing. [07 Feb 1983, p.C6]

As is usual for this durable genre, victim and villain are well matched. Though House on Sorority Row does not have a single screeching-cat red herring, and though power tools are not employed, it does have a classic of low camp, a scene in which a girl who has just been nearly brained by a falling corpse repairs immediately and alone to her bedroom, where she changes into a baby-doll nightie and stands with her back to an open window. [23 Feb 1983, p.B4]

Though even Blake Edwards, the director behind the Panthers, could not make the connective material in this film work well, there is so much joy in the vintage Sellers that Trail of the Pink Panther rates as one of the funniest films of this year. Sellers' outtakes are funnier than most of the new material on film today. We shall not see the like of him again soon. [21 Dec 1982, p.C7]

Imagine for a moment Lord of the Rings peformed by puppets and hydraulically operated monsters against a background of realistic fantasy, and you have an idea of The Dark Crystal. It's the kind of film that children may take for granted, but that adults are transfixed by; there is much oohing and aahing in the seats. [20 Dec 1982, p.B8]

There are times when a B-movie is made so carefully and performed so robustly that the audience wants it to work and goes with it, roots for it; those are the times that directors grope for, even with A-material. The Verdict may be only a B-movie in a three-piece suit, but this is one of those times, and everybody's going to like it. [21 Dec 1982, p.C7]

Tootsie is full of good movie writing, and such are its pleasures that you wonder early on why all comedies can't be this good. The problem is that it's hard to do; the trick is that Tootsie makes it look easy. [17 Dec 1982, p.D14]

Honkytonk Man is Clint Eastwood's long, long ramble through the American Southwest in search of period, in search of character, in search of self-control. As a director, at least, he never finds the latter -- among the many things wrong with his latest film is that he apparently could not bring himself to slice away any of the flab. [22 Dec 1982, p.D18]

Airplane II opens promisingly with a spate of hit-and-run gags, but the picture sags in the middle and lies flat for the last half-hour. Bringing on the rigor mortis is the appearance of William Shatner, playing the lunar-base commander who must guide Hays' troubled space shuttle to a safe landing. [14 Dec 1982, p.D14]

Two energetic and wonderfully physical comedians, each among the best of his generation. But in their movie, The Toy, they do not amount to much. Pryor seems unhappy about some of his lines and situations, and well he might. It's hard to know just what Gleason thinks, as he is able to deliver even atrocious dialogue with a misanthropic zest that is always appealing, but he has a right to be embarrassed, too. [20 Dec 1982, p.B7]

G-rated material with the snap of a good story and animated artwork that often sparkles. [01 Dec 1982, p.D6]

Still of the Night is a restful thriller, soft and dreamy and largely undisturbing. Like the wee hours themselves, the movie seems to stretch its time beyond the normal frame of minutes; here, 90 of them go by at the pace of an entire evening. [17 Dec 1982, p.D14]

It's good work in aid of very little. Smithereens is often fascinating, but it is never satisfying. And by the end, when Wren seems about to be billed for her sins, it's hard to care much one way or another. [28 May 1983, p.D7]

The film has fun. In a way, Creepshow is a horror for grownups. It is grownups, after all, who understand that horror stories must be fun; if they're not, then they're just horrifying, and who wants that? [15 Nov 1982, p.D3]

Sound and image are consistently bad, and Piranha II is the first film in my experience to give screen credit (in opening and closing titles) to a man in charge of "special effects and prosthetics." It can't be an easy way to make a living.

We hear a lot about the great hunger for "wholesome" films, but it is rare that one is successful; wholesomeness and treacle seem to have become confused in the Hollywood mind. The Man From Snowy River is different. It's a lesson in how such films should be made. [26 Jan 1983, p.B8]

There's a delightfully promising premise behind Halloween III -- something's wrong with the kids' masks -- but somehow Wallace gets sidetracked, and the movie wanders away. [30 Oct 1982, p.D5]

First Blood is no more than a man-bites-town retread, in which Vietnam and its aftermath are merely the angle. [27 Oct 1982, p.B6]

It's like an afternoon at the quarter slots -- lots of effort, small payoff. [11 Oct 1982, p.B6]

Stones fans will enjoy Let's Spend the Night Together, flaws and all; those who aren't devotees of the venerable band won't be converted by the movie, and probably should stay away. [17 Feb 1983, p.B9]

My Favorite Year moves from bad joke to bad joke, but it does move. [08 Oct 1982, p.D9]

With their flair for wretched excess, Damiani and screenwriter Tommy Lee Wallace make it hard to bear Amityville II in good humor. [28 Sep 1982, p.D6]

Zapped strains for laughs with a few weak attempts at film parody. The references here are to Star Trek, Taxi Driver and The Exorcist (in this context, flying vomit is supposed to be funny). They only make us wish we were watching a different movie. [09 Sep 1982, p.C7]

Lester's film is so clearly about getting even rather than about troubled youth or any other societal problem that it seems, like Death Wish II and a hundred others, a waste of that energy. [16 Nov 1982, p.B4]

Implicit in the artlessness of this scene is the filmmakers' sense of the formulaic nature of their work, which requires no higher art than bartering with the butcher for spare parts; when the teen van moves out, like a fisheries truck loaded with trout for the spring re-stocking, it's a nod to the genre and a wink for the grown-ups in the crowd. The rest is in your face. [16 Aug 1982, p.B4]

Fast Times at Ridgemont High could have been the sleeper success of the summer, but uncertainty of tone and a lame, derivative ending reduce it to the status of a missed opportunity. [13 Aug 1982, p.D6]

Mazursky never makes the case for his hero's disaffection, and Cassavetes is not one of those screen presences for whom we are willing to fill in the blanks. [24 Sep 1982, p.D2]

The film adaptation of Pink Floyd's chart-topping album The Wall has all the humor and charm of a brain tumor. [21 Sept 1982, p.B4]

Somebody at 20th Century-Fox should have had the decency to deep-six The Pirate Movie. It stinks, but it's first. The Pirate Movie's sole accomplishment is making it to the screen before Universal's The Pirates of Penzance, thus poisoning the well for the real thing. [7 Aug 1982, p.C4]

The climax of Things Are Tough All Over finds Cheech and Chong slouched in a seedy theater, watching themselves perform in a pornographic film with Rikki Marin and Shelby Fiddis, their real-life wives. Yuccchhh to you, too, fellas. [9 Aug 1982, p.3]

Tex is well-meaning, all right, but a little inept. [04 Aug 1982, p.B4]

Winkler isn't half-bad in a role that requires quiet reaction rather than the facile caricature we see in "The Fonz." Keaton is aggressively funny for awhile, though the lasting impression is of a cut-rate Bill Murray. [30 July 1982, p.D2]

The Last American Virgin has been advertised with the tagline, "See it or be it." In this connection, maybe "the new celibacy" we keep reading about isn't such a bad idea. [14 Sept 1982, p.B4]

The World According to Garp is another of those films that fairly cries out for Robert Altman, who makes movies the way John Irving writes books. Altman doesn't seem to be making movies any more, so this is as close we're able to get to Garp, and it's not close enough. [23 July 1982, p.D10]

Woody Allen's new movie, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, will not make you cry, as Annie Hall and Manhattan were capable of, and it won't make you cringe, as Stardust Memories almost demanded. It is not screamingly funny, romantically piquant, bitter or even, in most ways, unusual. With the exception of a single recurring image--that of Allen as an amateur inventor of the early 20th Century, flapping about in various homemade flying machines--there is not even anything of the absurd in this film. It's just an engaging Woody Allen movie, in which much of the humor is familiar and the tone is as moistly appealing as the title suggests. [18 July 1982, p.L3]

This may be a film for children, but its achievement is no less serious. For only when animation approaches reality this closely does its liberation from reality -- its celebration of a fantasy world in which anything is possible, including talking mice and swashbuckling rats -- have its impact on us. [20 July 1982, p.C6]

A flavorless brew of Rocky, The Bad News Bears and every bachelor- guardian picture in the history of the medium. [20 July 1982, p.C5]

So TRON is an adventure story, with the requisite (and understated) love triangle at its heart. But it is also a story of remarkable special effects, and this is the stuff you haven't seen before. [09 July 1982, p.C1]

Carpenter creates an atmosphere in Thing; it's a weird one, an odd landscape and clearly alien territory, but it's entertaining nonetheless. And for those who have not been to a creep show in the last couple of years, The Thing has some very nasty surprises. [25 June 1982, p.D1]

There may be little point in deploring Blade Runner's lack of entertainment value. The production values, a reported $30 million worth, are nearly the whole show. They are impressive, to be sure. [26 June 1982, p.D6]

At heart, it is a Saturday- morning cartoon; the film might in fact have looked better as an animated feature. [30 Jun 1982, p.C6]

Firefox is no masterpiece, and it's not even a startling picture within its genre -- Cold War mischief. But it's briskly entertaining and, until the nyet-effect of all those stereotyped Russians catches up with us, even believeable. [21 June 1982, p.B4]

As in his other comedies (e.g., The In-Laws and Silver Streak), Arthur Hiller directs the action in fits and starts, following each burst of energy with what seems like a quarter- hour's rest period. He presents us with major or minor instances of inappropriate behavior, then sits back and waits for humor to emerge from the confusion. [19 Jun 1982, p.C6]

Though the charter of the Enterprise charges its crew to "go boldly where no man has gone before," the marketing strategy of Paramount Pictures clearly mandates that the film go quietly in a predictable fashion to a place where the mass audience will feel comfortable. This Star Trek II does, with its familiar faces and lovable homilies. The film seems bound to be one of the summer's big hits. Kids will love it, and dozing adults will at least find it endurable. [5 June 1985, p.C4]

Poltergiest is no nonstop scream express; at times it pulls its punches (Spielberg wants that PG rating), and at times its effects are bigger than life and less than terrifying. But like Spielberg's Jaws, which was a perfect genre movie, Poltergeist does what it's supposed to do about as well as it can be done.

Burden of Dreams would stand on its own as a "how-the-film- was-made" documentary and as an inquiry into the strange nature of film as the most collective of art forms. Fortunately for Blank and for us, the film that Herzog wound up finishing, Fitzcarraldo, is a triumph artistically as well as logistically. [15 Oct 1982, p.D1]

Rocky III looks good -- a lean film with a bit of muscle. Stallone makes it eminently watchable. And that's probably more than we should have expected. [28 May 1982, p.C1]

The Road Warrior shows what happens when filmmakers learn something on their way to the sequel. Though the action here follows a predictable course (it's high-tech Shane), the milieu is fascinating, the story sophisticated where Mad Max was crude. [25 May 1982, p.D5]

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid thus has considerable appeal to movie buffs for whom the black-and-white semi-classics of an earlier era are familiar treasures. For the rest of us, it is a senior thesis -- variations on a single theme, executed carefully but always to the same effect. [21 May 1982, p.D2]

The effects are well-made and gruesome; the set is 'used-car tech,' a la Alien -- a space station that looks real and lived- in. Even the music is OK. But good gore only works in movies when the story is good, and this story is stolen, almost scene for scene. [01 Jun 1982, p.C6]

These are small subjects here, and intimate ones, and they are handled with great warmth. [27 May 1982, p.B5]

Nelson is immensely appealing, and Busey plays off him well. The two of them ride around, locked into the wacky feud and having a bit of fun with Old West mythology. The movie is sad, entertaining and often beautiful. [25 Mar 1983, p.C1]

It is a comic love note, a bouquet with a squirt-bulb, a joyful romance in which the message seems to be: Laugh all you want, pal, just don't go home alone. [24 Dec 1982, p.D2]

Though Polyester is mild for John Waters, it remains a film not for everyone. But it is a satire of an energy and breadth rarely seen on today's screens. It is recommended, but only for the strong. [03 Dec 1982, p.D1]

Jeanne Dielman is not for all tastes. But for those with the necessary patience, it is a game-changing masterpiece. [11 Sep 2009, p.G18]

An enjoyably preposterous thriller. [13 Oct 2008, p.E6]

Despite some admittedly intense sequences and a lean, spare script, The Hills Have Eyes hasn't aged all that well, particularly the business with the cannibals, who are more likely to inspire laughter from modern viewers than anything else. [31 Oct 2003, p.22G]

The best teen horror flick ever made, an emotionally involving, sublimely acted tale of an archetypal ugly-duckling loner (Sissy Spacek, who earned an Oscar nomination) who wreaks revenge on her tormentors, with apocalyptic results. [24 Aug 2001, p.21G]

Big Bad Mama, essentially a sexier, campier knockoff of 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, finds Dickinson and her comely daughters committing armed robbery in 1930s Texas, and ranks among Corman's best films. [27 Jan 2006, p.24]

Compellingly slimy special effects highlight this horror flick about a mad scientist who can turn people into snakes. [12 Apr 1997, p.2G]