Quotes

[on the rats in Willard (1971)] They are no more scary than fat, friendly hamsters, except for one or two shots when they are seen by the hundreds - and hundreds of anything might be a scary sight, even hundreds of bishops.

Heaven's Gate (1980), which opens today at the Cinema One, fails so completely that you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter (1978), and the Devil has just come around to collect.

Loose Cannons (1990) runs only 94 minutes but goes on for hours and hours and hours.

[reviewing The Hunt for Red October (1990)] The movie finally is never very convincing. Even the special effects aren't great. Mr. Connery, however, wears the movie as if it were a favorite old hat. He makes it look good.

[reviewing Superman (1978)] For me it's as if somebody had constructed a building as tall as the World Trade Center in the color and shape of a carrot. Rabbits might admire it. They might even write learned critiques about it and find it both an inspiration and a reward, while the rest of us would see nothing but an alarmingly large, imitation carrot.

Everything about David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) is a deception. It's not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be.

[reviewing The Chosen (1977)] At one point I thought my foot had gone to sleep but it was only that my shoe was temporarily stuck to the floor by gum discarded by an earlier patron.

[reviewing Ladyhawke (1985)] Miss Pfeiffer, who may well be the most beautiful woman in movies today, is demonstrably someone worth risking eternal damnation for.

The Lighthorsemen (1987), which has been rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''), includes the sort of mildly vulgar soldier language spoken when boys are on their own.

[reviewing Mr. Klein (1976)] Mr. Delon is not aging especially well. Other actors with careers as long as his acquire, over the years, a lot of useful baggage in the form of associations to earlier performances. Mr. Delon has traveled a lot but his baggage is empty.

[reviewing Inchon (1981)] There are lots of terrific explosions but sometimes bodies fly magically into the air before a shell bursts. There are also many shots of sweet-faced Korean orphans looking fondly at their American benefactors. These exemplify the fawning attitude of the entire project, the exact purpose of which I find unpleasant without fully understanding it.

In Israeli films, family relationships are fundamental and secure, even if the film happens to be about changing attitudes toward them. One result is that Israeli films often seem too simple and sunny for sophisticated American audiences. What we fail to detect in the intensity of these feelings is an element that is far from sentimental, but is, rather, dark, obsessive - the need to establish continuity in the face of chaos.