|
4/5
|
89%
|
Near Dark (1987) |
"
There's a ghastly humor in all this, and Bigelow brings it out without overindulging it. Faced with a nearly repulsive subject, she makes the blood flow inside it, stream out over the cuts."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 6, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
92%
|
Carrie (1976) |
"
A voluptuously shot horror movie."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Oct 6, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
95%
|
Peeping Tom (1960) |
"
It still packs a wallop. Maybe that's because, in cinema, we're all peeping toms. And the camera, in skillful hands, can be an exquisite instrument of terror."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Oct 5, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
Battleship Potemkin (1925) |
"
The most brilliant of all Soviet silent films."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Aug 21, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
96%
|
Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens) (Nosferatu the Vampire) (1922) |
"
It's not just a great horror movie. It's a poem of horror, a symphony of dread, a film so rapt, mysterious and weirdly lovely it haunts the mind long after it's over."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Aug 21, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
93%
|
Out of Sight (1998) |
"
A darkly amusing and sly romantic comedy about an accident-prone bank robber (George Clooney) who falls in love with the sexy federal marshal (Jennifer Lopez) on his tail."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Aug 4, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
92%
|
Saving Private Ryan (1998) |
"
The great Hollywood battle films have told us repeatedly that war is hell. Saving Private Ryan, more than any other, is the one that shows it."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Aug 2, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
91%
|
Face/Off (1997) |
"
In Face/Off, Woo sweeps us away again, into a world of wild action, heroism, villainy and double faces that turn deadly."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Aug 2, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
96%
|
Supercop (Police Story 3) (Ging chaat goo si 3: Chiu kap ging chaat) (1992) |
"
Sly and Schwartzy, eat your hearts out. Chan's the man."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Aug 1, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
94%
|
Ruthless People (1986) |
"
The characters here aren't just bad; most of them are truly vile -- human slime. And the film makers chew them up (especially two nefarious bonbons played by Danny DeVito and Bette Midler) with the toothsome glee of jolly cannibals."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Jul 31, 2013
|
|
4.5/5
|
95%
|
Midnight Run (1988) |
"
Who said movies always have to be original? This one is redeemed by execution and brilliant talent: De Niro, Grodin, director Martin Brest, composer Danny Elfman, most of the cast and technicians."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Jul 30, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
95%
|
Apollo 13 (1995) |
"
Apollo 13, one of the most exciting adventure movies of the year, proves that science history can be just as thrilling as science fiction."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Jul 30, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
92%
|
Persona (1966) |
"
One of the screen's supreme works and perhaps Ingmar Bergman's finest film."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Jul 23, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
48%
|
Flatliners (1990) |
"
The movie's problem, like many others recently, is that it isn't any deeper, dramatically or psychologically, than its own trailer. It is the trailer: the long version."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Jul 1, 2013
|
|
4.5/5
|
97%
|
The Princess Bride (1987) |
"
Heroic fantasies, we often feel, should be lighter than air, hot as dragon fire, fast as a sword in sunlight. And that's mostly what we get from the delightful The Princess Bride -- along with some bracing humor and foolery."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Jun 28, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
89%
|
Trainspotting (1996) |
"
Trainspotting is a searing pop-art portrait of a lost generation blowing out its brains. As they rail, chuckle, shout and dive into darkness, you're trapped yourself between a bellylaugh and a scream."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Jun 26, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
84%
|
Safe (1995) |
"
You'd have to be cranky or blind to deny Haynes' artistry and vision. There's a dark power, a tremor that runs through the movie like the rumble of a secret dread."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Jun 24, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
94%
|
The Truman Show (1998) |
"
It's a satire/comedy/fantasy about the future of television and the people caught in its omnipresent electronic net: a supremely intelligent jape about a man named Truman Burbank."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Jun 19, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
88%
|
The Usual Suspects (1995) |
"
It's a nerve-shredding suspense movie about corruption, a bravura actor's show full of deliciously twisted cops and robbers, and a complex riddle packed with unexpected turns."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Jun 18, 2013
|
|
1/5
|
8%
|
Problem Child 2 (2004) |
"
Louder and dumber, more preposterous, unfunny and pointless."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Jun 5, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
15%
|
North (1994) |
"
It's a prime example of what can happen when hip, slightly cynical establishment filmmakers try to make a deeply sentimental movie."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Jun 5, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
5%
|
Caddyshack II (1988) |
"
On and on they come -- Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Jackie Mason, Dyan Cannon, Randy Quaid -- all trying to crack us up, all failing miserably."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Jun 4, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
16%
|
The Super Mario Bros. (1990) |
"
Ultimately, it's one more stop in the arcade, beckoning, waiting to soak up time and money."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 30, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
5%
|
No Holds Barred () |
"
The movie never takes itself seriously and director Tom Wright (TV's "Beauty and the Beast") has fun with the wrestling montages. Hogan himself has an appealing screen presence -- like a gallant teddy bear who goes berserk every 10 minutes or so."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 29, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
11%
|
Bushwhacked (1995) |
"
Bushwhacked isn't much of a movie. But it made me laugh more than I'd like to admit."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 28, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
10%
|
Fire Birds (1990) |
"
Lean, mean, clean and empty-hearted, Fire Birds is a video-game recruiting poster with a bomb ticking inside--a bomb that never goes off."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 28, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
11%
|
Calendar Girl (1994) |
"
As such, it's a cute picture; if you were looking for the ideal word to describe Calendar Girl, it might be watchable."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 28, 2013
|
|
1/4
|
0%
|
Wagons East! (1994) |
"
A sunshiney hodgepodge of bad jokes, nice scenery and reverse stereotypes."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 22, 2013
|
|
0.5/4
|
7%
|
In the Army Now (1994) |
"
The movie's best performance is given by a camel."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 22, 2013
|
|
1/5
|
8%
|
Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987) |
"
It's a gross parody of its original. And since the original was a gross parody to begin with, the whole thing begins to seem gaseous, overbright, hideously inflated, as if all the bodily function jokes were about to belch it right off the screen."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 21, 2013
|
|
1/5
|
6%
|
Vibes (1988) |
"
Vibes is a low-vibration romantic comedy about two incompatible psychics falling in love on an Ecuadorean treasure hunt, and everything in it seems nine or 10 beats off."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 21, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
40%
|
Newsies (1992) |
"
Certain movies engage your affections so strongly that, even if they start to fall apart, you tend to keep rooting for them. That's pretty much the case with Newsies."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 20, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
29%
|
The House of the Spirits (1994) |
"
The flaws aren't fatal. The beauty and brilliance that might have been, don't preclude the quality and bravery that exist on the screen."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 20, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
31%
|
Square Dance (Home is Where the Heart Is) (1987) |
"
story can move you even if it's predictable, and that's what Square Dance accomplishes. It makes contact with its people, its land; it makes us feel for them; it hews out a slice of the earth, our earth, and makes it real."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 20, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
22%
|
Color of Night (1994) |
"
It's a psycho-erotic thriller with more twists and shocks than the rattlesnake which, at one point, leaps out at star Bruce Willis-from a location we won't describe. (It would spoil one of the several dozen surprises.)"
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 17, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
94%
|
Pulp Fiction (1994) |
"
This movie gets its charge not from action pyrotechnics but from its electric barrage of language, wisecracks and dialogue, from the mordant '70s classicism of its long-take camera style and its smart, offbeat, strangely sexy cast."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 15, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
0%
|
Mac and Me (1988) |
"
It's an amazingly bald-faced copy of E. T. even though this is E. T. in a sticky wrapper, left under the heater two hours too long."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 14, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
80%
|
The Boxer (1997) |
"
Though we've seen this unquiet terrain before, this new film about boxing, star-crossed lovers and the Irish Republican Army temporarily gives us fresh eyes."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 14, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
14%
|
Dead Heat (1988) |
"
On the screen, it seems to be like a walking corpse itself: jerking around malevolently, with putrefying limbs, a fixed, grisly smile on its face and absolutely no spontaneity."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 13, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
20%
|
Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1990) |
"
Kickboxer 2 is better than Kickboxer, the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle that spawned it. But you have to realize this is a relative judgment, since that first movie... is widely regarded as a cinematic disgrace."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 13, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
69%
|
Dance Me Outside (1994) |
"
Funny, scary, appealing and bizarre."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 8, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
70%
|
In Country (1989) |
"
There's a decency about this movie that's almost palpable. It's not trying to pump us up with false jingoism or the sins of the past. Jewison, a Canadian, probably approaches the entire subject with a mediatory mood."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 7, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
59%
|
Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me (1992) |
"
At its best, it's a dream within a dream, a nightmare in endlessly reflecting pop mirrors, a screen full of TV-movie sex and horror kitsch blowing up right in our faces."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 3, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
34%
|
Hackers (1995) |
"
This is a movie that sums up the worst of the computer era: zapping you with techno-cliches and trapping you in constant visual crash and burn."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 3, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
31%
|
Hugo Pool (1997) |
"
It's as if Downey Sr.'s irreverence and off-the-wall humor couldn't quite co-exist with the heartfelt tribute he intends to make here to his wife and her fellow Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis sufferers."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted May 1, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
98%
|
The Wild Bunch (1969) |
"
The Wild Bunch is an American masterpiece, one of the greatest films ever produced in the Hollywood system."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Apr 29, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
78%
|
Addams Family Values (1993) |
"
At its best, it's a valentine of venom, sent with mirth and malice aforethought."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Apr 11, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
82%
|
The Crow (1994) |
"
What's scary about The Crow is the story and the style itself: American Gothic, Poe-haunted nightmare, translated to the age of cyberpunk science fiction, revenge movies and outlaw rock 'n' roll, all set in a hideously decaying, crime-ridden urban hell."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Apr 10, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
67%
|
Reality Bites (1993) |
"
It's a good example of an anti-establishment comedy crippled by a seeming desire to infatuate the establishment itself. What Reality Bites needs most is a good bite. From reality."
—
Chicago Tribune
Posted Mar 27, 2013
|
