A deep, powerful and rivetingly complex study of Tienanmen - and, ironically, it's far more evenhanded in its account of the massacre that killed more than a thousand protesters than the Chinese government might suspect.

A stunning crime drama that shares its protagonists' rabid attention to detail and love of adrenalin.

Director Joe Johnston ("Honey, I Shrunk the Kids") turns this fantasy into a mean-spirited exercise in terror.

As writer and actress, Thompson has all the right Austen rhythms and filmmaker Ang Lee ("Eat Drink Man Woman") orchestrates with sensitivity and style.

Written with an acute ear by Barbara Turner (Leigh's mother) and directed by Ulu Grosbard, it's a resonant, grittily specific film.

As anthropology, it's fascinating, and everything about the production is first class. But the human drama at the heart of this movie is stillborn.

Once again Disney has come up with a winning animated feature that has something for everyone on the age spectrum.

All this is good fun -- some of which is anticipating the pained reaction from conservative Hollywood-hasslers. Director Rob Reiner has a fine smooth touch, Douglas is charismatic, Bening is scrumptious -- you want to put all these dream politicos in a doggy bag and take them home. [20 Nov 1995, p.28]

Technology has squeezed character to a few measly pixels on the digital screens. Explosions have replaced dramatic climaxes.

Anyone who cares about ravishing filmmaking, superb acting and movies willing to dive into the mystery of unconditional love will leave this dark romance both shaken and invigorated.

Copycat is satisfyingly tense, but the disgusto factor is balanced by its obvious theatricality--neatly captured in the contrasting performaces of Weaver and Hunter, the one playing neurotic standard poodle to the other's tightly wound terrier. [6 Nov 1995, pg.86]

Barry Sonnenfeld's bouncy, immensely likable adaptation.

For about an hour the writing, acting and direction coalesce in a prismatic, hyperkinetic ode to end-of-century doom. And then the two-hours-plus film starts to subside into genre convention. [16 Oct 1995, p.86]

What we want to know is why we should care about any of these stick figures. Eszterhas seems as bored with them as we are. He's just moving his dopey plot along, leaving Friedkin to fill in the gaps with car chases and irrelevant chinoiserie.

A witty movie -- with a fine ear for the undertone of aimless chatter -- that never raises its voice to make hollow Gen-X proclamations.

What stays with you finally is not the mystery's byzantine twists and turns, which are fun but don't resonate very deeply. It's the time, the place, the palpable feel of community. [2 Oct 1995, p.85]

A smart and wicked delight.

A style so chic, studied and murky it resembles a cross between a Nike commercial and a bad Polish art film.

Thanks to everyone involved, the movie radiates a hundred pleasures.

In Lee's understandable eagerness to let a few rays of hope shine, the polemicist trips up the dramatist--movie conventions replace honest observation. But the passion of this raw, mournful urban epic remains, in spite of the false moves. [25 Sep 1995, p.92]

Unlike Clark's extraordinary books of black-and-white photography, Kids is stunningly anti-erotic, though not untainted by sensationalism. By condensing all this inflammatory material into a 24-hour time frame, Clark and 19-year-old screen-writer Harmony Korine create an overwrought narrative that's sometimes tedious in its relentlesshess.

This one's done right. Here's an intelligent movie with no special effects. You have to pay close attention, to listen hard to its cross-fires of dialogue.

It has a surprising charm.

The women in this smart, highly entertaining comedy don't pack guns, but relations between the sexes are such that a well-placed knee in the groin can come in handy.

A pretty damn good summer movie.

The summer's most compelling movie about teenagers.

An engaging and touching flight of fancy. [17 July 1995, p.60]

Complacently conventional...it threatens to turn an interesting actor into a self-parodying commodity.