Green Pastures, told with gentle humor, gives more meaning to biblical stories than most holier-than-thou entries. [23 Feb 2003, p.9]

If it's explosions, gunplay and wartime treachery that you're looking for, then director Brian Hutton's Where Eagles Dare is right up your alley. [12 Mar 1995, p.51]

The Big Country is a sprawling western that is handsomely photographed by Franz Planer and meticulously directed by William Wyler. [02 Oct 1994, p.51]

At its best, Fried Green Tomatoes is a pleasantly nostalgic tale wrapped around a murder mystery (which, frankly, isn't all that mysterious). The filmmakers do a decent job of weaving the texture of the thoroughly racist and sexist society within which Idgie, Ruth and the movie's major black characters (played by Cicely Tyson and Stan Shaw) must struggle to preserve their self-respect and, at critical times, their lives. At its worst, the film is unexciting and rambles too much.

After watching this hot-and-heavy costume drama, I had to wonder why there are not a lot more like it. Not that I necessarily wish there were, you understand. But this sort of picture has so much going for it from a "date-night" perspective that I'm surprised there are so few of them. [13 Mar 1998, p.20]

You'd better watch out. You'd better not swear. Have a gun handy, loaded for bear. Santa Claus is coming…to Finland.

White Hunter, Black Heart is no African Queen (or even, really, an especially good movie), but it does manage to stay afloat. [12 Oct 1990, p.6]

A quietly compelling if not particularly emotional and sober-minded treatment of an infamous incident.

An engaging Israeli film about the days when the people throwing rocks, assassinating soldiers and setting off bombs were Jews out to carve a state for themselves out of the British "mandate" in Palestine.

The filmmaker's dreamy style has a quiet strength: The bright, rich cinematography is a treat for the eyes and the hypnotic musical score is lulling. [10 Sept 1992, p.E1]

A deadpan, darkly funny Korean murder mystery.

Crisp, compact and cryptic, The American is a standard-issue hit-man thriller tailor made for George Clooney.

The entire production is vaguely unsettling. That, in fact, is one of the most engaging things about Babe: Pig in the City. The imaginative art direction, economical editing and sculptural cinematography combine to make this movie one of the year's most distinctive-looking productions.

In Eat Drink Man Woman, Lee's ingredients are wholesome enough and correctly prepared, and the finished product is attractively presented. There's also some inspiration here - enough, perhaps, for a fine meal but not quite enough for an entirely satisfying motion picture. [16 Sep 1994, p.20]

A daft pitch-black dark comedy about family dysfunction that plays out over painfully ugly family Christmas celebration.

Two very good looking people play two offbeat and abrasively charming lovers in Love & Other Drugs. And when your screen romance is as sexual as this one, it helps if your stars are about as good looking with their clothes off as human beings get.

The wildly improbable set-up is merely the jumping off point for an exploration of grief, guilt and redemption.

"The Debt," a very good 2007 Israeli thriller with Cold War and Holocaust connections, earns a nerve-wracking and entertaining Hollywood remake.

For an hour or so The Rookie really cooks, and Clint Eastwood is the main reason why. [07 Dec 1990, p.6]

One of the most entertaining history lessons you could ever hope to sit through.

If the Muppets sometime seem at sea in Muppet Treasure Island, the film still has more wit and irony than most kid-oriented productions. Fozzie, in fact, has more in that index finger of his than Barney has in his whole purple carcass. [16 Feb 1996, p.30]

Odds are you'll find something of substance, a few life lessons in between the laughs in 50/50.

Yet Kids does stay with you - which is more than can be said for a picture like Showgirls, most of which vanished from my consciousness 10 minutes after it ended. Nearly a month has elapsed since I've seen Kids and, tedious though much of it is, the experience lingers. [29 Sept 1995, p.19]

This mismatched "couple" - have made, over the course of three long subtitled Swedish thrillers, the most dynamic duo of recent cinema history.

Obviously, the premise is pretty implausible, but the moviemakers do a decent job of addressing (if not entirely satifying) our questions about the implausibilities. And the stars, especially Belushi, bring an amazing amount of conviction to this formulaic material. [17 Aug 1990, p.8]

Warrior is a straight genre picture, a fight movie of the old school. But it's a mixed martial arts tale, and as such, it's the best MMA movie ever.

What's especially encouraging about Just Another Girl is that in it Leslie Harris demonstrates a genuine knack for capturing on film the sounds and rhythms of adolescence. [10 Apr 1993, p.E1]

Not only is House Party breezy fun, but its dialogue often sounds as authentic to its black-teen setting as The Breakfast Club did to its white-teen one. And authentic or not, much of it is funny. [27 April 1990, p.4]