Some are born great, others achieve greatness, and in the documentary Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary, we meet a musician who falls squarely in the latter camp.

The movie is a little too postured.... Even Baby’s busy backstory threatens to make him a collection of quirky details. But all of that artifice is probably part of the point, best appreciated by generation Ear Bud and its preference for curated experiences.

Bay makes a lot of familiar moves here.

There are certain lines in certain movies that could be used to warn a certain kind of viewer to stay away. Such as: "We like the same merlot." It tells you everything you need to know about Playing by Heart, an ensemble drama about upper-middle-class people whose characters are defined mostly by their fabulous homes and apartments. [22 Jan 1999, p.47]

The Last Days is full of children and grandchildren. This idea of regeneration is a common thread that connects the stories of the five survivors, and provides the documentary with its unexpected warmth and redemptive power. [05 Mar 1999, p.51]

Clockwatchers is an updated 9 to 5, and as such, replaces that movie's straightfoward story of liberation from male oppression with something more Generation X-ish - liberation from a kind of self-imposed malaise. [12 Jun 1998, p.F7]

Tearful audiences will know they are in safe hands with Shyamalan, and that no matter what happens, at the bottom of each box of tissues is a happy ending with moving narration. [27 Mar 1998, p.F7]

Although a fact-based period drama set in 16th-century Venice, "Dangerous Beauty" is really an allegory about modern society's puritanical attitudes about sex. [27 Feb 1998, p.F7]

While this movie was somehow able to attract solid talent, Jones, Quaid and even character actor David Peymer have too little to work with. Shakur deserved a better memorial, and the other actors deserved a better script. [8 Oct 1997, p.40]

If you're a great fan of either Hopkins or Baldwin, or a wilderness aficionado, The Edge may prove to be entertaining. But for everyone else, it's a pretty long walk in the woods. [26 Sep 1997, p.F10]

Love jones may be the first to show black 20somethings simply going about their lives - searching for love, falling in love and messing up love without their ethnicity being an issue. [14 Mar 1997, p.54]

Ultimately, Reiner's attempt at an inspiring story of a black woman and a white man working together to further the cause of racial justice ends up being overwhelmed by the looming specter of impossibly complex racial politics. [03 Jan 1997, p.04]

Also good is Ryder, who made such an impression as the perfect sister in "Little Women." Here, she is quite a scary little psycho. Or as scary as any actress can be who is wearing a bonnet. [20 Dec 1996, p.74]

With a tighter script, Set It Off could have been a good film. Instead, it's just a mediocre one. [06 Nov 1996, p.49]

The Ghost and the Darkness doesn't seem to know what to do with this unsettling bit of history. There is a little bit of Hemingway bullshit about manhood and courage and grace under pressure, but the movie always seems to be reaching for a philosophical/mystical edge that would have been better off in the hands of a director like Peter Weir. Instead, the job went to Stephen Hopkins, whose credits include "Nightmare on Elm Street 5" and "Predator 2," and whose taste for straightforward commercial thrills gets in the way of the stories more interesting possibilities. [11 Oct 1996, p.56]

Aiello, Headly and Mazursky create memorable, unexpectedly sympathetic characters. Sometime director Mazursky ("Enemies, a Love Story") is especially poignant and brave here, playing a has-been director in a role that calls inevitable attention to his own stalled career. [27 Sept 1996, p.50]

But as the increasingly far-fetched plot kicks in, the movie loses its personality, and plods toward a ludicrous conclusion that looks like the end result of a dozen desperate rewrites. [27 Sept 1996, p.04]

One part beautiful fable, one part cheesy "Rocky" clone, "Fly Away Home" is nonetheless a notch above most flimsy Hollywood movies made primarily for children. [13 Sep 1996, p.44]

And yet, the focus of the movie remains fixed on the men, which makes this Ode to Strong Women seem a little patronizing. Or expedient. The director's long-time girlfriend, co-star Bahns, has the most flattering female role. Bahns had no acting experience when she was cast in the low-budget "Brothers McMullen." She still doesn't. Watching her her in "She's the One," you realize that it must be love. [23 Aug 1996, p.45]

Frankenheimer and company, perhaps realizing they were making a bad movie, have taken steps to make "Dr. Moreau" gloriously bad, with comical dialogue that can only have been meant to elicit laughter. [23 Aug 1996, p.44]

Hollywood movies with anti-profiteering themes always strikes me as tacky. We're talking about an industry, after all, that sends trade reps all over the globe, lobbying other countries to prosecute anyone trying to dupe a copy of "Waterworld." There is a cheaper way to protect U.S.-made movie products. Keep making movies as bad as "Chain Reaction." No one will want to copy them. [2 Aug 1996, p.32]

While Keaton is many things, he is not Jim Carrey. Which, from Keaton's standpoint, is probably a relief. [17 July 1996, p.25]

While reviving the "The Phantom" may have seemed like a good idea at the time, it's one comic book superhero that just doesn't translate that well to the screen. [7 June 1996, p.46]

For a movie set in A.D. 984 to succeed, it needs a handsome, swashbuckling prince or princess. Dragonheart doesn't have one. But it does have the regal voice of Sean Connery coming from the lips of a computer-generated dragon. [31 May 1996, p.46]

It's a pretentious, laughable Hollywood-type bomb that touches on police brutality and government cover-ups, but ends up being a movie about hats. [26 Apr 1996, p.54]

Whatever slim chance this picture had of emerging as the sports version of "King of Comedy" evaporates amid a muddled plot and a thoroughly unconvincing feel-good ending. [19 Apr 1996, p.42]

It's a supremely goofy movie, and one that's almost hypnotically heedless of everything that is currently fashionable in Hollywood, especially in the inspirational teacher genre. You won't be inspired. On the other hand, you won't be bored. [19 Apr 1996, p.42]

City Hall also gives us a political drama with engaging moral and ethical dimensions. The movie is a welcome change from the fluff of "The American President" and the self-indulgent freak show that was "Nixon." [16 Feb 1996, p.44]

Eye for an Eye reaches campy zenith when Field, newly energized - dare I say empowered? - by her martial arts and weaponry skills, turns into a tigress in bed, frightening her husband. [12 Jan 1996, p.28]

Performances are good, the period details accurate, but the script is an artificial hybrid of better-known movies in the genre, borrowing whole scenes and story lines from Stand by Me and even Home Alone. [20 Oct 1995, p.52]

The point of this enterprise is to put the slinky, husky-voiced Fiorentino into compromising positions with as many men as possible and to provide director William Friedkin (The French Connection) with an excuse to stage three long chase scenes. Seems like everybody got what they wanted out of this thing except for us. [13 Oct 1995, p.48]

Something to Talk About goes wrong when it allows its agenda to interfere with the integrity of its characters. Duvall, Roberts and Quaid strive to humanize their characters, only to be undone with narrative detours that strain credibility. Kyra Sedgwick has a more rewarding, better defined role as Grace's smart-aleck sister. The movie also falters when it turns away from relationships and toward a limp subplot about a show-jumping contest. It ain't exactly "Rocky," but it does introduce us to the movie's only sympathetic male character. A gelding. [4 Aug 1995, p.37]

First Knight manages to fill the screen with enough swashbuckling to keep things interesting for a while. [07 Jul 1995, p.29]

The picture is apparently intended to mimic the bleak futurism of Blade Runner, but with its cheap look, punk styling and dirty-looking restrooms, Johnny Mnemonic looks more likes a bad East Village nightclub. Furthermore, Longo's staging of action sequences is bland, and he doesn't seem to understand character development at all. [26 May 1995, p.36]

A slow-moving legal thriller that fills the many idle moments with scenes plucked from a random selection of Hollywood standards. [17 Feb 1995, p.52]

In an effort to work all of these characters into the plot, the movie has become incomprehensible, though I doubt anyone will care, since the movie is one big blizzard of karate chops, and that seems to be the point. [23 Dec 1994, p.33]

One of the worst Christmas comedies in history and certainly one of the worst pictures of the year, Trapped in Paradise is a movie with exactly one laugh. [02 Dec 1994, p.77]

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, The Swan Princess is dripping with appreciation for Disney cartoons. [18 Nov 1994, p.54]

Stunning. [25 Nov 1994, p.87]

Bacon is menacing enough, but his character, as written, lacks the shading and substance that made the villains of past Hanson films so interesting. Without the complexities, The River Wild is a so-so waterborne melodrama that compares unfavorably to Deliverance and even Cape Fear. [30 Sep 1994, p.47]

It's nice to see Scorsese making a cameo here, a kind of symbolic olive branch that may herald an overdue armistice. At last, it's OK to like Marty and Bob. [16 Sept 1994, p.53]

Killing Zoe is the worst kind of bad movie, a violent comedy that's not funny. [14 Sep 1994, p.35]

The movie sometimes gets airborne, but with an obvious strain that hurts an airy fantasy like "North." [22 Jul 1994, p.31]

Although Baldwin helps add substance to this frequently flippant movie with his earnest (when called for) performance, The Shadow isn't as grave or as chilling as the old radio serial. Here, the Shadow is resurrected in the service of tongue-in-cheek summer escapism. [01 Jul 1994, p.29]

Little Big League is wholesome, safe, reassuringly familiar. On the other hand, Little Big League is a recycling project that lacks an original or exciting moment. [29 Jun 1994, p.31]

It's formatted entertainment aimed at undiscriminating children, full of stale little bits like music video interludes, and obvious rehashing of Home Alone situations in which Culkin's resourceful character outsmarts adults. [17 Jun 1994, p.57]

The Paper is helped a great deal by its appealing cast, and there are plenty of cleverly drawn supporting characters to help move things along - Randy Quaid stands out as the paper's gun-toting columnist. [25 March 1994, p.46]

What Sugar Hill lacks is modulation. The entire movie is played at the same high level of dramatic intensity - tragedy piled on tragedy, confrontation piled on confrontation, grand speech upon grand speech. Impassioned though this approach is, it eventually takes on a cumulative feeling of bombast. [25 Feb 1994, p.38]

Romeo Is Bleeding appears to be another misfired attempt to re-create the darkly comic, genre-sendup zing of "Reservoir Dogs." The extravagant violence, luridly colorful visuals and corny hard-boiled dialogue are there. Missing is a coherent story supported by internal logic. In other words, a reason to pay attention. Other than lingerie, I mean. [4 Feb 1994, p.51]

It will entertain youngsters, the only people in America who have yet to see more "Rocky" movies than sunsets. [14 Jan 1994, p.50]

The War Room is far more interesting, however, as an unintentional commentary on the evolving (or de-evolving) nature of documentary itself, and on Pennebaker's famous style - the shaky hand-held shots, the grainy film stock, the abrupt zooms and changes in focus. The style is known as cinema verite, the very name suggesting that what you see is spontaneous and "true." [12 Jan 1994, p.36]

The movie, by German directing legend Wim Wenders, is a sequel to his imaginative, winsome "Wings of Desire," and maybe that's the problem. The second time around, Wenders' ideas just don't seem so imaginative. [04 Feb 1994, p.46]

Even moviegoers who don't own Nintendo...will thoroughly enjoy these superheroes. And chances are, this is only the beginning of their film exploits.

Mira Nair is a director who, for a change, is not obsessed by the way bigotry pulls people of different cultures apart. Instead, she is amazed by the way love keeps bringing them together. [12 Feb 1992, p.41]

Necessary Roughness has the right kind of rambunctious spirit for this kind of picture -- even if it's not quite as inventive as similar movies like the recent baseball send-up, Major League.

It's rare that a movie so cleverly conceived is so poorly executed.

Who wrote this -- Oliver North?

One of the best of the 16 Bond films, thanks to Dalton's athletic, tough and deadly new 007.

A delightfully schlocky horror comedy about a race of vicious, bloodthirsty invading aliens who look like circus clowns - but with very sharp teeth. [15 Aug 2013, p.C01]

Surely one of the funniest movies ever made. [12 Sept 2001, p.53]

Despite its stars, the film is probably best known for the surreal dream sets provided by artist Salvador Dali. [26 Feb 1998, p.35]