Star 80 is very strong stuff. Fosse is one of our best moviemakers; he shows us better than anyone the perverse beauty in decadence and the decadence that we can't seem to burn out of our dreams of beauty. [14 Nov 1983, p.98]

It calls attention not to the fate of the earth, but to the numbing effect of bad, manipulative art. [14 Nov 1983, p.98]

The first major film dealing with photojournalism, Under Fire expertly uses the American movies' conventions of excitement and romance to put into sharp focus tough questions of truth, ethics, politics and ultimately consciousness itself. [24 Oct 1983, p.124]

Director Irvin Kershner handles the early part with wit and style, but he's hamstrung by Lorenzo Semple's script, which is based too much on "Thunderball." Still, there are fun passages. [10 Oct 1983, p.93]

Under the direction of special-effects whiz Douglas Trumbull, Brainstorm provides lots of good cheap thrills and a juicy performance by Fletcher as a passionate scientist. But Trumbull is consistently more at home with technology than with the human drama (can Walken rescue his relationship with his wife, played by the late Natalie Wood?), and the spectaculariy cosmic ending leaves too many key questions unanswered. [10 Oct 1983, p.94]

It's like nothing you've seen before. Yet, over all, the story it tells seems predictable, secondhand, and its "profound" revelations hackneyed. [12 Sep 1983, p.88]

First-time director James Signorelli and his four screen-writers fall right into the trap of imitative fallacy -- they want to show us a vulgar, tacky character and do it by producing a vulgar, tacky movie. [22 Aug 1983, p.73]

A dispiriting attempt to wring a last gasp of mirth from an already dangerously overextended series. [22 Aug 1983, p.73]

If this gives the impression that The Star Chamber is a contemplative movie, forget it. It's a social tract in the classic Hollywood style -- viscera first. The issues are laid out in the most hyperbolic fashion and resolved by sheer melodrama -- a wild chase, a race against the clock, a shoot-out. On these gut-level terms, The Star Chamber is utterly gripping. Supported by an excellent cast and very stylish cinematography, Hyams sustains the tension from start to finish, no matter how preposterous the plotting becomes. [15 Aug 1983, p.64]

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]

Under the tone-deaf direction of Peter Yates, Krull manages to be both lavishly overdone and bizarrely half-baked. [08 Aug 1983, p.55]

One can safely doze through the extremely bland first hour, which feels more like an advertisement for marine theme parks than a suspense movie. [1 Aug 1983, p.47]

A vile concoction. [25 July 1983, p.75]

This is a cute, clever "Superman," without the epic audacity of Richard Donner's Supe I, one of the most underrated of movies, despite the $300 million it grossed. [20 June 1983, p.83]

Octopussy, the 13th of the Bond adventures and the sixth to star Roger Moore, isn't as exhilarating as "The Spy Who Loved Me". But it's the most enjoyable since then, in large part because it's not trying to be the ultimate anything. [13 June 1983, p.77]

You don't have to be a Hitchcock idolater to see that this dumb, dull, plodding, pseudo-camp bore is a callous, commercial parasite. [13 June 1983, p.78]

Downright repetitive! [30 May 1983]

A very stylish and sexy film noir, a tale of obsessive love neatly balanced between exploitation movie and art film. [23 May 1983, p.54]

Since somebody this year was bound to make a movie called Valley Girl, let's be grateful the job fell to director Martha Coolidge, who has a light, satirical touch, and screenwriters Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane, whose modest exploitation movie is thoroughly good-natured. [09 May 1983, p.85]

The Hunger is slick, silly and not without thrills. [09 May 1983, p.85]

Director Kaplan has a generous, open-eyed affection for these quirky, hungry characters that he obviously wants to share. Smart host that he is, he doesn't over sing their praises. You warm to this movie at your own sweet speed. [31 Oct 1983, p.83]

The best movie to date from England's satirical sextet. [04 Apr 1983, p.74]

Strictly as exploitation, Bad Boys is a pretty slick piece of work. It's overlong and short on characterization. But it's unsentimental about its teen-age hoods and unsparing about the nastiness of juvenile jails. [28 Mar 1983, p.73]

The loving exhumation of an earlier cinematic style suggests that the director is looking to regain his own moviemaking innocence, to make the kind of picture that moved him as a child. But you can't go home again -- not on secondhand, sentimentalized memories. In transferring Hinton's teens to the screen, Coppola and screenwriter Kathleen Knutsen Rowell have idealized them to the point of cliche. [4 Apr 1983, p.74]

Beresford's nice little movie seems so afraid to make a false move that it runs the danger of not moving at all. [07 Mar 1983, p.78B]

Whatever it is -- movie, photographed stage show, TV spectacular -- Pirates of Penzance is a happy hybrid. [14 Feb 1983, p.85]

The gift of this charming, low-key excursion is more intangible, yet you may find that its surprisingly complex moods linger with a bittersweet afterglow. [28 Feb 1983, p.79]

What makes Without a Trace important is the powerful, intelligent, seismic-sensitive performance of Kate Nelligan as Alex's mother. Nelligan literally creates the film's real theme -- the nightmare emotional world the victims of such crimes are plunged into. [07 Feb 1983, p.69]