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

Movies

T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
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
64%	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
89%	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
83%	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
80%	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
83%	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) (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
90%	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
100%	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
71%	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
93%	Wanda (1971)	A brilliantly atmospheric film with a superb performance by Loden. - Chicago Reader EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 22, 2011
89%	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
98%	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
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 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
89%	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
82%	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
64%	The Way We Were (1973)	A for effort; C for execution. - Chicago Reader EDIT Read More \| Posted May 26, 2008
90%	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