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Evil Dead 2
(1987)
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David Ansen
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Keep your eye on Raimi: it's not easy to pitch a comedy at a level this flamboyant and then keep topping the gags.
Posted Mar 29, 2023
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Boys on the Side
(1995)
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Karen Schoemer
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Once the film devolves into teary hospital scenes and courtroom schtick, you might pine for Thelma and Louise's daring road to oblivion.
Posted Mar 14, 2023
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The Dark Angel
(1935)
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Newsweek Staff
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Under Franklin's intelligent direction, the scenery in The Dark Angel remains intact.
Posted Mar 10, 2023
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One Sings, the Other Doesn't
(1977)
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David Ansen
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Though Valérie Mairesse and Thérèse Liotard are captivating performers and Varda's direction has a sweet, unforced race, the result is a movie whose emotional temperature never rises above lukewarm.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Valentino
(1977)
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David Ansen
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It's as if the director, impatient to get to his highlights, lost interest in the fine-tuning that makes a good idea a good movie. But Rudolf Nureyev as Rudolph Valentino is a good idea that pays off.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Citizens Band
(1977)
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David Ansen
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Demme has lots of fun, and, aided by a fresh, talented cast, he artfully modulates his moods from raunchy farce to somber pathos.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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La Dentelliere
(1977)
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David Ansen
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Dominated by Isabelle Huppert's magnificent performance, The Lacemaker is like "The Story of Adèle H." seen through the other end of the telescope. It may lack Truffaut's broad scale, but it has a deeper ring of truth.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
(1975)
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David Ansen
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The director was reportedly in despair at the random violence of Italian society just before his death; that despair permeates his final work and gives it a posthumous significance.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Short Eyes
(1978)
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David Ansen
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The flaws ultimately don't matter. Like the prison jargon, the sense of which is always clear even if the words are incomprehensible, Piñero's angry eloquence -- and his sudden flashes of tenderness -- burn away one's esthetic qualms.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1953)
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Newsweek Staff
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The film may be easily viewed, and easily is the word, either as a form of drama or as a piece of erotic anthropology.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Sayonara
(1957)
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Newsweek Staff
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Dull tale of the meeting of the twain.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Thelma & Louise
(1991)
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Jack Kroll
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Once Thelma & Louise gets into second gear, it churns up terrific momentum, and the writing and direction fuse into a genuine pop myth about two women who discover themselves through the good old American ways of cars and criminality.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Flower Drum Song
(1961)
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Newsweek Staff
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The movie sports two nice Rodgers and Hammerstein songs ("I Enjoy Being a Girl" and "Don't Marry Me") and a graceful dream ballet.
Posted Feb 27, 2023
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Back to Bataan
(1945)
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Newsweek Staff
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Although the film is a regulation war picture in many ways, it is notable as an intelligent and sympathetic tribute to the Filipino guerillas.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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Diabolique
(1955)
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Newsweek Staff
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Clouzot belongs to a traditional French type: The artist with the compulsive need to shock.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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The Big Lebowski
(1998)
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Jack Kroll
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Move over, Hudsucker Proxy, here comes The Big Lebowski.
Posted Jan 21, 2023
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Eve's Bayou
(1997)
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Alisha Davis
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[Lemmons's] creativity and the breadth of her vision more than make up for her occasional missteps, luring us into a family album of secrets and lies that keeps the audience groping along with this fine ensemble cast for the truths buried in murky waters.
Posted Jan 10, 2023
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Down in the Delta
(1998)
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Veronica Chambers
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Angelou manages to make the South a character with the ability to heal and mature.
Posted Jan 09, 2023
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The Lady Eve
(1941)
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Newsweek Staff
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With his third assignment for Paramount, Sturges -- stimulated rather than stymied by a generous budget and his first important name cast -- achieves one of the most delightful farces to liven the screen in a long time.
Posted Dec 29, 2022
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The Maltese Falcon
(1941)
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John O'Hara
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It is a good picture except for the voluminous plot explanations, but they were part of Dashiell Hammett's book so I suppose I must not complain.
Posted Nov 11, 2022
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The Maltese Falcon
(1941)
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Newsweek Staff
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If half of Hollywood’s remakes turned out as well as The Maltese Falcon, the studios could stop buying stories for a while.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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Meet Me in St. Louis
(1944)
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Newsweek Staff
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For all its Hollywood pomp and commercial circumstance, this Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer offering settles down to real people living in a recognizable America at the turn of the century. The score is a delightful juggling of the new and the nostalgic.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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King Kong
(1933)
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Newsweek Staff
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The susceptible will dream about King Kong afterwards, and the more sophisticated will get many a laugh.
Posted Nov 08, 2022
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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
(1939)
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Newsweek Staff
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There is more than a dash of healthy hokum in Jeff’s awakening and rebellion and his 23-hour filibuster that brings the film to a smashing climax, but it is as legitimate as the story’s patriotic preachment is undoubtedly sincere.
Posted Nov 08, 2022
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The Shop Around the Corner
(1940)
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Newsweek Staff
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In bringing warmth and his customary piquant humor to the emotions and problems of these workaday folk, Lubitsch is assisted by some knowing players. Teamed for the third time, James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are perfectly cast as the youngsters.
Posted Nov 07, 2022
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Stalag 17
(1953)
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Newsweek Staff
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A smash hit on Broadway two years ago, the Donald Bevan-Edmund Trzcinski play about what passed for life in a German prison camp comes to the screen as an even more successful blend of melodrama and rough, occupational comedy.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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The President's Mystery
(1936)
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Newsweek Staff
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The seemingly incongruous elements are skill- fully combined to make the most vigorous propaganda Hollywood has yet produced. Henry Wilcoxon and Betty Furness head a satisfactory cast.
Posted Oct 25, 2022
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A Study in Scarlet
(1933)
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Newsweek Staff
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Can be recommended to mystery lovers who like their crime leavened with literate line and good acting.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Dawn of the Dead
(1978)
|
David Ansen
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For blood, guts and chuckles, most horror fans will undoubtedly find Dawn of the Dead finger-lickin’ good.
Posted Oct 07, 2022
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House on Haunted Hill
(1959)
|
Newsweek Staff
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It couldn't cure a child's hiccups.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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Cobra Woman
(1944)
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Newsweek Staff
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With Cobra Woman, Universal once again parlays Jon Hall, Maria Montez, Sabu, Technicolor, and tropical juvenilia for a profitable investment. Those who liked The Arabian Nights... will take the new film in their stride.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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High Noon
(1952)
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Newsweek Staff
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Add a string of plausible characterizations and an excellent performance by Gary Cooper as a former town marshal, and High Noon moves up into the class of absorbing drama.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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La Strada
(1954)
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Newsweek Staff
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Anthony Quinn as the strong man and Richard Basehart as a derisive rival are excellent. As the girl, Giulietta Masina is extraordinarily touching and gives a performance hard to forget.
Posted Sep 14, 2022
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The Deer Hunter
(1978)
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Jack Kroll
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The Deer Hunter is a film of great courage and overwhelming emotional power, a fiercely loving embrace of life in a death-ridden time. And it places the director-writer-producer, 37-year-old Michael Cimino, right at the center of our film culture.
Posted Aug 30, 2022
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Annie Hall
(1977)
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Janet Maslin
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Annie Hall is bracingly adventuresome and unexpectedly successful, with laughs as satisfying as those in any of Allen's other movies and a whole new staying power.
Posted Aug 26, 2022
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A Raisin in the Sun
(1961)
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Newsweek Staff
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The words are what count in this version of Lorraine Hansberry’s prize- winning play, but although they are fine words, both funny and moving, they are not enough to make a real movie.
Posted Aug 23, 2022
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Platoon
(1986)
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David Ansen
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Platoon captures the crazy, adrenalin-rush chaos of battle better than any movie has done before. Stone is ruthless in his deglamorization of war, but not at the expense of the men who fought there.
Posted Aug 18, 2022
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Gentleman's Agreement
(1947)
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Newsweek Staff
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If at times it falters, this is because of too close adherence to Laura Z. Hobson's novel, which often substituted intensity for craftsmanship. But nobody can say that the picture isn't in their slugging.
Posted Aug 17, 2022
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Blow-Up
(1966)
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Joe Morgenstern
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Never before Blow-Up has Michelangelo Antonioni, the cinema’s bravest spelunker of the soul, come up from the depths with such a marvelous story and such gorgeous pictures of the cavernous emptiness inside modern man.
Posted Aug 15, 2022
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Rain Man
(1988)
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David Ansen
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In every detail -- the superb soundtrack, the rich cinematography, the distinctively edgy editing -- Rain Man reveals itself as a move made with care, smarts and a refreshing refusal to settle for the expected.
Posted Aug 04, 2022
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The Life of Emile Zola
(1937)
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Newsweek Staff
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It is almost inevitable that facts must be tampered with if drama and suspense are to be served in a screen biography. But this new film achieves a validity of its own: it catches the spirit of the crusading French novelist.
Posted Aug 02, 2022
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The Last Emperor
(1987)
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David Ansen
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If at times The Last Emperor is closer to DeMille than Dostoevsky, and its parts greater than the whole, when was the last time a pageant offered such splendors?
Posted Aug 02, 2022
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Mutiny on the Bounty
(1935)
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Newsweek Staff
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The picture has no false notes. Even the quiet Tahitian scenes ring plausibly and serve as perfect balance. A tremendous cast of well-known actors do their best work under Frank Lloyd's intelligent direction.
Posted Jul 27, 2022
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How Green Was My Valley
(1941)
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Newsweek Staff
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How Green Was My Valley has a quality and distinction inadequately described by calling it one of the year's best films. [The film], as directed by John Ford and acted by a fine cast, would have ranked as a best in any season in any country.
Posted Jul 26, 2022
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Terms of Endearment
(1983)
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David Ansen
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Scene by wonderful scene, Terms of Endearment may be the most emotionally satisfying Hollywood movie this year.
Posted Jul 20, 2022
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Gandhi
(1982)
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Jack Kroll
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Gandhi is a popular movie in the best sense. It deals with a subject of great importance and it does this with a mixture of high intelligence and immediate emotional impact.
Posted Jul 19, 2022
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Chariots of Fire
(1981)
|
Jack Kroll
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Directing his first feature, Hugh Hudson has come up with a rare film that will surprise you with its beauty and magnificence of spirit.
Posted Jul 18, 2022
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Amadeus
(1984)
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David Ansen
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Hulce, like the movie, may not be quite ideal, but that should not scare anyone away. There is enough enchantment in this big, generous, flawed movie for most everybody.
Posted Jul 11, 2022
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Thief
(1981)
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David Ansen
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There's a strain of self-consciousness in Mann's macho, mechanistic style, but he's got power on his side. Thief envelops you in its tough, doom-laden grip and never lets go.
Posted Jul 07, 2022
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Coming Apart
(1969)
|
Joe Morgenstern
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The material is weak to the point of self-parody, and the performers are left to their own devices, and we're left to wonder just what those devices are.
Posted Jul 06, 2022
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