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
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81% | To Each His Own (1946) |
A fine example of the genre, but not for jaded tastes. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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95% | Jeremiah Johnson (1972) |
The dialogue is spare, the scenery the real star. Satisfying and impressive. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Nov 16, 2017
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63% | The Big Feast (La Grande Bouffe) (1973) |
Hilarious, stomach-turning, morbid, breezy, funny, and sad. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Nov 16, 2017
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80% | Applause (1929) |
Though this is Mamoulian's earliest, it's possibly his freshest film. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 7, 2016
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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
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| Posted Oct 2, 2015
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79% | Papillon (1973) |
Director Franklin J. Schaffner has succeeded in making a two-and-a-half-hour film that seems like six. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 23, 2015
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90% | Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianiste) (1962) |
Made with enthusiasm and audacity, it still seems fresh. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 23, 2015
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100% | The Lost World (1925) |
Harry Hoyt directed, combining incredible special effects (the monsters) and unbearable melodrama (the actors). - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 8, 2015
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42% | Brother Sun, Sister Moon (Fratello sole, sorella luna) (1972) |
Soft-focus spiritual gunk. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 11, 2015
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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
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| Posted Mar 9, 2015
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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
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| Posted Oct 16, 2014
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90% | 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
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| Posted Jul 14, 2014
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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
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| Posted May 7, 2014
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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
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| Posted Jul 23, 2013
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75% | Riten (The Rite) (The Ritual) (1969) |
A rarely seen but thoroughly captivating example of filmed chamber theater. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jul 22, 2013
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100% | The Gang's All Here (1943) |
Busby Berkeley's most audacious film. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 13, 2013
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73% | 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
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| Posted May 1, 2013
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25% | Detroit 9000 (1998) |
A gritty, disturbing evocation of the ambiguities of big-city police work. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 4, 2013
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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
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| Posted Mar 4, 2013
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93% | Pandora's Box (1929) |
One of the classic films of the German silent era. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 27, 2013
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98% | Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette) (The Bicycle Thief) (1949) |
Undeniably the most important neorealist film after Rossellini's Open City. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 14, 2013
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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
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| Posted Dec 7, 2012
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96% | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) |
This is classic Capracorn. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Aug 29, 2012
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81% | Operation Petticoat (1959) |
Blake Edwards directs with his customary wit, breeziness, and acute sense of pacing. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 15, 2012
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87% | Magnificent Obsession (1954) |
[Sirk provides] a coolly formal approach to otherwise unwieldy projects. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 30, 2012
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92% | Mister Roberts (1955) |
Henry Fonda stars, as brilliant as ever. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 10, 2012
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98% | The Thin Man (1934) |
One of the most popular comedies ever made. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 10, 2012
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96% | 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
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| Posted Feb 10, 2012
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96% | 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
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| Posted Feb 10, 2012
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100% | Captain Blood (1935) |
Michael Curtiz, the most polished of Warner's studio technicians, starts Flynn off royally. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 10, 2012
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69% | 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
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| Posted Feb 3, 2012
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92% | Wanda (1971) |
A brilliantly atmospheric film with a superb performance by Loden. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 22, 2011
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82% | Thieves Like Us (1974) |
At times unbearably objective. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 23, 2011
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100% | National Velvet (1944) |
A good movie for kids and armchair Freudians. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 23, 2011
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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
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| Posted Mar 23, 2010
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98% | Ikiru (1956) |
Akira Kurosawa's greatest film. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 27, 2009
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100% | The Dark Corner (1946) |
A pretty good thriller. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 3, 2009
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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
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| Posted Mar 27, 2009
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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
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| Posted Oct 18, 2008
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81% | 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
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| Posted Oct 13, 2008
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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
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| Posted Sep 11, 2008
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77% | 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
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| Posted Sep 9, 2008
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91% | 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
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| Posted Sep 9, 2008
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85% | Pat and Mike (1952) |
The best of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn cycle. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Aug 4, 2008
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96% | 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
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| Posted Jul 28, 2008
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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
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| Posted Jul 9, 2008
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64% | The Way We Were (1973) |
A for effort; C for execution. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 26, 2008
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88% | Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different (1972) |
Fans will have most of it memorized by now. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 14, 2008
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100% | The Big Heat (1953) |
Brutal, atmospheric, and exciting -- highly recommended. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 9, 2008
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100% | The Killers (1946) |
An example of film noir at its most expressive. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 8, 2008
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