Don Druker

Don Druker
Don Druker's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): Chicago Reader Globe and Mail
Publications: Chicago Reader, Globe and Mail

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
95% Jeremiah Johnson (1972) The dialogue is spare, the scenery the real star. Satisfying and impressive. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
67% The Big Feast (La Grande Bouffe) (1973) Hilarious, stomach-turning, morbid, breezy, funny, and sad. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
85% Applause (1929) Though this is Mamoulian's earliest, it's possibly his freshest film. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 7, 2016
91% The Harder They Come (1973) With this 1972 cult hit, Jamaican filmmaker Perry Henzell produced a proud, forthright indictment of national and personal corruption. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 2, 2015
80% Papillon (1973) Director Franklin J. Schaffner has succeeded in making a two-and-a-half-hour film that seems like six. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 23, 2015
93% Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianiste) (1962) Made with enthusiasm and audacity, it still seems fresh. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 23, 2015
100% The Lost World (1925) Harry Hoyt directed, combining incredible special effects (the monsters) and unbearable melodrama (the actors). - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 8, 2015
42% Brother Sun, Sister Moon (Fratello sole, sorella luna) (1972) Soft-focus spiritual gunk. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 11, 2015
100% Salesman (1968) This 1968 study of door-to-door Bible salesmen in the Boston area and in the south is a superb and truthful look at an American institution -- and at the troubling relationship between fact and fiction, materialism and spiritual values. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 9, 2015
100% Shonen (Boy) (1969) Oshima, the Japanese filmmaker most often compared with Godard, treats the material in a matter-of-fact manner that serves to heighten the dramatic impact and to create one of the most interesting films about children ever made. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 16, 2014
92% The Lion in Winter (1968) James Goldman's screenplay, so chic and sophisticated to the ears of suburbanites, is chock-full of the worst kind of sophomoric fiddling with what Goldman takes to be genuine highfalutin lingo. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 14, 2014
92% Bang The Drum Slowly (1973) The material is trite, but Hancock's slow-motion treatment of the experience of athletic performance is adroit and graceful. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted May 7, 2014
100% Såsom i en Spegel (Through A Glass Darkly) (1961) Elaborately rhetorical at the end, this 1961 film nevertheless develops its theme lucidly and with some of Bergman's most unforgettable sequences. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 23, 2013
71% Riten (The Rite) (The Ritual) (1969) A rarely seen but thoroughly captivating example of filmed chamber theater. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 22, 2013
100% The Gang's All Here (1943) Busby Berkeley's most audacious film. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 13, 2013
85% Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) A thoughtful, intelligent film that nearly makes up in style and conviction what it lacks in dramatic substance. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted May 1, 2013
25% Detroit 9000 (1998) A gritty, disturbing evocation of the ambiguities of big-city police work. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 4, 2013
100% Woman in the Dunes (Suna no Onna) (1964) A bizarre film, distinguished not so much by Kobo Abe's rather obvious screenplay as by Teshigahara's arresting visual style of extreme depth of focus, immaculate detail, and graceful eroticism. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 4, 2013
92% Pandora's Box (1929) One of the classic films of the German silent era. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 27, 2013
98% Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette) (The Bicycle Thief) (1949) Undeniably the most important neorealist film after Rossellini's Open City. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 14, 2013
95% Beauty and The Beast (La Belle et la bête) (1946) A sublime, sumptuous film directed by Jean Cocteau with the help of Rene Clement. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2012
95% Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) This is classic Capracorn. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 29, 2012
85% Operation Petticoat (1959) Blake Edwards directs with his customary wit, breeziness, and acute sense of pacing. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted May 15, 2012
87% Magnificent Obsession (1954) [Sirk provides] a coolly formal approach to otherwise unwieldy projects. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 30, 2012
92% Mister Roberts (1955) Henry Fonda stars, as brilliant as ever. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2012
97% The Thin Man (1934) One of the most popular comedies ever made. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2012
95% I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) Based on a true story, its style is simple, direct, forceful -- even after more than six decades. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2012
95% Stage Door (1937) While it sometimes lapses into pure corn, it nevertheless manages to capture the manic-depressive dormitory atmosphere of young actresses trying to make it in New York. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2012
100% Captain Blood (1935) Michael Curtiz, the most polished of Warner's studio technicians, starts Flynn off royally. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2012
70% The Towering Inferno (1974) Irwin Allen, the Busby Berkeley of natural disasters and other people's troubles, teams up with John Guillermin, a competent if undistinguished action director. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 3, 2012
91% Wanda (1971) A brilliantly atmospheric film with a superb performance by Loden. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2011
86% Thieves Like Us (1974) At times unbearably objective. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted May 23, 2011
100% National Velvet (1944) A good movie for kids and armchair Freudians. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 23, 2011
No Score Yet Bank Shot (1974) The best thing about the film is Harry Stradling Jr.'s super photography - but that's scarcely enticement to see a really minor Scott vehicle. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 23, 2010
100% Ikiru (1956) Akira Kurosawa's greatest film. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 27, 2009
100% The Dark Corner (1946) A pretty good thriller. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 3, 2009
99% 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 EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 27, 2009
100% There Was a Father (1942) A delicate, straightforward exhortation to duty and sacrifice, presented with both humor and a kind of unforced serenity. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 18, 2008
80% On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) Director Peter Hunt manages to inject some life into this 1969 exercise with a wonderful ski chase, but otherwise the film is a bore. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2008
92% 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 EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2008
76% Charlotte's Web (1973) It preserves some of the form and language of White's original but fattens and sweetens his lean and pungent prose with songs by Richard and Robert Sherman. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 9, 2008
90% Fantastic Planet (1973) The film has a flat quality that cannot entirely be overcome by the sensational animation and the obvious good intentions of its creators. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 9, 2008
90% Pat and Mike (1952) The best of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn cycle. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2008
95% 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 EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 28, 2008
84% 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 EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 9, 2008
65% The Way We Were (1973) A for effort; C for execution. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted May 26, 2008
91% Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different (1972) Fans will have most of it memorized by now. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted May 14, 2008
100% The Big Heat (1953) Brutal, atmospheric, and exciting -- highly recommended. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 9, 2008
100% The Killers (1946) An example of film noir at its most expressive. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 8, 2008
91% Blazing Saddles (1974) One of the funniest awful movies ever made. - Chicago Reader EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 2, 2008