David Pirie

David Pirie's reviews do not count toward the Tomatometer®. This is not a Tomatometer-approved critic, and this critic's reviews are not published on a Tomatometer-approved publication.
Movie Reviews Only
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20% | Players (1979) |
The soapy plot is so incredibly old-fashioned that it might be forgiven if the script didn't keep hitting so many lines straight into the net. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 22, 2020
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68% | Taps (1981) |
A fascinating first hour is drowned in the clichés of siege cinema. - Time Out
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| Posted Dec 3, 2018
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47% | The Sentinel (1977) |
The only frightening thing about The Sentinel is its director's mind. - Time Out
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| Posted Sep 27, 2018
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93% | Theater of Blood (Theatre of Blood) (Much Ado About Murder) (1973) |
Comedy horror that really does give Vincent Price a chance to do his stuff, with deliciously absurd results. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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50% | Cruising (1980) |
Opening with some powerful moments, Cruising soon drifts into bloody Village People-type caricature. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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93% | Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1982) |
Miller's choreography of his innumerable vehicles is so extraordinary that it makes Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark look like a kid fooling with Dinky Toys. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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54% | California Suite (1978) |
Quick and varied comedy, highly suited to Neil Simon's machine-gun gag-writing. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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53% | King Kong (1976) |
The results of this technological bonanza are pretty mixed. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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56% | The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) |
Only Michael York's metamorphosis into a beast has any impact, and the film predictably fails to follow through even on that. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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90% | Blade Runner (1982) |
The android villains are neither menacing nor sympathetic, when ideally they should have been both. This leaves Scott's picturesque violence looking dull and exploitative. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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90% | Mad Max (1979) |
The tone sometimes wavers into self-parody, and there are occasional crude patches, but overall this edge-of-seat revenge movie marks the most exciting debut from an Australian director since Peter Weir. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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78% | Terms of Endearment (1983) |
Then The Illness strikes, and the film changes gear completely, pulling out all the stops and almost incidentally delivering one of the best-acted, most moving death-bed scenes in recent memory. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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100% | The Clowns (I Clowns) (1970) |
Fellini's documentary celebration of the dying art of the clown is his best film in years. - Time Out
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| Posted Jun 24, 2006
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60% | The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) |
The tone is beautifully sustained throughout, hovering just on the right side of conviction, with superbly understated comic performances from Camilleri and Meillon (the latter as a cosmically impotent mayor). - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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69% | Black Sunday (1977) |
Unfortunately, all the major characters have a whiff of Hollywood artifice, largely because (as has happened too often before in his career) Frankenheimer gets carried away by their verbosity. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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75% | The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) |
The effects aren't simply fascinating for their own sake -- they genuinely convey a sense of the magical and otherworldly. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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86% | Poltergeist (1982) |
It is consistently redeemed by its creator's dazzling sense of craft. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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63% | Cujo (1983) |
This adaptation on a modest budget from Stephen King's bestseller about a rabid St Bernard is a pleasing illustration of the filmic simplicity at the heart of King's better writing. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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5/5 | 98% | The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) (1920) |
Undoubtedly one of the most exciting and inspired horror movies ever made. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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92% | Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) |
Has distinct limitations, but the current return to a cinema of spectacle and wonder is wholly encouraging. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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86% | Crack in the World (1965) |
The theme often seems awesomely credible and the special effects are excellent, although the usual character conflicts in the scientific team become trying at times. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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60% | Conquest of Space (1955) |
A fascinating relic. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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94% | Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) |
The first film in years to give its audiences a tingle of shocked emotion that is not entirely based either on fear or on suspense. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 9, 2006
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94% | Dawn of the Dead (1979) |
Undoubtedly the zombie movie to end 'em all. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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86% | The Omen (1976) |
This apocalyptic movie mostly avoids physical gore to boost its relatively unoriginal storyline with suspense, some excellent acting (especially from Warner and Whitelaw), and a very deft, incident-packed script. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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90% | A Woman Under the Influence (1975) |
An astonishing, compulsive film, directed with a crackling energy. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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92% | Wanda (1971) |
The film is all the more impressive for its refusal to get embroiled in half-baked political attitudinising. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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93% | Village of the Damned (1960) |
The atmosphere and pace are superbly handled, and the performances of the sinister, inhumanly intelligent 'children' never falter. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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98% | E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) |
Although conclusively demonstrating Spielberg's preeminence as the popular artist of his time, E.T. finally seems a less impressive film than Close Encounters. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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79% | The Dark Crystal (1982) |
Desiccated, clawing villains feasting on rotting food in a castle as unprepossessing as the crashed spaceship in Alien have a splendour that is almost operatic. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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80% | Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) |
Full of the sensual mysteriousness which Hammer used to achieve so effortlessly during their long occupation of Bray Studios. - Time Out
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| Posted Jan 26, 2006
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