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]