|
3.5/4
|
88%
|
Italiensk for Begyndere (Italian for Beginners) (2001) |
"
For Hollywood, love is the province of an aristocracy of the Beautiful and the Blessed. But in the world of Italian For Beginners, love is for us."
—
Globe and Mail
Posted Feb 23, 2002
|
|
|
100%
|
Ikiru (Doomed) (Living) (To Live) (1956) |
"
Akira Kurosawa's greatest film."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Apr 27, 2009
|
|
|
100%
|
The Dark Corner (1946) |
"
A pretty good thriller."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Apr 3, 2009
|
|
|
100%
|
Chinatown (1974) |
"
Polanski's film suggests that the rules of the game are written in some strange, untranslatable language, and that everyone's an alien and, ultimately, a victim."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Mar 27, 2009
|
|
|
90%
|
The Women (1939) |
"
[Cukor is] at his best with a cast that includes Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Hedda Hopper, Ruth Hussey, Paulette Goddard, and Joan Fontaine."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 11, 2008
|
|
|
90%
|
Pat and Mike (1952) |
"
The best of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn cycle."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 4, 2008
|
|
|
94%
|
Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) (1930) |
"
The first film collaboration between Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich, this reeks with decay and sexuality."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jul 28, 2008
|
|
|
79%
|
Richard III (1956) |
"
Laurence Olivier's classic rendition (1956) of Shakespeare's total villain contains one of his most engaging performances and reveals some of his best spatial manipulation of action."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jul 9, 2008
|
|
|
100%
|
The Big Heat (2001) |
"
Brutal, atmospheric, and exciting -- highly recommended."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Apr 9, 2008
|
|
|
100%
|
The Killers (1946) |
"
An example of film noir at its most expressive."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Apr 8, 2008
|
|
|
89%
|
Blazing Saddles (1974) |
"
One of the funniest awful movies ever made."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Apr 2, 2008
|
|
|
91%
|
California Split (1974) |
"
Robert Altman's masterful 1974 study of the psychology of the compulsive gambler."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Mar 25, 2008
|
|
|
92%
|
The Quiet Man (1952) |
"
John Ford's 1952 Oscar winner is a tribute to an Ireland that exists only in the imaginations of songwriters and poets like Ford."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Mar 11, 2008
|
|
|
67%
|
Toute Une Vie (And Now My Love) (1974) |
"
If Lelouch's sensibilities are too flimsy to substantiate his quasi-epic ambitions, the film nevertheless offers some cozy comforts and more than a few inside filmmaking jokes."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 15, 2008
|
|
|
100%
|
Top Hat (1935) |
"
This 1935 musical finds Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at the top of their form."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 11, 2008
|
|
|
——
|
Lady Windermere's Fan (1925) |
"
One of Ernst Lubitsch's greatest accomplishments."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 11, 2008
|
|
|
97%
|
Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise) (1945) |
"
It runs 187 minutes, and it's worth every one of them."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 9, 2008
|
|
|
100%
|
A Raisin in the Sun (1961) |
"
It does have enough gritty insights and (for the time) strikingly accurate production details to keep the level of interest up."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 13, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
Oliver Twist (1951) |
"
Alec Guinness as the master pickpocket Fagin is the high point of David Lean's 1948 version of the Dickens classic."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 6, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
Great Expectations (1947) |
"
The graveyard scene is still a shocker, the details are still astonishingly well assembled, and the performances are wonderful."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 6, 2007
|
|
|
94%
|
Pygmalion (1938) |
"
A marvelous 1938 adaptation of the Shaw classic."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 6, 2007
|
|
|
90%
|
The Day of the Jackal (1973) |
"
It's a polished and exciting thriller, mercifully unburdened with heavy political/philosophical digressions."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 1, 2007
|
|
|
92%
|
The Last Detail (1973) |
"
A tough-talking, sparely directed effort by Hal Ashby, with an immaculate performance by Jack Nicholson."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Oct 31, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
The Adversary (Pratidwandi) (Siddharta and the City) (2007) |
"
Ray's incredible warmth and superbly understated visual style can charm even those (like me) who don't find his films particularly compelling."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Oct 24, 2007
|
|
|
93%
|
Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) (1964) |
"
Pasolini uses a complex but seemingly stark and simple visual style, and he evokes wonderful performances from nonprofessionals Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, and Marcello Morante."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Oct 23, 2007
|
|
|
84%
|
Mildred Pierce (1945) |
"
The archetypal Joan Crawford movie."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Oct 17, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) |
"
Movies like this are beyond criticism."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Oct 16, 2007
|
|
|
91%
|
Cat People () |
"
More a film about unreasoning fear than the supernatural, this work demonstrates what a filmmaker can accomplish when he substitutes taste and intelligence for special effects."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 26, 2007
|
|
|
96%
|
Theater of Blood (Theatre of Blood) (Much Ado About Murder) (1973) |
"
Gory, imaginative, wildly melodramatic -- good fun."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 25, 2007
|
|
|
94%
|
Faust (1926) |
"
As atmospheric and menacing a work as the expressionist movement ever produced."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 25, 2007
|
|
|
89%
|
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1960) |
"
Aldrich's direction and dynamite performances from the two old troupers make this film an experience."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 24, 2007
|
|
|
91%
|
I Walked With a Zombie (1943) |
"
It transcends the conventions of the horror genre and remains one of Lewton-Tourneur's most compelling studies in light and darkness."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 24, 2007
|
|
|
94%
|
Deliverance (1972) |
"
John Boorman's 1972 film of the James Dickey novel has a beautiful visual style that balances the film's machismo message."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 18, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
A Hard Day's Night (1964) |
"
American-born director Richard Lester serves up a helping of what, on this side of the pond, we came to think of as kicky, mod British filmmaking."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Sep 10, 2007
|
|
|
87%
|
Love in the Afternoon (1957) |
"
As Andrew Sarris says, not without its cruelties, but not without its beauties as well."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 15, 2007
|
|
|
94%
|
One, Two, Three (1961) |
"
The pace is blistering, and Wilder's deep-seated hatred of Germans has never been put to more comic use."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 15, 2007
|
|
|
95%
|
The Fortune Cookie (1966) |
"
Wildly funny in spots..."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 15, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
Ball of Fire (1941) |
"
A delight."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 14, 2007
|
|
|
92%
|
Midnight (1939) |
"
Funny and forgettable."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 14, 2007
|
|
|
97%
|
Stalag 17 (1953) |
"
The resulting letdown is terrific, but along the way there is some of the funniest men-at-loose-ends interplay that Wilder has ever put on film."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 14, 2007
|
|
|
98%
|
Sunset Boulevard (1950) |
"
A tour de force for Swanson and one of Wilder's better efforts."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 14, 2007
|
|
|
98%
|
The Conversation (1974) |
"
Coppola manages to turn an expert thriller into a portrayal of the conflict between ritual and responsibility without ever letting the levels of tension subside or the complicated plot get muddled."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 12, 2007
|
|
|
92%
|
The Silence (1963) |
"
One of his most perfectly realized efforts."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 1, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
Lo sceicco bianco (The White Sheik) (1952) |
"
A funny, sardonic, and clever satire on popular heroes and ordinary people's illusions."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jul 31, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
The Magician (Ansiktet) (The Face) (1958) |
"
It is one of Bergman's most tightly structured and frightening films."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jul 30, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) |
"
John Huston has rarely been in better form than in this 1948 study of gold fever and worse obsessions among an unlikely trio of prospectors..."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jul 2, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
The African Queen (1951) |
"
The direction is often questionable, but the screenplay (by James Agee, John Collier, Huston, and Peter Viertel from C.S. Forester's novel) is a model of tight construction."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jun 28, 2007
|
|
|
95%
|
Nashville (1975) |
"
A rare and puzzling movie: beautiful and cruel, passionate but strangely shallow."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jun 27, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
Swing Time (1936) |
"
One of the best of the Astaire-Rogers musicals, and one that shouldn't have worked as well as it did."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jun 26, 2007
|
|
|
100%
|
Early Spring (Soshun) (1974) |
"
A casual yet meticulously detailed reconstruction of Japan's routinized white-collar milieu."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jun 20, 2007
|
66%
——
96%
