Gary Arnold

Gary Arnold Washington Post Apr 27, 2026 "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan" suffers from the same imaginative deficiencies apparent in "Omen II" and "Jaws 2." All three movies seem to presuppose an audience that demands duplication but remembers nothing. Go to Full Review The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978) 11% 29%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Apr 14, 2026 It struggles to justify itself as something more than a pale copy of resorting to exaggerated displays of ribaldry and lovability. Go to Full Review The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) 42% 60%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Mar 26, 2026 It is spontaneously funny entertainment helped enormously by the presence of Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal. Go to Full Review The Bad News Bears (1976) 90% 80%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Feb 4, 2026 It may be artistic suicide for Malick to continue his style of pictorial inflation without also enriching his scenarios. If he doesn't, he's likely to be remembered not for his undeniable pictorial talent but for his eccentricity Go to Full Review Days of Heaven (1978) 93% 89%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Jan 28, 2026 The shocks are strictly mechanical and redundant, the script uncomplicated by incidental humor or character byplay. Go to Full Review My Bloody Valentine (1981) 39% 52%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Oct 20, 2025 From opening wolf howls through ominous, ambiguous concluding images, it sustains an exciting, witty, erotically compelling illusion of supernatural mystery and terror. Go to Full Review Dracula (1979) 63% 58%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Oct 1, 2025 Fascinating as they are as discreet sequences, the computer-animated episodes don't build dramatically. They remain a miscellaneous form of abstract spectacle. Go to Full Review Tron (1982) 61% 67%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Sep 9, 2025 Despite the improvisational acting methods, Reiner's film never wanders conceptually. The episodes and characterizations are wedded to a consistent, benevolent comic vision. Go to Full Review This Is Spinal Tap (1984) 98% 92%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Apr 7, 2024 Sidney Lumet's gritty and gripping semi-documentary crime melodrama "Dog Day Afternoon” is a triumphant new classic of American movie naturalism. Go to Full Review Dog Day Afternoon (1975) 94% 90%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Mar 1, 2024 The portentousness is often a disservice to the actors, embedded in dead air with roles too feebly written to get the ventilation going. Go to Full Review The Verdict (1982) 88% 88%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Jan 29, 2024 People who believe that all that smoke must indicate one hell of a fiery movie might be rather dismayed by the movie itself. Go to Full Review Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) 72% 48%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Jan 29, 2024 The Touch is utterly ridiculous, the probable low point of Ingmar Bergman’s often trying but independent and distinguished artistic career. Go to Full Review The Touch (1971) 64% 39%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Nov 20, 2023 The Duellists is Scott's first feature, but it reflects a forceful as well as masterly command of settings, lighting and composition. Pictorially, this is the most evocative period movie since McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Go to Full Review The Duellists (1977) 75% 83%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Nov 16, 2023 Sigourney Weaver is the only newcomer in the cast, but her movie debut may generate instant stardom. Weaver... is an experienced theater actress, and she brings an exciting combination of intelligence, bravery and sex appeal. Go to Full Review Alien (1979) 93% 94%

Gary Arnold Washington Post May 12, 2023 This labor of love and persistence hasn't resulted in a masterpiece, but it has been justified by a movie of exceptional charm and sentimental potency. Go to Full Review Yentl (1983) 69% 75%

Gary Arnold Washington Post May 4, 2023 It is a transcendent blend of heroic exploits, cliffhangers and chases distilled with nostalgia and wit from the pulp thrillers, comic books and Republic serials of the World War II era. Go to Full Review Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 94% 96%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Apr 18, 2023 An exceptionally energetic but also grotesque and finally wearisome spectacle of gratuitous sensations and perilous exploits. Go to Full Review Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 77% 82%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Mar 7, 2023 Despite its progressive tone, oddly reminscent of Soviet films that used to enthuse over the brighter day ahead and urge their publics optimistically onward, "One Sings" represents a regression in every crucial respect. Go to Full Review One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977) 65% 81%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Mar 2, 2023 A farce with an unsightly vindictive streak, Nine to Five squanders its costars in the roles of fuming secretaries who conspire to turn the tables on their domineering fool of a boss. Go to Full Review 9 to 5 (1980) 71% 68%

Gary Arnold Washington Post Aug 8, 2022 The problem with Paper Moon is that it’s hollow at the center. The central relationship, involving a small-time con man and a tough little girl who practice a Bible-selling racket in the Midwest during the Depression, remains undeveloped and unaffecting. Go to Full Review Paper Moon (1973) 91% 94%