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Terry Lawson
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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When Harry Met Sally... (1989) |
When Harry Met Sally... is a consistently, thoroughly funny movie. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Jul 09, 2024
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Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) |
While the idea of Dracula done up by the man who gave us the first two Godfather movies is intriguing, the Coppola we get here is the director from One From the Heart; he likes the landscape, but not the population. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted May 16, 2024
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Steel Magnolias (1989) |
Roberts makes us care about Shelby's fate far more than all the maudlin manipulation Ross and Harling can manage, which is plenty indeed. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Apr 30, 2024
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Postcards From the Edge (1990) |
What is does boast is a script by Fisher that ranks among the year's best and most insightful; astute direction from Mike Nichols... and two performances so achingly believable that they hardly seem like performances at all. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Apr 29, 2024
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Spaceballs (1987) |
It is with a great deal of pleasure that I inform you that Spaceballs is twice as funny as the title and that it is funny from blast-off to splashdown. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Apr 12, 2024
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Little Women (1994) |
It is sentimental stuff, but director Gillian Armstrong reduces the fat content by emphasizing context and character. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Apr 11, 2024
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Almost Famous (2000) |
Accurate as the film might be, it seems more suited to a memoir than a movie, at least a movie as slickly made and sweetly manipulative as Almost Famous. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Mar 26, 2024
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The Shawshank Redemption (1994) |
The Shawshank Redemption is affecting and entertaining, solely because first-time director Frank Darabont... lets his actors do the talking, and they play this piece at precisely the right pitch. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Mar 02, 2024
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Forrest Gump (1994) |
For all the film's excess, both social and sentimental, it remains an extremely moving experience, and that's because of the unabashed humanity at its core. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Mar 01, 2024
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Pulp Fiction (1994) |
With Pulp Fiction, Tarantino shows himself to be something more than a genre savant. If this movie doesn't exactly reinvent the form, it reassembles it into something darkly brilliant and brutally beautiful. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Feb 29, 2024
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Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) |
Four Weddings and a Funeral is just smart enough to avoid charges of total inconsequentiality, and just light enough to avoid being taken too seriously. It's just right. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Feb 28, 2024
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Dune (1984) |
David Lynch has gone against the usual book-to-movie logic: He has captured the letter of Frank Herbert's allegorical science-fiction novel, but none of its spirit. - The Journal-Herald (Dayton, OH)
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| Posted Feb 14, 2024
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Quiz Show (1994) |
The quiz-show scandal may have looked like a small blip on the screen, but this fine, provocative movie puts it in proper perspective. Don't look now, but the trouble is in your set. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Feb 13, 2024
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Grease (1978) |
Grease is a conventional musical in the sense that the stars break into song at every inopportune moment. But the choreography and staging is anything but conventional. - The Journal-Herald (Dayton, OH)
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| Posted Feb 08, 2024
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Heat (1995) |
Mann understands what too many directors, impressed by their credentials, do not; when Pacino and De Niro talk, the audience listens. We don't need to be browbeaten. Mann extends that respect for all of Heat. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Dec 21, 2023
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The Last of the Mohicans (1992) |
The rest of us can revel in what is certainly the best historically minded Hollywood movie since Glory, one that respects the intelligence of its story, its characters and its audience. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Dec 15, 2023
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Home Alone (1990) |
Both kids and adults will enjoy this funny holiday film. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Nov 28, 2023
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Alien (1979) |
If you're able to accept the blood and gore for the cinematic trickery it is, I can almost guarantee you the best time at the movies you may have had in years... Alien is commercial moviemaking at its very best. - The Journal-Herald (Dayton, OH)
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| Posted Nov 16, 2023
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Smoke Signals (1998) |
Much of the film is about the way young Native Americans react to the world outside, and how the world reacts to them, but... Smoke Signals avoids the main roads. It prefers to wander down little side paths, often in flashback. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Nov 08, 2023
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Goodfellas (1990) |
It is intimately personal, yet so removed as to remain nonjudgmental, and therefore totally trustworthy. We give into it without reservation, because its maker assures us with every shot, every move that he knows exactly what he’s doing. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Oct 18, 2023
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Taxi Driver (1976) |
It's an intense venture into the world of madness that alternately informs and provokes. It is classic American film. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Oct 06, 2023
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The Exorcist (1973) |
Friedkin performed a similar alchemy to that of Francis Ford Coppola [with The Godfather]: He took a good, pulpy novel and turned it into a great, enduring movie. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Y tu mamá también (2001) |
What originally appears to be a Mexican version of a raunchy teen sex comedy reveals itself to be not only the best foreign language film released this year, but also the best film, period. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Sep 09, 2023
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Lone Star (1996) |
Lone Star may attract an audience beyond his devoted band of admirers. If it does, it will owe no small amount of its success to its fine cast a mix of Sayles regulars, such as Cooper and Morton, and underused actors like Pena and Kristofferson. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Sep 06, 2023
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When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) |
While Garcia has the less flashy part, he effectively conveys the pain and frustration that lies behind his responsible, optimistic and calm airline pilot façade. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Sep 01, 2023
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White Men Can't Jump (1992) |
If "White Men" is low on the credibility scale, it's high on the personality side. Snipes is quickly proving himself to be one of the most versatile actors of his age, as suited to this brand of brach comedy as he is to romantic leads. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Aug 31, 2023
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Moscow on the Hudson (1984) |
[Maria Conchita] Alonso is nicely effective... she refuses to dwell on the obvious disadvantages of her background; she believes in her power to overcome obstacles. - The Journal-Herald (Dayton, OH)
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| Posted Aug 17, 2023
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Hard-Boiled (1992) |
That Hard-Boiled is the most audacious of all Woo's Hong Kong films cannot be argued... But Hard-Boiled's hackneyed plot does not fill up the time between the action sequences nearly as well as the ones concocted for The Killer [and others]. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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Batman (1989) |
On one hand, Batman is a brooding, ambitious, psychologically sensitive saga of dark motivations and shadowy desires. On the other, it's a dazzling piece of comic absurdity. Only in rare places do the two approaches gel. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Jul 25, 2023
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A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) |
Sturdy and stimulating enough to indicate that there might actually be a case for life beyond sequels, if not life beyond death. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Jul 18, 2023
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In the Mood for Love (2000) |
It's the rare intelligent movie which rejects thinking in favor of looking and feeling. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Jul 15, 2023
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The Matrix (1999) |
Casting the robotic Reeves as the hope of humanity may be this oppressively long, self-satisfied movie's funniest gag, but it doesn't really make the game any fun. It means we get stuck with the least interesting player. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Jul 13, 2023
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10 Things I Hate About You (1999) |
In terms of Shakespearean scholarship, "10 Things," directed with more energy than style by Gil Junger, may be but a footnote. But when they write the teen-flick book, this goes to the front of the class. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Jul 12, 2023
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Mulholland Dr. (2001) |
The result leaves us with dueling reactions: one, frustration with the intriguing plot lines introduced only to be abandoned; and two, a somewhat twisted satisfaction in a mystery that remains a mystery. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Jul 11, 2023
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Magnolia (1999) |
Anderson's ability to wring remarkable performances out of actors is proven not just by Cruise's... scary-hilarious portrayal of the self-deluded misogynist Mackey, but also by the incredible performances of Moore and Robards and young Jeremy Blackman. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Jun 30, 2023
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Armageddon (1998) |
It's still just second-quarter product, a moving illustration for a movie studio's annual report. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Jun 22, 2023
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Patriot Games (1992) |
Without reading the book, I can't really say whether the movie accurately reflects its contents; I can say that as action-suspense-spy thrillers go, Patriot Games delivers the goods. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Jun 06, 2023
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The Color Purple (1985) |
The Color Purple would have been richer, more textured and dimensional in the hands of someone more experienced in the handling of such sensitive material. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted May 31, 2023
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An American Tail (1986) |
It is not only beautifully rendered, it also boasts a well-told story, full of interesting characters and situations. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted May 17, 2023
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Heavenly Creatures (1994) |
Wholly original, Heavenly Creatures is a hellishly good surprise. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted May 16, 2023
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Crossing Delancey (1988) |
Crossing Delancey is an enjoyable and sweetly unassuming romantic comedy, graced by fine performances and telling insights into the state of modern relationships. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted May 15, 2023
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Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) |
Raiders of the Lost Ark, you see, is the real lalapalooza, a slam-bang, rock-'em-sock-'em adventure film that's as smart and witty as it is comic-book thrilling and exciting. - The Journal-Herald (Dayton, OH)
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| Posted May 03, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) |
One of the things that made Raiders such a delight was the way he was able to recapture the B-movie thrills of the old-time serials in A-movie style, and The Last Crusade accomplishes that as well, as its two-hours-plus speed by in a breathless rush. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted May 01, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) |
To describe and detail is to spoil the fun, and fun is absolutely all this movie is about... But the scenes between stunts in Indiana Jones are little more than pretty pieces of celluloid, bridges that get us from one hair-raising stunt to the next. - The Journal-Herald (Dayton, OH)
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| Posted Apr 18, 2023
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Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992) |
With a little more appreciation for the sophistication level of children, and as much attention paid to Winsor McCay's incredible gift of storytelling... [Little Nemo] could have been made into something more than a pleasant children's child. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Mar 07, 2023
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9 to 5 (1980) |
Nine to Five emerges as the best of the holiday comedies. - The Journal-Herald (Dayton, OH)
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Thelma & Louise (1991) |
If Thelma & Louise is thoroughly predictable, it is also thoroughly engrossing, even in its darker, uglier moments. - Dayton Daily News
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| Posted Feb 28, 2023
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The Truman Show (1998) |
This is acting that isn't, but Carrey doesn't let the two-way mirror throw him; his unreality becomes his only real truth. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Feb 14, 2023
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Wild Things (1998) |
In acknowledging its absurdity, McNaughton gets to make an exploitation movie and rise above it all at once. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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The Big Lebowski (1998) |
Bridges completely gets the Coens and what they are going for, or in this case, what they are avoiding. They may be the only filmmakers in the world who would consider hearing The Big Lebowski described as a waste of time as a compliment. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Jan 21, 2023
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