There's a mean little Hollywood satire squirreled away within Hollywood Ending, but you have to look hard to find it.

If Shag had been a music marketing ploy like Dirty Dancing or Salsa, the shagging would have come every 10 minutes. Here the dance accompanies something better: a pleasant story about appealing characters. [21 July 1989, p.5]

There's an old-school innocence to Marshall's style, and it's satisfying to be whisked away from reality to this parallel universe where we find it possible to laugh amid such a fundamentally tragic scenario.

The Nice Guys never lives up to the promise of its hilarious first 10 minutes, but Crowe and Gosling are good enough to leave you hoping for a sequel.

Predictable but enjoyable comedy, which succeeds largely on the charm of its star.

In the hands of Brian De Palma, not to mention Hitchcock, Jagged Edge might well have been a serious film. It is no less a thriller for lack of lineage, however. It's ferocious hack work, not believable for an instant, and never boring, either. [4 Oct 1985, p.6]

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]

Befitting a story about marriage, adultery and murder, all the characters in Married Life are constantly lying to each other. Sometimes they even lie to the audience.

Turns out to be far more interesting for grown-ups (the movie is probably too long, and too much, for little kids anyway).

Down in the Valley becomes increasingly harder to believe as it goes along, with people behaving in ways that strain credibility.

For those who can tough it out -- and not everyone will -- Hunger is a searing experience. Just don't expect to have much of an appetite when it's over.

If not exactly epic, the movie is certainly the biggest and most complex of Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy, which began in "El Mariachi" and continued in "Desperado."

Romantic comedy that softens your date into giving you that first kiss. It's not much more than that -- it's flawed and somewhat unfocused.

Ferrell's shtick never grows tiresome, because it's constantly changing.

Alice in Wonderland is curiously devoid of metaphors and allegories about a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, about to be engaged by arrangement to a loathsome toad of a man she can barely stomach. The lack of psychological subtext is hugely disappointing.

There's very little in The Chorus you haven't seen before, but the movie's depth of sentiment -- especially its profound humanism -- makes it worth experiencing again.

Could Lorenzo's Oil have been better? Easily. Does it still have real power? No question. [22 Jan 1993, p.G4]

Despite its flaws, Sleepy Hollow stays with you, the dark beauty of its images powerful enough to invade your dreams.

For a movie whose characters are so preoccupied with immortality, Troy is curiously forgettable.

Doesn't quite avoid the pitfalls of its genre, but at least the movie has the decency to make you laugh on its way to a foregone conclusion. Also, did I mention the sex?

But in addition to the sex and violence, there is also surprising style, humor and, yes, drama -- drama that actually serves to justify much of the violence.[11 Jan 1985, p.D14]

The cast brings its by-the-numbers characters alive.

His flair for the visual thus cultivated, Besson turns the subway and its corridors into a futuristic, albeit hyperrealistic, setting of light, movement and sound (in Dolby stereo). On that level, the film works...Where it doesn't work so well is as a reverse-Cinderella story between a primal, apish Lambert, who seems to have sleepwalked from Greystoke, and an Adjani who, fed up with boring dinners and haute couture, wants to return to the poorhouse without knowing if the slipper will fit. [18 Jan 1986, p.C7]

There's power in this story, even if much of it does owe to a greatly sentimentalized time rather than to genuine virtue. In its new, leaner version, Ward's film does seem twitchy at times -- we're not always sure how the characters got to where they are, emotionally or physically. But it's sweet, too. [14 May 1993, p.G4]

Certainly diverting and, in Thurman, it also has a knockout of a performance.

That's what's wrong with Sweet Dreams. Its insights into this sudden, shortlived star are no more profound than those of a tabloid expose; it's bad-marriage gossip. [17 Oct 1985, p.B6]

Despite its weaknesses, Firstborn is a movie that deals sensitively with the emotional trials of single-parent families. And it is one of the few that treats adolescents with respect. This film is a must-see for parents and teen-agers and could provoke a long, long talk. [26 Oct 1984, p.C1]

The Brady Bunch Movie is ultimately little more than a kitschy gold mine for TV trivia buffs. Diehard Brady-acs will get a kick just out of reading "Pork chops and Applesauce" on the kitchen blackboard. But these characters have a strange yet undeniable appeal. Twenty-five years after that tinny theme song hit the airwaves, The Brady Bunch is still going strong. Who knew? [17 Feb 1995, p.4G]