Sleek, moody, violent and romantic, Sharky's Machine is not only the most seductive Burt Reynolds movie in many a moon. Reynolds is turning into a stylish director, and he sets a distinctive tone of languid menace. Though he can be graphically brutal, Reynolds isn't after realism, but a kind of gauzy, slightly baroque romanticism. [28 Dec 1981, p.64]

Nair’s stereotype-shattering movie -- like the polymorphous culture it illuminates -- borrows from Bollywood, Hollywood and cinema verite, and comes up with something exuberantly its own.

Structured like a farce but filmed like a Qaalude dream, this marvelously performed fairy tale packs a lot of style into its minuscule budget. [19 Nov 1984, p.135]

In THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN, they're at their most golden, ethical and sexy. This ability to make right-mindedness so seductive, stylish and debonair is what makes The Electric Horseman such a sweet and beguiling movie. [17 Dec 1979, p.112]

Cusack is a master at playing smart, frazzled, self-flagellating hipsters, and the movie, propelled by his arias of angst, lets him strut his best stuff.

Sidney Lumet's film tries very hard to be an original blend of realism, black farce and probing comment on the McLuhanatic Age that creates instant show biz out of what used to be called life. [29 Sep 1975, p.84]

If some nagging sense of anachronism, a bit too much Freudian Vienna in his postmodern New York, prevents Eyes Wide Shut from being at the top of his list, Kubrick's 13th and last film is his most humane.

Hilarious, satirical and melancholy, Rudo y Cursi may not go as deep as "Y Tu Mamá También," but it has a similar vivacity. It turns this tale of brotherly bonds and sibling rivalry--a veiled allegory of the Cuarón boys themselves?--into one of the year's most memorable offerings.

Glenn Close, Bette Midler and Roger Bart (who plays one half of a gay couple slated for Stepfordizing) are hilarious, and even Nicole Kidman flashes comedic gifts not seen since "To Die For."

Superman turns out to be a surprisingly infectious entertainment, nicely balanced between warmth and wit, intimacy and impressive special effects, comic-strip fantasy and several elements that make the movie eminently eligible for Deep Thinking about rescue fantasies, cherubic messiahs and other pieces of popcorn metaphysics. [1 Jan 1979, p.46]

In this gorgeously melancholic fresco of love affairs, Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a womanizing pulp-fiction writer in '60s Hong Kong.

Will be remembered as a vintage Rohmer harvest.

As eye-popping as anything Pixar has done. But Cars inspires more admiration than elation. It dazzles even as it disappoints. This time around, John Lasseter and his codirector, the late Joe Ranft, seem more interested in dispensing Life Lessons than showing us a roaring good time.

It’s like a nightmare that follows you around in daylight: you can’t quite decode it, you can’t shake it, you can’t stop turning it over and over in your mind. This is one queasily powerful movie.

Chocolat is a seriocomic plea for tolerance, gift-wrapped in the baby blue colors of a fairy tale and served up with a sybaritic smile.

A genuine work of the popular imagination. It's the first true populist science-fiction film, a blend of the most startling, far-out special effects with the most ordinary human material of the American Heartland. [21 Nov 1977, p.88]

Like most of this refreshingly subtle film, it's not what you expect, and it's not something you've seen before.

If this Popsicle of a movie melts long before it's over, the first half has more good laughs than all of “Sweethearts.”

As a history lesson (Depression 101), Cinderella Man feels a bit secondhand. As a true-grit tale of redemption, however, it lands one solid body punch after another.

A wonderfully taut cat-and-mouse thriller.

Despite its bizarre intellectual project, Le Pecheur's film is seductive and shockingly sexy.

Foxes is a funny, rueful, sexy little movie about coming of age in a junk-food culture. [10 Mar 1980, p.88]

Prelude to a Kiss has made the voyage from Broadway to Hollywood with its literacy, charm and full heart very much intact.

The Yugoslav-born Tesich is a wry romantic, a moonstruck jester, and his tendency toward excess is nicely complemented by Britisher Yates's crisp but delicate professionalism. With a superb cast at their disposal, they've taken a somewhat preposterous film noir plot and enriched it with quirky, meaty characterizations to produce a nervous comedy of menace about class distinctions and romantic and political obsession. [02 Mar 1981, p.81]

Like many of Winterbottom's movies, it falls a step short of its full potential. Its tact is both its strength and its weakness. The climax feels rushed: it's the rare movie these days that feels too short.

Compromising Positions has acting talent to burn and enough drollery to pass the time quite pleasantly. [9 Sept 1985, p.90]

It's a minimalist almost-love story told with epic flourishes.

Only near the end does the mix of melodrama, mush and message get out of hand.

A lightly entertaining, though not hilarious, film parody of comic book heroes.

Ultimately achieves that lump in the throat that is the romantic comedy's promised land.

Although the film occasionally descends into mawkishness, Shyamalan is skilled at bringing the tension to excruciating heights.

It's strange energy - sexy, morbid, not quite human. There's an awful lot of blood in the movie and a lot of flesh, but there's little flesh and blood. The Fury is the work of a brilliant, droll, sadistic puppeteer. [20 Mar 1978, p.93]

Manages to maintain its humor and energy until the final scene.

Stillman remains a deftly funny portrait painter of the young, willfully self-involved Anglo-Saxon male.

Director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale assume you've seen the original and are ready to swallow whatever zany time-travel notion they offer. They're not wrong. As unapologetically broad and silly as this sequel it, it's also a good deal of fun, and its relentless velocity is part of the joke. [4 Dec. 1989, p.78]

Kapur can't decide if he's making an art movie or a melodrama, an opera or a soap opera.

This is a good introduction to the affable Chan persona. The comedy is broad, the inner-city Americana hilariously off-base, and the English dubbing may prove disconcerting to U.S. audiences. But the cheesiness is part of the fun.

Gordon's back at it in From Beyond, which puts the audience in the same pickle: do I laugh or do I scream? Both. [17 Nov 1986, p.89]

Like a TV movie, Suspect is aggressively and glibly topical, paying lip service to the plight of the homeless and the Vietnam vet. But the cast, which includes John Mahoney, E. Katherine Kerr and Joe Mantegna, is first rate, and the pace rarely flags. Take one salt tablet and enjoy. [26 Oct 1987, p.86]

What first feels like thin skit material gets funnier and sweeter. Damon and Kinnear make a terrific team.

The Madame Bovary-in-suburbia motif may sound familiar, yet the unusual mix of satire and melodrama feels fresh. Not everything works (beware the football scenes), but this adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel is hard to shake off.

If Barbarosa is a decidedly bumpy ride, its quirky ambitions are always interesting. Schepisi doesn't play safe, but he's a real filmmaker -- even his mistakes are arresting. [02 Aug 1982, p.62]

The fight scenes are dynamic, intricately choreographed, and downright exciting.

The script, by Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss, veers unevenly between sharp, sophisticated malice and crowd-pleasing low humor, but director Ted Demme (Jonathan's nephew) keeps the laughs coming at a brisk pace. [14 Mar 1994, p.72]

Until the very end, when the script turns to heavy-handed pontificating, writer John Hopkins and director Bob Clark spin a decent, gruesome yarn, tying together the Ripper murders, political radicalism, bizarre Masonic rituals, royal indiscretions and government cover-ups. [26 Feb 1979, p.81]

Robbins's gutsy directorial debut isn't seamless art, but so what? After a summer in Hollywood fantasyland, at last we have an American movie that rattles our cage-and pokes a sharp spear into the body politic. Now that's entertainment.

Tempest is too long and often rambles when it should scintillate, but it has wit and heart, and some of its Shakespearean switcheroos have a touching charm. [16 Aug 1982, p.59]

The wonder of Invictus is that it actually went down this way.

Judged purely as an adventure story, it delivers enough thrills and violence to keep the action crowd engrossed. It also has enough social resonance to take us right back into those dark; schizophrenic years. [21 Aug 1978, p.66]

The French Lieutenant's Woman is one of the most civilized and provocative movies of the year, but it falls just short of greatness. Perhaps Reisz and Pinter are too innately reticent to wring the last drop of emotional power from Fowles's story. [21 Sep 1981, p.96]

This affable, well-built comedy is Reitman's best since Ghostbusters.

Thomas is supported in his first directorial endeavor by a truly spectacular cast.

Somewhat raggedly directed by Richard Benjamin from an often witty June Roberts script, Mermaids is a likable coming-of-age comedy that can't quite decide how real it wants to be. In its weakest moments, it abandons psychological logic for fits of the cutes. But see it for Ryder, Cher and Ricci: they make this oddball family memorable. [17 Dec 1990, p.70]

To Norman Jewison's credit, the film of Agnes of God releases some of the hot air and gets right down to melodramatic business. Opened up and streamlined by Pielmeier, reset in wintry Quebec and cleanly shot by Sven Nykvist, the movie is a respectably engrossing detective story in theological garb (and not unlike Jewison's 1984 "A Soldier's Story" in form). [9 Sept 1985, p.89]

With a volatile combination of passion and bad manners, Araki ushers an old formula into the age of AIDS, and gives it new meaning. [31 Aug 1992, p.68]

Gibson is right at home as the wisecracking gambler, and Foster, though slightly squirmy in this burlesque, hints at a free comic side. But it's the veteran's show. Garner wears his you-can't-put-one-over-on-me character like a pair of fine weathered boots. With his breaking half-smile, he's irresistible. [20 May 1994, p.64]

Dudley Moore is the comic bubble beneath her solemn sultriness, and Unfaithfully Yours, though a slow starter, eventually works up a full head of comic steam. [05 Mar 1984, p.81]

It's a marvelous premise, and Crudup's serpentine performance has a venomous grace. But Jeffrey Hatcher's screenplay too often sacrifices psychological insight for bogus theatricality.

Screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue and director Rob Cohen have reasonably literate fun subverting the knight genre. [10 Jun 1996, p.91]

A high-gloss, light-fingered flick that deftly picks your pocket of a few bucks and in return slips you two hours of neatly killed time. [30 June 1980, p.62]

There is enough enchantment in this big, generous, flawed movie for most everybody. [24 Sep 1984, p.85]

"The Search for Spock" is everything it ought to be: solemn and shlocky and rousing and heartfelt, like all good reunions. For those whose cup of tea this is, drink deep and enjoy. [11 June 1984, p.80]

What holds the movie together is the fiercely self-contained commitment of Day-Lewis's performance and the palpable chemistry between him and Watson.

The bottom lineis that "Footloose" has a lively, sweet, infectious spirit, and for that one is willing to overlook some clunky scenes, fuzzy motivations, gratuitous brawls and the failure to evoke this town with any sociological coherence. It works because Bacon, always a fine actor, and Singer make a golden and winning couple; because Lithgow invests his ogreish character with troubled and compassionate shadings; because of Christopher Penn's scene-stealing performance as Bacon's naive lug of a friend; because the rocking sound track features hot new songs like "Let's Hear It for the Boy," performed by Deniece Williams; and because everyone, fundamentalists excepted, will identify with the kids. [20 Feb 1984, p.78]

Director Castle has studied his Spielberg well. While the movie may be composed of borrowed parts, it remains bouncy and good-natured throughout. Guest has charm and a deft comic touch, and Stewart is lovely as his girl. [30 July 1984, p.80]

The plotting could use some finessing, but fine acting makes this film worthwhile.

The best thing about Black Sunday is its pulsating rhythm of suspense and the glittering texture of details it assembles as it drives its way toward its climax. [04 Apr 1977, p.73]

Flaws and all, this may be Spike's most purely enjoyable movie, and his best looking

You won't be able to resist the film's ribaldry and cynicism.

You cheer the good guys, gasp at the cliffhangers, hiss the villains and leave the theater with an old-fashioned sense of satisfaction. It may not be great filmmaking -- it's certainly not for purists -- but it's definitely good fun. [24 June 1991, p.60]

In keeping with a morality tale on the excesses of wealth and power, it is extravagantly confusing, grandiosely paranoid, flamboyantly absurd and more than a little fun. Though it utterly lacks the internal consistency that "good" movies require, as a wild-goose chase it maintains a certain lunatic fascination. [04 Jun 1979, p.76]

Prick Up Your Ears is a bold piece of work -- satiric, melancholy, free of cant. It's a post-Orton movie in every sense: without his work at the theatrical barricades 20 years ago a movie like this wouldn't have been possible. [20 Apr 1987, p.89]

It's to the credit of John Carpenter, who directs Christine, that he sees the comic side of King's metaphor. With the very talented 22-year-old Keith Gordon as Arnie, giving some fresh and funny turns on alienated youth, and a strong supporting cast including newcomers John Stockwell and Alexandra Paul and veterans Robert Prosky and Harry Dean Stanton, Christine has just enough comic energy to carry this fable to its crash-bam conclusion. [19 Dec 1983, p.66]

Entertaining but farfetched, Spy Game might have looked less meretricious a few months back. But the real world has sabotaged its pretense of authenticity. Enjoy it for what it is, a fleet, handsome fantasy of globe-hopping blond demigods.

With Dillon in the movie, you might expect another girl-chasing beach movie. But the evocation of the nouveau riche club, and of adolescence itself, is closer to early Philip Roth than to Spring Break. [31 Dec 1984, p.65]

Bringing together Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin is a fairly inspired idea. And bringing them together in the same body is like heaping whipped cream atop inspiration. [17 Sep 1984, p.89]

In the end, first-time writer-director Kasi Lemmon's ambitions exceed her skill, but her creativity and the breadth of her vision more than make up for her occasional missteps, luring us into a family album of secrets and lies that keeps the audience groping along with this fine ensemble cast for the truths buried in murky waters.

What really puts Alligator above all the other Jaws"ripoffs is its snappy sense of humor. [20 Apr 1981, p.93]

Ultimately, Quills descends into overwrought melodrama. But at its bright and bawdy best, it bubbles with subversive wit.

Director Michael Lehmann ("Heathers") nimbly keeps this airy concoction afloat.

It’s a movie for movie lovers -- playful, hip and light as a feather.

The Jerk is a kind of post-psychedelic Jerry Lewis movie -- Broad, dirty and juvenile, but definitely hip to its own dumbness. Half the jokes fall flat on their face, but when they score they're laugh-out-loud funny. Almost invariably, the best routines are non sequiturs -- off-the-wall riffs where Martin fixates with dopey brilliance on a subject that has nothing to do with the plot. [17 Dec 1979]

A powerful and moving experience -- once it overcomes its clunky, badly written and clichéd first act.

Where the original gave you something to chew on, the sequel is more interested in chewing on you.

As drama, The Dark Crystal comes fully alive only at its rousing climax, and it's hampered by the Ken Doll blandness of our hero. As a bestiary, however, it is bountiful -- a prodigious and amusing parade of things that do much more than go bump in the night. [27 Dec 1982, p.61]

Robert Moore, who has directed for the stage and television (Rhoda), in his feature-film debut has shown the good sense to give free rein to the inspired zaniness of his cleverest players. [04 July 1978, p.101]

An offbeat, engaging little movie about the mad mad world of bodybuilders. [24 Jan 1977, p.61]

While there are few huge laughs, the very lack of pushiness in Harold Ramis's direction comes as comic relief. [8 Aug 1983, p.55]

Murphy raw is better than the well-done ego served up in Beverly Hills Cop II. But he's become a brilliant wise guy, unlike his hero Richard Pryor, who can turn profanity into poetry and hipness into humanity. [11 Jan 1988, p.57]

Rarely have we seen black love be this sensual.

Subtlety is not the draw here: condom jokes and toilet humor alternate with car crashes and machine-gun killings. Yet the movie has a bouncy, comic-book appeal: sadism has rarely been so good-natured. [17 July 1989, p.53]

A thriller set on an Indian reservation in the 1970s, Thunderheart has both passion and power, enough to compensate for its sometimes murky plotting and a fair dose of melodramatic hokum.

It may sound sordid, but Arteta manages to bounce from brutality to comedy with only a few missteps -- and without the sweaty moralism that usually attends melodrama. The low-budget Star Maps may not be fully realized, but it's fully alive. [28 July 1997, p.69]

Faye Dunaway's performance has its own Gothic energy and insight. She catches the behavioral details of Joan Crawford--the throaty voice, dropping its "g's" with tough-guy casualness, the Venus' flytrap seductiveness. In her nightly chin strap, her sweat suit as she works out like a fighter, in Irene Sharaff|s brilliant period gowns and rings-of-Saturn hats, Dunaway catches the star's driving ambition, her obsession with a perverse ideal of perfection that turns human feeling into cruelty. She makes Crawford a fearsome portrait of the pathology of stardom. [21 Sept 1981, p.97A]

Presumed Innocent is a slow fuse of a movie. It never quite explodes with the resonance Pakula intends. It tries too hard to be important. But the story it tells is a good one, and once it's got its hooks in you, there's no turning away. [30 July 1990, p.56]

It's preposterous, but never dull: Scott whips the action into a taut, tasty lather.

Spacek is brilliantly funny, slowly transforming Helen from a nervous 60s housewife into a liquored-up one. I could have watched her in the vibrating fat-burner, eyes closed, lazily gripping a martini glass, for hours.

The Stepfather has its thin, B-movie stretches, but it's a smart B movie, with a sly satirical edge. And when the bottom falls out of Jerry's dream, watch out: the movie gets downright hair-raising. [27 Feb 1987, p.79]