The surprise in Jaws 2 is that, given the givens, it came out as well as it did. For me, in terms of sheer visceral zapping, it’s better than the first time around (or under).

Both Wong and Soderbergh have understandably expressed their gratitude at, even in this tripartite way, being part of an Antonioni project... But Eros is better for what they contribute than for his work.

A potentially stifling ambience is deflected by quiet suspense and the awe-inspiring compositions of the cinematographer, Clay Liford. Decaying rustic interiors evoke Andrew Wyeth still lifes; pastoral long shots suggest a Southwestern walkabout. And Mr. Lowery seems ready for a bigger canvas.

A series of disconnected scenes alternating between two story lines, neither of which is cogent or concluded. The picture is tinged with the irrational.

Birth is one of those films occasionally encountered that make me question my nativity or that of the film-makers. Were they and I born on the same planet? If so, how could we now have such vastly different criteria of a film story's believability?

Just a series of episodes: it has no trace of the structure that has supported drama and comedy for two millennia.

Pappas's talking heads can't exactly solve the problem, but they help to keep us from forgetting it.

The screenplay, by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, based on a French film, has enough sharp gags and plot twists to sustain it, with an ending that manages to be nice.

I could have managed to bear all the film's shortcomings if it weren't for Clooney. Where was he during the making of this film? His face is there, he knows his lines, he moves as needed, but any traces of the intelligence and rapport, the subtlety and understanding, that have marked his best work are excruciatingly missing. Clooney behaves as if he discovered after he had committed to the film that he really didn't like the script as much as he thought he did but would go through with it anyway. The result is puppetry.

This film by Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus forces us to make some decisions about him. For myself, I find him generally gross, in person and in manner.

We become so distracted by the jigsaw effect that soon we are more concerned with the assemblage itself than with what it is about.

Ardant is marvelously genuine: fiery, petty, exalted.

All the actors caught me up so warmly that I stopped feeling guilty about liking this corny picture. [28 April 1997, p.30]

The film, so far as it is betrayable, is betrayed by the casting of Jean. She is played by Jennifer Lopez, a sexy star who is out of key with the picture and is presumably on hand to supply the oomph that Redford no longer provides.

The actors understand completely why they are there. The editing, complex because of several time strands, is more than skillful. But the screenplay by von Trotta and Pamela Katz suborns its subject.

Allen is wretched. It is no kind of pleasure to say so, especially with the memory of the good things he has done; but here he simply plunks front and center the fact that he cannot act and never could.

Not every stupid film sets out to be that way. But a furious zeal to entertain, especially to find twists, can push filmmakers past credibility, past twist, even past social decency. A dreadful example is Pushing Tin.

Fiennes has imagined and created from within. His Luther is not the thunderer we might expect, but he is, wondrously, the incarnation of a man passionate for God and angry with mundane intercessions.

The $25 million of his own that Gibson is said to have put into this film may be conscience money, and the savagery in the picture may--consciously or not--be Gibson's way of saying that violence is not always valueless.

The screenplay is at the start far from lucid in setting forth characters and relationships and intents. And after the film has been barreling along for two hours of its 148-minute journey, it seems to have lost the ability to finish. Three or four times in the last half-hour, I thought the film was over, only to be jarred by more of it.

Penn's film is very slow, sententious, ill-judged about the tensions he wants in long scenes. [18 Dec 1995, Pg.28]

The screenplay is schizoid. The first half is figuratively brassy, but then the violins begin to soar.

A moderately engaging satire, some of it amusing and some of it strained, but in considerable measure it reflects a strange circumstance in all our lives.

One reasonably dependable pleasure in Woody Allen's films is that he uses old-time songs, in moderately jazzed-up versions, on his soundtracks.

It's just one more dunk in the slime pit of exploitation. [13 Apr 1992, p.26]

A lot of talent has gone down the drain, an apt term since bathrooms loom in the picture. [22 Jun 1998, p. 26]

After the three hours--though it seemed longer--I was still bewildered. Stone is a unique and fiery talent. Why did he make this film?

It isn’t much of a story.