When you’re through watching The Daytrippers, you think about its minor imperfections, not because the film’s bad, but because it’s so good.

The acclaimed director’s Depression-era film ranks among the better-known Little Women adaptations.

There's a documentary-like realism to the movie, thanks to its authentic Maori cast and Tamahori's semi-improvisational approach to direction. Tamahori also gives everyone a sympathetic, realistic dimension.

Far from insipid, it's one of the funniest, and most affecting, movies to come around in a long time. The acting is polished, the writing superb. The jokes make you laugh. That's no small feat. [10 Mar 1978, p.15]

It is a gripping adult drama, as erotically violent as it is intellectually satisfying. [9 Nov 1984, p.27]

It's a terrific, disquietingly entertaining little film -- a piece of genuine Gothic Americana.

Target depends on a few sleights of hand, all transparent; so transparent that you quickly forget about what's wrong with the movie and focus on its strengths -- particularly a quirky, adventurous performance by Gene Hackman. [8 Nov 1985, p.C1]

Touching and funny eye-opener of a documentary.

Quite unintentionally, Ildiko Enyedi's My Twentieth Century demonstrates the importance of a good story in a film. The movie doesn't really have one, but this shortcoming, which keeps the Hungarian film unmistakably shy of greatness, is its only fault.

It's not always on target, but there's a spontaneity to the direction of Roger Spottiswoode of "Underfire," a loose, imaginative and screwy style. What holds it all together is the fine friendship between the two teammates, forged in the games men play, sapped by time, then rejuvenated in sweat and sport. [31 Jan 1986, p.23]

Yentl is Streisand. Either you like her or you don't. And if a little Streisand means a lot, then a lot is what you've got. [09 Dec 1983, p.25]

Sexy and 70ish, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas strut their stuff as grey foxes in the giddy, gag-happy gangster spoof for golden-agers, Tough Guys. These rough-and-tumblers seem to be drinking from that fountain of youth the seniors sought in "Cocoon."

Despite these lapses in decorum, Jane makes an impressive Tudor "Romeo and Juliet," full of pomp and circumstance. [7 Feb 1986, p.N19]

MOST Americans are probably having a hard enough time trying to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in Central America, and Oliver Stone's "Salvador" is careful not to help us take sides. Much to its credit, that's mainly what makes this political thriller so terrifying...It's not that there aren't any villains in this film -- based on the real-life account of photo-journalist Richard Boyle who co-wrote the screenplay with Stone -- but that there are so few good guys to turn to. [4 Apr 1986, p.29]

It's funny and sad and a little surreal, the kind of movie that makes you willingly suspend your disbelief. You don't have to be a kid to enjoy it, but you'll feel like one again when it's over.

Not Without emerges as a remarkably compelling, timely biographical melodrama about as painful a case of sexual and marital betrayal as one can imagine.

Shoot the Moon leaves you with more than fresh respect for Parker and Keaton. It also suggests that American family life has just begun to be depicted with true candor and sensitivity on the contemporary screen. [19 Feb 1982, p.D1]

A precise and elegant piece. [8 Apr 1988, p.D1]

In making her first film, Campion has done thrillingly atmospheric work, and in the process, established herself as perhaps the most perversely gifted young filmmaker to rise up in years.

It's great to watch characters in The War Room operating as most of us do -- by the seat of their pants.

A big, sprawling, unshapely thing, insufferably verbose and, at the same time, touched with magnificence.

At once retro and futuristic, the hyperstylized film recalls every wartime-era espionage/romance/noir flick, and in particular owes a debt to Lynch's Eraserhead, with its shadowy industrial backgrounds and throbbing soundtrack.

This first film from Sesame Street is this summer's sweetest surprise, a wholly good-natured children's comedy with enough wit and whimsy left over to win parents' hearts, too. Like the TV series, it's not violent, not threatening and not to be missed. [02 Aug 1985, p.23]

The ending is still pat, with lots of reasons for optimism, but "Something" is not as neatly—or falsely—resolved as most Hollywood films. Halstrom may be a cornball and a softy at heart, but he allows real hurt, real betrayal and real healing into his movie.

A bare-bones outline ignores the performances, the stirring music, the close-in camerawork and the direction of Steve Anderson. The emotional punch and atmosphere of the movie soar through any hokiness. Plummer's search for the son he never saw grow up becomes a powerful odyssey.

Even with its collapse, Parents is remarkably accomplished for a first outing. It's good enough to make you wish desperately that it had hung together.

[A] wacky but eminently watchable kitsch-mobile.

Richen makes excellent use of what remains.