Nothing too fancy or ambitious. Instead, writer-director George Tillman Jr. serves up down-home fare that enriches the heart and leaves you satisfied if stuffed. [26Sep1997 Pg.06.D]

Even though there are a bunch of interesting personalities (like Ron Perlman’s strongman Bruno), Nightmare Alley lacks the human connections that not only made del Toro’s last effort, best picture winner The Shape of Water, so entrancing but also populate the 1947 adaptation of Gresham’s book.

The Hoax lures you in with its captivating performances.

Lethal Weapon 2 is bang-bang and brain-dead in roughly equal measure. If there's an advantage this time out, it's that the film seems to play the action (and its lead character's psychoses) more for laughs. [7 Jul 1989, p.1D]

The new Wuthering Heightsis all gloomy moors and muck, but not much convincing passion.

Unstintingly explores and exposes excruciating pain, raw grief, ruinous vengeance and life-affirming resilience, creating human portraits that are uncommonly exhilarating in their honesty. This is cinematic art in its highest form.

Caramel is a sweeter and more believable version of "Steel Magnolias," Middle Eastern style.

Though the plot can be vague and occasionally convoluted, Harrelson is mesmerizing.

Unlike the corner of the entertainment industry it tackles, Mindy Kaling’s quick-witted screenplay for “Late Night” doesn’t go for cheap laughs, but instead wields incisive barbs to successfully make its point.

Crystal is in top form, and if laughs are all you want, this movie has them.[7 June 1991, p.2D]

A few crude verbal exchanges nearly got Clerks an NC-17 rating; some (not all) of these provide some of the funniest moments in a film that's funny about 30% of the time. [24 Oct 1994]

Though Robocop is too well-crafted to be entirely loathsome, it's at best an amoral goof. Yet like the comparably silly Lethal Weapon, it cynically pushes all the right action-audience buttons. Better duck - here comes a monster hit. [17 Jul 1987]

Writer/director Frank LaLoggia's chiller about the dark underbelly of an idyllic small town is so effectively heartfelt yet also creepy that it's surprising he couldn't parlay it into more assignments.

Old Guard feels fresher as a high-minded treatise on mortality and loss than a superhero-y franchise-starter.

While potent and well-paced, Contagion doesn't come together as the fearsome bio-thriller it starts out to be. But it may make audiences twitchy about the guy coughing in the next row.

This is a filmmaker who instinctively knows that a shot of Santa sitting at a bar as Ricky Nelson sings Jingle Bells will be no-frills funny.

It could have delved a little deeper to keep us wide-eyed and engaged.

It's a pleasure to watch these men perform. These are real-life guitar heroes. But it would have been a treat to see more of them talking shop.

Deftly directed by 26-year-old Alek Keshishian, who was granted near-total access by the attention-craving star, the film is somewhat bloated at two hours, but still the freshest rockumentary since Don't Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker's brilliant Bob Dylan study. [10 May 1991, p.2D]

Both embracing and deconstructing the genre, "Materialists" is a well-acted affair with three A-list leads – Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal – and while certainly thoughtful, the film's strengths are upended by a mood-murdering melancholy.

This is a Frank Capra-meets-Judd Apatow comedy with a sweetness-laced ribaldry.

A gently funny ensemble comedy that feels less like a movie than a short story.

At a time when romantic comedies seem to have exhausted unique ideas, along comes Lars, an original, amusing and heartfelt tale sharply written by Nancy Oliver (Six Feet Under).

The movie and its theme of self-acceptance has an honesty, undercut by occasional preciousness, that makes it worth seeing.

Tarantino exercises both his obsession with vengeance and his fascination with the movies.

Fast and slick, it recalls The Buddy Holly Story - perhaps the last pop bio that was this much fun to watch. [7 May 1993, p.4D]

Just as its characters need a reason to live, Go needs a reason for audiences to watch. Neither find much satisfaction.

There's a cold intelligence at work here. Though its pleasures are plentiful enough to reward a second viewing, only Nicholson has saved Warners from a wing-clip. [23 June 1989, Life, p.1D]