Art isn't always supposed to be user-friendly. But it should at least be provocative, making you contemplate a piece on several levels. This, at least, is where Irma Vep is successful. [25 July 1997, p.28]

Traveller does pass the time painlessly, and it isn't aggressively stupid or hateful, like about half the movies Hollywood makes nowadays. But someone must have stolen its engine - this film has no narrative drive. [p May 1997]

As usual, the genius is in the storytelling details that Gray musters and manipulates, the side trips and observations, the depth of his personal observations. His near hysteria is funny in itself, though when he tries for a one-liner, it almost inevitably falls flat. But that's not a problem: It's just Spalding.

A scary performance by James Woods as a racist assassin brought to justice after 30 years and the sheer importance of the true story redeem an awful script. [03 Jan 1997, p.16]

Despite its flaws, Ridicule is a proverbial diamond in the rough among this year's avalanche of unpolished rocks. Go see it, match wits with the upper-class twits and you'll be better prepared to slice up more than the appetizers at your next dinner party. [20 Dec 1996, p.25]

Space Jam is a high-energy comedy that mixes live action, animation, cornball storytelling and rowdy humor into an energetic, gee-whiz confection that will probably delight just about everybody. [15 Nov 1996, p.20]

A typically heavy-handed Spike Lee film that makes up for it by being a typically passionate Spike Lee film. [16 Oct 1996, p.C03]

A tour de force of photography, editing, scoring and, most of all, patience; less a science documentary than a window on a breathtaking world. [22 Nov 1996, p.31]

Surviving Picasso is tasteful, more expensive-looking than it really is, and not nearly as lengthy as it feels. [18 Oct 1996]

Judged scene by scene, Girls Town is often great. Judged as a whole -- it isn't. [06 Sep 1996, p.21]

Flirt fails because the basic story isn't very good and its retelling adds only incidental insights. [11 Oct 1996]

Like a lot of movies associated with Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, ``Manny & Lo'' is long on atmosphere, rich in character and not very goal-oriented. But Manny, Lo and Elaine are fully human female characters one is glad to have met. How many movies offer us anything of the sort? [13 Sep 1996, p.21]

De Palma is in fine form here, wittily using visual quotes from ``2001'' to suggest that technology is a spiderweb on which we poor humans wriggle. He balances comedy with nail-biting suspense as ably as Cruise balances his buff bod on that trembling rope. [24 May 1996, p.20]

Wahlberg is the centerpiece of Fear, director James Foley's surprisingly taut new thriller that's equal parts "Cape Fear," "Endless Love" and "The Wild One." [12 Apr 1996]

A landmark in animation. [12 Apr 1996, p.AE23]

If Leo's situation seems like a typical opening gambit by the director of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!", little else in this tight, quiet, razor-sharp film will feel familiar. [12 Apr 1996]

Mary Reilly tries, but fails, to revive the oft-told Jekyll and Hyde horror story. [23 Feb 1996]

Stunningly photographed, acted with occasional bravura and structured with exacting precision, it fails to sing more than once or twice, and then only briefly. [2 Feb 1996]

As a fable, The City of Lost Children may not have a resonantly significant moral, but as a film, it is without a doubt the most incredible thing that the cinema has brought us this year. [22 Dec 1995]

Georgia is one fine movie. Or maybe two or three fine movies.... Best of all, Georgia is a music movie, and a good one. [12 Jan 1996]

A thrilling juxtaposition of bravura filmmaking and knee-jerk propaganda, this 1964 Soviet-Cuban coproduction is a rare successful combination of the aesthetic and the political. [19 Jan 1996, p.22]

Some clumsy nips and tucks later, Fair Game still doesn't make sense, and Crawford's performance still cracks you up. [03 Nov 1995]

It is affecting, accomplished, witty, poignant and memorable.... Unstrung Heroes is one of the year's best films. [22 Sep 1995]

This film is uplifting, well-meant, and morally impeccable, but it has the incoherent storytelling, abysmal production values and absolute contempt for its audience one ordinarily finds only in hard-core pornography. [18 Aug 1995, p.25]

The romance is unexpectedly chaste, and the violence muted. [07 Jul 1995, p.23]

This coming-of-age movie is the sweetest, frothiest fantasy in some time. [28 Jul 1995]

A gloomy and overwrought fable, too heavy as family entertainment. [02 Jun 1995, p.26]

A high-tech concept done in by low-tech script and low-wattage performances. [26 May 1995, p.24]

Amateur is a subversive action movie that uses lurid material for its own puckish purposes. [02 Jun 1995]

Kids will love this typically well-done Disney film, and there's enough to keep parents entertained as well. [07 Apr 1995, p.26]

The bad news is that Jefferson is inept and inert. [21 Apr 1995]

A nice take on the traditional maniac-meets-girl horror story. [18 Mar 1995, p.C08]

This suspense thriller is scary, all right, but it's also distasteful and manipulative. [17 Feb 1995, p.AE22]

McGregor is a real charmer, a young Malcolm McDowell with a Scottish lilt; Brain Tufano's photography manages to be both rich and stark at once; Hodge's script has some genuinely arch lines. [03 Mar 1995]

The acting is the strongest thing about the film. Pitt nicely balances the dashing and wounded sides of Tristan's character. [13 Jan 1995]

Ladybird, Ladybird is a scathing indictment of a meddlesome social-service sysBased on a true story, and set in a large English city, it is wrenching viewing, guaranteed to make complacent audiences reconsider their attitudes toward social welfare, single parents and the lot of battered, state-dependent women. [27 Jan 1995, p.12]

Although the Hollywood treatment intrudes at times, it's still a compelling film, richly filmed and deeply moving. [23 Dec 1994, p.12]

It's a celebration of American female screen acting, it's a study of early feminism that feels relevant today, it's a carefully mounted exercise in period filmmaking and it's a beloved novel come to life for the fourth time. [23 Dec 1994]

The film by writer-director C.M. Talkington answers a question no one in his right mind would want answered: What would happen if someone without a hint of Quentin Tarantino's talent made a Quentin Tarantino film? [07 Apr 1995, p.C06]

A gorgeously realized portrait of obsession, this based-on-truth vision of two teen-age girls driven to murder by their fantasies is one of the most audacious films of the year. [2 Dec 1994, p.18]

This white-water thriller by the director of The Hand That Rocked the Cradle isn't especially inventive, but the cinematography is first-rate and so is Streep's performance. [30 Sep 1994, p.14]

This mock-documentary look at one man's allegorical tour of Italy is a whimsical, intelligent antidote to big-budget Hollywood formula bloat. [18 Nov 1994, p.15]

Timecop speeds along briskly: It's a well-oiled, smooth-running action movie with a science-fiction twist tossed in for good measure. [16 Sep 1994, p.14]

There's a madcap romp in here somewhere, but Beresford doesn't locate it, despite a fine cast. The script doesn't help. [09 Sep 1994, p.19]

The film may have its troubled spots, but its poignant depiction of human tenderness more than compensates for them. [18 Nov 1994, p.17]

Elliott has come up with an ebullient entertainment propelled by garishly jaunty musical numbers, adroitly handled comic banter and an optimistic faith in people's ability to roll with the punches. [26 Aug 1994]

After seeing Eat Drink Man Woman, it's a toss-up whether you'll want to reach for tissues or for General Tso's chicken. [19 Aug 1994, p.AE17]

Ted Danson gets in a little practice for serious dramatic roles with a solid performance in this otherwise forgettable piece of fluff. [17 Jun 1994, p.15]

It's a sweet-natured trifle that sneaks in some social commentary about the modern military and the failings of the American educational system, and it takes a wide swipe at advertising for good measure. [03 Jun 1994]

Hilarious parody of rap subculture and attitudes, packed with in-jokes but accessible to viewers not steeped in the genre. The profanity-intolerant will want to steer clear, however. [15 Jul 1994, p.AE24]

In Little Buddha, the Italian director offers an utterly sincere, respectful introduction to a religion that is, for people raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, largely a mystery. [27 May 1994, p.21]

The novel's exuberance, happy sensuality, goes AWOL in Van Sant's sadder, darker vision. [20 May 1994]

For all his invention, Forsyth's reach ultimately exceeds his grasp. "Local Hero," without trying so self-consciously hard, conveyed more of the ephemeral beauty of life than Being Human does.

When all is said and done, The Favor is just another comedy about comfortable yuppies wondering what they might have done differently, dipping a toe in adventure, then returning to the cocoon of yuppie comfort. [03 May 1994]

If The Paper were a newspaper story, a savvy editor would demand a rewrite. [25 March 1994, p.AE13]

Adapted by Polanski and his longtime collaborators Gerard Brach and John Brownjohn from a novel by Pascal Bruckner, Bitter Moon works as a kinky sex farce, comedy of manners and playful spin on national stereotypes. [22 Apr 1994, p.AE15]

An ascerbic swipe at family counseling, holiday dinners, small-town mores and baby-boomer marriages, ``The Ref'' is acted and written with such pleasure that its meanness becomes cleansing, a stripping-away of the sentimentality that suffocates most Hollywood films about families. [11 Mar 1994, p.AE15]

Ambitious attempt to make a "Godfather"-like epic about a black Harlem drug dealer starts well but loses focus. [25 Feb 1994, p.AE15]

Romeo Is Bleeding has a core of such mean smugness that the genuine shock is that the picture got made at all. It isn't so much that the film is violent, misogynistic and hateful. It isn't even that it so often lapses into senselessness and laughable pretense. It's that a certain competence has been deployed in the service of such degrading and juvenile material, that a group of actors and filmmakers and financial backers all said ``yes'' to something that ought never to have happened. [4 Feb 1994, p.15]

An exquisitely mounted and achieved film (shot, as it so happens, on Paris sound stages), it tells a story so protracted and uneventful that you wonder if writer-director Tran Anh Hung isn't pulling your leg. [08 Apr 1994, p.AE15]

Director Charles Haid (who played Andy Renko on ``Hill Street Blues'') and the crew have come up with the right amount of ingredients for another appealing Disney action-adventure movie, predictable though it may be. [14 Jan 1994, p.13]

Pennebaker, a veteran documentarian who has filmed concerts (``Monterey Pop''), Bob Dylan on tour (``Don't Look Back'') and political showdowns (``Crisis,'' about the battle between John F. Kennedy and George Wallace over desegregation at the University of Alabama), works in purist cinema-verite style. Camera and sound record what happens, the film is edited, music is added, and that's it. There's no Voice of God narrator, and not much in the way of context. When this technique really works, it can be as raw as life. When the filmmakers aren't so lucky, it comes off as sketchy, focused more on sensations than information. [6 Feb 1994, p.B01]

There are moments of exceptional sweetness in Faraway, So Close, and Jurgen Jurges' photography is fine, though not as indelible as Henri Alekan's work in "Wings of Desire." But the film feels both too long and too truncated, with plot twists left dangling in the wind. [04 Feb 1994, p.15]

This apocalyptic vision of London-as-Hell is a far cry from Leigh's earlier work, the relatively gentle social comedies, High Hopes and Life Is Sweet. But, working with the actors in his usual improvisatory style, Leigh dares to drop into depths he has never before explored. With its aura of horror and hopelessness, Naked is a very brave work. If you can take it, it's a film you won't soon forget. [28 Jan. 1994, p.AE13]

All in all, Geronimo is a well-intentioned disappointment; the film chronicles the struggle not of the Apaches, but of the filmmakers. [13 Dec 1993, p.D05]

Maybe that Hollywood thinks young moviegoers will settle for something not too special -- and so that's all they're going to get. [12 Nov 1993, p.AE15]

Ruby in Paradise has small flaws. But it also has enough small pleasures to make it a warm-hearted, well-intentioned alternative to noisier Hollywood fare. [11 Nov 1993, p.B08]

As a picturesque mood piece, Flesh and Bone is haunting and effective. As a movie, though, it doesn't quite get to where it wants to go. [05 Nov 1993, p.AE17]

What director Chen Kaige and his superb cast give us are larger-than-life passions, betrayals, and sacrifices, unfolding before the canvas of history. [29 Oct 1993, p.AE15]

Director David Cronenberg has made a movie about a man who apparently needs to get his eyes checked. [08 Oct 1993]

The film features some fine performances and explores an intriguing set of themes, but it fails to ever take life, causing its laudable message to fall on deadened ears. [12 Oct 1993, p.C1]

Despite buoying our hopes that it might be a new-fangled sports film, ``The Program'' devolves into a doltish drama about Triumph Over Adversity, all but forsaking the pure, thrilling bloodlust of its early moments. [24 Sept 1993, p.AE16]

Thanks to this flabbergasting howler of a sequence, Striking Distance becomes that rare thing: a movie so bad it's actually pretty good. [17 Sept 1993, p.AE17]

Woo's camera is easily the star of the film -- poring over Van Damme's cheekbones and chest (and groovy new locks) in an effort to make an epic character of him, caressing shotgun barrels and split lips, expanding and contracting time like Silly Putty. [20 Aug 1993, p.AE17]

Allen's newest film is his best artistic work in years. [20 Aug 1993, p.AE17]

But director Underwood seems more interested in the schmaltz then the comedy. His career is following a downward line from the enjoyably funky creature-feature ``Tremors'' to the funny-but-corny ``City Slickers'' to this all-out sugar cube. [13 Aug 1993, p.AE15]

All the characters are treated with respect and affection, even at their most comical and deluded, but Lee knows how to stop just short of overplaying the emotional scenes. [27 Aug 1993, p.AE13]

Just when it seems like Axe Murderer is headed to the gas chamber reserved for bad comedies, something amazing happens: It gets funny. [30 July 1993, p.AE15]

An ambitious but shapeless mix of road movie, romance and critique of black male-female relationships. [23 Jul 1993]

The handful of laughs is overwhelmed by a dull assemblage of chase scenes (one involving a huge dog and an orange tabby), tilted camera angles and dangling plot threads. [23 July 1993, p.AE17]

A good comedy contains at least one of two vital ingredients: sharp, swift writing or terrific comic shtick by the actors. Unfortunately, Hocus Pocus -- like most Hollywood comedies these days -- has neither. That doesn't mean it's a terrible movie. It's not, though it loses focus and momentum two-thirds of the way through and limps home with unsurprising special effects. It's just not all that funny. [16 July 1993, p.17]

The movie's message -- repression is bad, self-expression is good -- is amiable, and Shore's androgynous appearance and mannerisms are more subversive stuff than the usual fish-out-of-water formula offers. But director Steve Rash can do nothing with the feeble comedy bits. [2 July 1993, p.15]

For all its cleverness and moments of power, What's Love Got to Do With It is missing more than the question mark at the end of the title. [18 Jun 1993, p.18]

Of course, expecting Super Mario Bros. -- a live-action version of the kid-addictive Nintendo game -- to be a complex experience is like looking for Pauly Shore to win appointment to the Supreme Court. Plenty of talented people obviously worked hard on Super Mario Bros. to create something they hope will seem imaginative. But they're all trying to breathe life into a marketing decision. [31 May 1993, p.B04]

An intermittently engaging and confused blend of biopic, chop-socky, dopey mysticism and, oddest of all, melodramatic weepie, is no ``JFK.''[7 May 1993, p.AE15]

But despite its audacious sexuality, Tokyo Decadence isn't really honest about its pornography -- or its politics. The sex scenes are more about the twisted uses of power than they are about erotica. And like a movie that purports to be anti-violent but racks up a dougle-digit body count to make its point, the film relies too much on sexual excess to make a persuasive argument against it. Its pretensions fail to conceal the emptiness at the heart of Murakami's vision. [30 July 1993, p.AE23]

How truly, madly, deeply mediocre is Indian Summer, the comedy-drama about adults returning to summer camp, released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures? So mediocre it makes the 1966 Disney scouts-in-the-woods comedy ``Follow Me, Boys'' look good. [26 Apr 1993, p.D05]

Badham, a journeyman director prone to coughing up hairballs such as ``The Hard Way'' and ``Bird on a Wire,'' does unexpectedly well with the supporting cast. He actually wrests a good performance out of Anne Bancroft, as a veteran operative who trains Maggie in feminine wiles and etiquette. Improving on Jeanne Moreau in the original, Bancroft is a fierce combination of society hostess and drill sergeant. [23 March 1993, p.D06]

It would make a fine TV after-school special. But after getting to know the thoughtful, funny Chantel from the first half of Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., you may find yourself thinking this terrific character deserves a better movie around her. [07 May 1993, p.AE15]

It's earnest but shallow, and condescends to the youth market it's obviously designed for. [05 Mar 1993]

Campbell is a whirlwind of action -- punching, kicking, pratfalling -- as well as a hilarious parody of a comic book hero. [12 March 1993, p.20]

It is Tomei's movie. The actress brings an energy and sincerity to her roles that takes them beyond whatever they were written to be and makes them almost unreasonably appealing. For all the improbabilities in Untamed Heart, the most improbable is that Caroline has a history of men running away from her. [15 Feb 1993, p.C06]

Loaded is draggy and repetitious in spots. But consider its task -- poking fun at a genre that is more than half comedy to begin with. And the remainder is so silly that restaging it is lampoon enough. [6 Feb 1993, p.C07]

Gere and Foster play out an exciting love story that is heartfelt, romantic and thoughtful. It slows a bit at the end but is beautifully produced and vaguely suggests the tale's original medieval setting. [05 Mar 1993, p.E16]

Thrilling. [22 Jan 1993, p.AE15]

So sick and twisted it makes David Lynch look like Walt Disney...This unrelenting, deeply upsetting image of a society in thrall to its own worst impulses recalls Stanley Kubrick's ``A Clockwork Orange,'' another suffocatingly thorough depiction of a world steeped in brutality. Man Bites Dog is a similar combination of impressive and repulsive. [3 Apr 1993, p.C10]

What Alive does show is engrossing, a virtually unique experience re-created thrillingly and surely as faithfully as we can stand. [15 Jan 1993, p.13]

Hoffa might have been - should have been - at least ambiguous about its controversial hero. [25 Dec 1992]