Director Roman Polanski co-stars with and directs wife Sharon Tate in their only collaboration. That's one reason this box office bomb, which came out less than two years before Tate was murdered by Charles Manson's crew, has picked up a following. [08 Oct 2004, p.4E]

Director Peter Berg's frenetic style heightens tension and a sense of disorientation. But some will find its chaotic quality dizzying and off-putting.

Delivers diverting comic fluff for the bland clan's fans. [23 Aug 1996, p.8D]

That Circle of Life everybody was singing about three decades ago? Thanks to Jenkins’ inimitable grace and Miranda’s tuneful swagger, it continues to feel vibrant.

A light, sweet romantic comedy and a Manhattan-without-fear setting make Night a charmer, especially for young couples falling in love. But just as falling in love demands a willing suspension of disbelief, so does this tale of revolving roommates. [3 May 1993, p.8D]

Snipes seems lost. A key player in the novel by virtue of his first-person narration, Snipes' character - now third-person - is all but a non-person. Mostly, he reacts Watson-style to Connery's Sherlock Holmes musings; an attempt to incorporate Snipes' street buddies into a car chase is the film's weakest scene. [30 July 1993, p.1D]

The movie is sure to appeal to fans of the show. But when quality family films, such as "Holes" and "Bend It Like Beckham," are also in theaters, why waste your time on this drivel? The answer, of course, is the kids will insist on it.

Dead-on as entertaining eye candy, a bona fide guilty pleasure -- for the first hour. But the movie loses steam and the sequences that dazzled in the beginning get overshadowed by the excesses of later scenes.

A lot of cinematic ineptitude and moral turpitude can be forgiven in the final 40 minutes, when Halicki redeems his movie by staging one of the greatest car chase scenes in history -- one without much, if any, fakery. [01 Dec 2000, p.8E]

(Craven) and his Scream dream team have done a frightfully good job of killing off and wrapping up the popular horror series.

This wee trinket of a comedy, one of the more offbeat stabs at capturing the absurdity of the religious and political strife in Ireland, is for those who like their Guinness with a shot of wry.

The middling result, diverting while it lasts but too silly to recommend, is merely this week's funhouse action pic. [21 Jun 1996 Pg.01.D]

By contrast, other Hornby screen adaptations are "About a Boy" and "High Fidelity"- superb comedies both and, in Fidelity's case, a treatise on male obsession with far more depth and even more laughs.

Rather than a glossy, superficial movie-star vanity project, In the Land of Blood and Honey feels like the sober, hard-hitting work of a humanitarian.

Its rewards may not be eternal, but Heart and Souls will likely satisfy those who love their chuckles choked with tears. [13 Aug 1993, p.4D]

While style trumps substance, something in the way this '60s tribute moves attracts us.

From the moment he trudges through the woods in his scratched and smudged birthday suit, Paul Bettany as a saucy Geoffrey Chaucer takes command.

The Two Jakes turns out to be a surprisingly rich movie - if you're willing to spend 138 minutes on what is essentially a psychological study. [10 Aug 1990]

Hopped-up Falling Down is a technically proficient grabber that exploits white-male angst while adeptly juggling two stories filmed in contrasting styles. Slick, maybe facile, and with a nasty streak, it is nonetheless 1993's first consistently engrossing movie. [26 Feb 1993, p.1D]

A two hour aquatic pursuit pic with bruising stunts, fun-to-watch performances, a dozen good chortles and imposing Panavision renderings of post-apocalyptic crud, Waterworld clearly has the makings of a cult movie.

While Van Peebles' ambitions are epic-size, his results, sad to say, are less so. This is one messy Western omelet - highly edible but overscrambled. [14 May 1993, p.3D]

But certainly this is a movie for fans of Willis-style action with a little James Bond and probable instant obsolescence thrown in.

When it focuses on the clash of cultures, laughs naturally flow. When it follows the familiar sports movie playbook too slavishly, it grows tedious.

Those with a taste for irreverent humor and clear-eyed analysis will find it funny, enlightening and disturbing.

As wedding stories go, it's an improvement over the dreadful "Something Borrowed," though it doesn't have anything terribly new to say.

As stuffed with beguiling performances - some of them unexpectedly good - as its script is overstuffed. And though even the beguiled may feel manipulated the next morning (or when hitting the exits), the players put it over by a nose. Happy holidays.

The Glass Castle offers up a movie clan to beat in terms of complete dysfunction, though the brutal and heart-wrenching film is in its own way just as much of a mess.

Another of director David Cronenberg's queasy early horror films that, like The Brood and Videodrome, gets under your skin. [04 Jun 2004]