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Wallace Baine
Tomatometer-approved critic
http://www.wallacebaine.com
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Smoke Signals (1998) |
If Alexie's intention is to fight back a century's worth of negative stereotyping, he does it with humor, grace and an appealing sense of self-deprecation. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Nov 08, 2023
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The Exorcist (1973) |
William Friedkin's disturbing drama set the standard for Satanic themes in movies for years and some of the exorcism images quickly became pop-culture shorthand. See it, if you haven't, but don't eat pea soup beforehand. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Sep 28, 2023
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Y tu mamá también (2001) |
This is a movie that bristles with spontaneity and brims with subtext. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Sep 09, 2023
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Mulholland Dr. (2001) |
Much of the film unfolds in satisfying fashion as a compelling mystery of dark allure set amongst the much-maligned environment of Hollywood. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Jul 11, 2023
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The Truman Show (1998) |
Post-O.J., post-Diana, a scenario like The Truman Show becomes a more and more vivid reminder that media realities, however true-to-life, are contrived realities and our thirst for vicarious thrills trumps our respect for other's dignity. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Feb 08, 2023
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The Big Lebowski (1998) |
The burden of being Hollywood's hippest filmmakers looks to be weighing heavily on the Coen brothers. After Fargo, "Lebowski" is a return to the overly manner film-nerd humor of The Hudsucker Proxy. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Jan 24, 2023
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Braveheart (1995) |
Braveheart is an astonishing spectacle of blood and heart, a virile and punishing epic, less interested in historical relevance than in grandiose myth-making. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Gladiator (2000) |
Gladiator is a cynical exercise. It gives historical legitimacy to a pageant of mayhem every bit as ritualized as professional wrestling. It's loud, bloody and empty. The crowds will love it. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Nov 01, 2022
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Addams Family Values (1993) |
Moviegoers, even those put off by the original, are likely to find Addams Family Values entertaining and humorous. But it could have been so much more so, if, for instance, the other Addamses were given roles as juicy as that given to Wednesday. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Sep 21, 2022
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Mississippi Masala (1991) |
It is a powerful and provocative film that examines love in the context of family, culture and prejudice presented in an appealing, naturalistic style. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Apr 15, 2022
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Titanic (1997) |
Titanic was expected to be impressive. It is, friends, much more than that. It attains a state of humbling majesty, evoking with a sense of unashamed grandeur a terribly out-of-style but vital emotion, awe. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Mar 17, 2022
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I Like It Like That (1994) |
Like It is a richly textured story of Lisette's struggle to set herself apart from the soul-sapping entropy of her surroundings, often to comic effect. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Mar 02, 2022
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L.A. Confidential (1997) |
I loved this movie and respected its just-right blend of art and entertainment. Its lack of ironic self-consciousness and its insistence that its heroes be imperfect men of imperfect justice make this an exquisite noir experience. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Oct 20, 2021
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Clueless (1995) |
This is meant to be a light-hearted well-written spoof and on those terms it succeeds. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Mar 15, 2021
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American History X (1998) |
One of the year's more absorbing films. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Mar 25, 2020
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In the Cut (2003) |
I never found myself relaxed watching In the Cut. There is a pat, color-by-numbers quality to the inherent whodunit and the urban backdrop feels gratuitous and empty, - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Apr 01, 2019
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The Cable Guy (1996) |
Those who like enjoy seeing performers open up their ids in the name of comedy might get a kick out of Carrey's spooky malevolence. Others, however, enter at their own risk. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Mar 11, 2019
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Tumbleweeds (1999) |
Given its obviousness, Tumbleweeds is still worthy of attention thanks principally to the queenly Janet McTeer. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Mar 01, 2019
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Mars Attacks! (1996) |
Mars is a fireball of failure, a B-movie crammed full of A-list actors, an exercise in tacky self-indulgence that will numb you with its labored eccentricities. What's more, it would take a greater detective than I to find a single funny line. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Feb 23, 2019
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Breaking the Waves (1996) |
Emily Watson gives this musty spiritualism a flesh and-blood sympathetic center. Her purity of emotion, be it bliss, fear or sorrow, are convincingly unactorly and the camera -- even Von Trier's handheld pseudo-documentary one -- loves her face. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Feb 22, 2019
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Jerry Maguire (1996) |
It's an easy charmer that manages to avoid the paint-by-numbers traps most romantic comedies fall into. Cruise should make more movies like this and Cameron Crowe should make more movies, period. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Feb 22, 2019
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Forrest Gump (1994) |
Fifty years from now, Forrest Gump will probably seem hopelessly quaint, cryptic, even ridiculous. Today, however, Gump, the much talked about summer fable starring Tom Hanks, is a tonic for an age of cancerous cynicism. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Feb 20, 2019
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Schindler's List (1993) |
With its black-and-white bleakness and its fiercely insistent realism, Schindler's List is a hallucinogenic experience. It is one of the most finely calibrated, most overtly mournful, most nakedly authentic films ever made. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Feb 20, 2019
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The Whistleblower (2010) |
Credit director Kondracki with shooting her action scenes with just the right amount of heart-quickening pace, stopping short of the kind of over-the-top sensationalism that allows the action movie genre to print money. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Aug 18, 2011
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The Cooler (2003) |
Makes some daring artistic risks and largely succeeds. - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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| Posted Jan 27, 2004
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One True Thing (1998) |
A convincing but restrained melodrama, at times attaining true emotional power. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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He Got Game (1998) |
Spike Lee's respect -- nay, worship -- of basketball is contagious and his audacious metaphors give shape to a powerful story of a father's efforts to save his son. And we all know a thing or two about that story. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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The Truman Show (1998) |
A surreal and immensely likable fable that straddles the line between comedy and drama. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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Psycho (1998) |
The most hyped karoake act in history. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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Touch of Evil (1958) |
Orson Welles gives screenwriters an example to follow: write everything -- yes, everything -- down and leave it in a prominent place where someone will find it 20 years after your death when presumably your genius will finally be recognized. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) |
This time, the Force wasn't with him. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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Saving Private Ryan (1998) |
This picture attempts to bring about a fuller understanding of sacrifice on the battlefield and in that respect it is a moving and dignified salute to the fallen. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) |
Coarsely funny and surprisingly touching. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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The Horse Whisperer (1998) |
The long lead-in eventually comes to a powerful emotional payoff, particularly for anyone who has experienced a bond with an animal. - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) |
A howling good time! - rec.arts.movies.reviews
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| Posted Jan 01, 2000
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