|
2/4
|
40%
|
Newsies (1992) |
"
Though the cast is large, no interesting or even moderately well-rounded personalities emerge from it, and no compelling relationships emerge between the characters."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 20, 2013
|
|
1/4
|
0%
|
Mac and Me (1988) |
"
Mac and Me is a 99-minute commercial occasionally interrupted by a not-so-good children`s movie."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 14, 2013
|
|
|
100%
|
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) |
"
This is a uniquely plausible portrait of life in England, yet its appeal isn't limited to social realism -- it also has a twist of buoyant fantasy and romance"
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 13, 2013
|
|
|
90%
|
Take the Money and Run (2001) |
"
Whatever its genesis, Allen's scraggly rhetoric evolved into the dominant comic style of the 70s."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 10, 2013
|
|
|
50%
|
Far From the Madding Crowd (1967) |
"
Thomas Hardy was not the most dynamic novelist in English literature, but this sluggish 1967 film still does him a serious disservice."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 9, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
91%
|
Scandal (1989) |
"
Caton-Jones is not the most stylistically assured of filmmakers, but his ability with actors is obvious. For this project, that is enough to turn the flat conventions of the docudrama into something resembling life."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 8, 2013
|
|
|
25%
|
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) |
"
The style hesitates between no-stops melodrama and glacial reserve without really finding a meaningful perspective on the action."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 8, 2013
|
|
|
46%
|
Agnes of God (2002) |
"
Despite all the anguished huffing and puffing, there isn't a single authentic moment in it."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 8, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
82%
|
Wish You Were Here (Too Much) (1987) |
"
Just as Lynda's language is an affront to her neighbors, so is Leland's film an enthusiastic assault on the excessive gentility of so much British filmmaking."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 8, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
70%
|
In Country (1989) |
"
This is no tribute to the war dead, but an unthinking betrayal of them -- they've been drafted again, this time to supply a climax to a second-rate tearjerker."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 7, 2013
|
|
|
92%
|
The Landlord (1970) |
"
Liberal guilt, with a few good laughs, a lot of frantic activity, and the occasional backfire."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 7, 2013
|
|
|
80%
|
Fiddler on the Roof (1971) |
"
Earthbound but not bad."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 7, 2013
|
|
|
76%
|
Tommy (1975) |
"
This 1975 film's inventiveness begins to flag about halfway through, but by then it's a relief. If only Wagner could have lived to see this."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 6, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
59%
|
Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me (1992) |
"
For a film with a pre-established conclusion, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me seems depressingly interminable."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 3, 2013
|
|
|
96%
|
On the Town (1949) |
"
A fine, freewheeling musical."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted May 3, 2013
|
|
|
——
|
City Streets (1931) |
"
Gary Cooper, in a fine, gangly performance as a saintly bootlegger, is worth watching."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Apr 11, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
86%
|
Akira (2001) |
"
Pounding away, it becomes monotonous."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Apr 10, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
70%
|
Batman (1989) |
"
The idea of doing a dark, neurotic, highly stylized and highly claustrophobic superproduction is an audacious and appealing one, but director Tim Burton has only made it halfway there."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Apr 10, 2013
|
|
|
91%
|
A Woman of Paris (1923) |
"
A moving and entertaining work, executed with high finesse by a master cineast."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Apr 2, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
92%
|
Jurassic Park: An IMAX 3D Experience (2013) |
"
The characters aren't much more well-defined than the anonymous victims of a teen horror movie... The dinosaur effects, however, are absolutely stunning, and sometimes so natural that one even forgets to be impressed."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Apr 1, 2013
|
|
|
83%
|
Performance (1970) |
"
Rapture and boredom both seem valid responses."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Mar 25, 2013
|
|
1/4
|
54%
|
Basic Instinct (1992) |
"
Verhoeven does not explore the dark side, but merely exploits it, and that makes all the difference in the world."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 25, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
72%
|
Dirty Dancing (1987) |
"
This is a shapely film, considered and concise. And if its rhetorical slickness eventually covers up its emotional core, that slickness has a pleasure of its own."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 25, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
93%
|
Matewan (1987) |
"
Sayles must have meant his movie to stir and provoke, but the self-contained look of it yields something else -- a sense of quaintness, of harmless nostalgia."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
86%
|
Eight Men Out (1988) |
"
Eight Men Out never gathers much authority; the old themes have been hung on a rickety structure that constantly threatens to collapse."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 20, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
87%
|
Field of Dreams (1989) |
"
The sentimentality, of which there is plenty, is nicely balanced by a humor of ironic pragmatism, as when Ray, having built his baseball field as a monument to human dreams, decides to charge tourists $20 a head to visit it."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 20, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
77%
|
A League of Their Own (1992) |
"
Few of the other performers make an impression. A director who can lose Madonna in a crowd can't be said to appreciate charisma."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 19, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
97%
|
Bull Durham (1988) |
"
Rather than a vapid national epic, it is a warm, droll, deftly cracked romantic comedy."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 11, 2013
|
|
|
96%
|
L'Argent (1983) |
"
Bresson, working his sound track as assiduously as his visuals, once again makes us realize how little use most films make of the resources of the cinema. A masterpiece."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Mar 5, 2013
|
|
|
97%
|
Pickpocket (1959) |
"
Robert Bresson made this short electrifying study in 1959; it's one of his greatest and purest films, full of hushed transgression and sudden grace."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Mar 5, 2013
|
|
|
100%
|
The Docks of New York (1928) |
"
Sternberg suppresses direct emotional appeal to concentrate on something infinitely fine: a series of minute, discrete moral discoveries and philosophical realignments among his characters."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Feb 27, 2013
|
|
|
95%
|
The Crowd () |
"
The camera style owes something to Murnau, but the sense of space -- the vast environments that define and attack his protagonists -- is Vidor's own. "
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Feb 26, 2013
|
|
|
60%
|
Frau im Mond (By Rocket to the Moon) (Woman in the Moon) (1929) |
"
Fritz Lang's last silent film is nothing special, looking more like the work of Lang's wife and screenwriter (and Nazi-to-be) Thea von Harbou."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Feb 25, 2013
|
|
|
63%
|
American Guerrilla in the Philippines (I Shall Return) (1950) |
"
A routine but effective war movie."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Feb 25, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
97%
|
Unforgiven (1992) |
"
This dark, melancholic film is a reminder-never more necessary than now-of what the American cinema is capable of, in the way of expressing a mature, morally complex and challenging view of the world."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Feb 20, 2013
|
|
—
|
——
|
Dirty Money () |
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 22, 2013
|
|
—
|
——
|
The Price of Love (1995) |
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 22, 2013
|
|
—
|
——
|
Water (2006) |
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 22, 2013
|
|
|
91%
|
Witness (1985) |
"
A moderately effective, highly affected thriller."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Jan 14, 2013
|
|
|
85%
|
Scrooge (A Christmas Carol) (1951) |
"
A sturdy 1951 British mounting of the Dickens tale, with Alastair Sim contributing a definitive Scrooge."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Dec 5, 2012
|
|
|
48%
|
The Lord of the Rings (1978) |
"
It looked terrible then and it still does: cartoon characters move differently from live actors, and the attempt to duplicate natural movement ends in stylistic incoherence."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Dec 3, 2012
|
|
|
80%
|
The Neverending Story (1984) |
"
Despite the sophistication of the source material, the film isn't particularly successful."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 26, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
The Thief of Bagdad (1940) |
"
Alexander Korda's opulent Arabian Nights fantasy suffers from pallid performances and frequently succumbs to kitsch, but it still casts its fragile spell."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 26, 2012
|
|
|
81%
|
Dragonslayer (1981) |
"
The film excels as a visual exercise, as a study in adolescent psychology, and even as astute political analysis."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 26, 2012
|
|
|
81%
|
The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) |
"
Hard to take, despite the clear personal commitment of director Michael Powell and the enormous amount of talent on display in the photography, set design, and choreography."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Nov 26, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
89%
|
They Live (1988) |
"
They Live is the looniest movie of the season and also one of the most engaging."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Oct 10, 2012
|
|
|
85%
|
The Omen (1976) |
"
Richard Donner directs more for speed than mood, but there are a few good shocks."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Oct 9, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Atlantic City (1980) |
"
A shimmering success."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Oct 7, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Les Miserables (1935) |
"
It isn't a bad example of the Hollywood prestige picture -- there is, at least, some liveliness in the performances."
—
Chicago Reader
Posted Aug 31, 2012
|
78%
50%
100%
85%
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