MovieSorter

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A Beautiful Mind
Really Great 66 Points 2001

Deeply affecting, intellectually engaging, and terrifically charismatic, A Beautiful Mind established Russell Crowe as an uncommonly talented movie star while also serving as a showcase for director Ron Howard, co-star Jennifer Connelly and everyone else involved with this Oscar-dominating prod…

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WikChip Image Beautiful Math from a Beautiful Mind
The Grandmaster
OK 66 Points 2013

Stately to a fault, reverential to an extreme, The Grandmaster is kung fu cinema elevated to formal art. Stodginess aside, it no doubt lingers in the mind’s eye of hard core kung fu fans, let alone for the legendary Ip Man’s disciples. For the rest of us – focused on the Bruce Lee connection …

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WikChip Image Hey, isn't that little Bruce Lee?
Ip Man 2: Legen...
OK 66 Points 2010

Ip Man 2 was supposed to focus on the legendary Grandmaster’s relationship with Bruce Lee, his most famous disciple. But Lee’s descendants didn’t go along with the plan, so the movie ends up being about Ip Man’s post-war struggles to establish Wing Chun kung fu in colonial Hong Kong. The resul…

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WikChip Image Ip Man teaches Wing Chun kung fu
Muscle Shoals
Perfect 66 Points 2013

The Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James and Percy Sledge did their best work in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Lynyrd Skynyrd added the piano intro to Freebird while there. This Muscle Shoals documentary covers all that rocking glory, with Bono commenta…

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WikChip Video Keef vouches for Muscle Shoals magic
Elvis: Summer o...
Great 66 Points 2011

What a treat this 45 minute documentary is, full of home movies featuring Elvis during the summer when he went from regional star to superstar. It captures the King of Rock & Roll as both the first rockstar and the perfect rockstar. Not yet jaded or degraded, this is the Elvis who soon became m…

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WikChip Video Elvis & June: Summer of '56
Jimi Hendrix: H...
Great 66 Points 2013

“Are you experienced?” Rock fans of a certain age recognize that bold question as cover for “Do you dig Jimi Hendrix?” Ya dig. For those of us in that cohort and for rock and blues fans of all ages, Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin’ is a 90 minute documentary well worth viewing, turned up …

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WikChip Video Hendrix ⏩ Wild Thing ⏩ Monterey Pop
Get on Up
Really Great 66 Points 2014

Get on Up joins the pantheon of great rock biopics, memorializing James Brown as a seminal rockstar whose power, pomp and circumstances paved the way for the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Sly & the Family Stone, hip-hop and every other form of funkable & funkadelic music. Get on Up gets on…

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WikChip Video James Brown ✫ Please, Please, Pleas...
The Other Side ...
OK 66 Points 2001

A Mormon missionary’s time in Tonga makes for an entertaining family movie, if you can leave the proselytizing aside. The Other Side of Heaven is also an appealing period piece, first in the 1950s United States, but mostly in the South Pacific Islands of that era.

Based on the biography of …

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WikChip Image Before she was a star: Anne Hathaway
Funny Face
Great 66 Points 1957

Audrey Hepburn is the spoon-full-of-sugar who makes the cultural imperialism go down in Funny Face. Stanley Donen’s musical – done Broadway style – is an intoxicating Vogue-tini, a Size 0 fashion fantasy.

Richard Avedon famously created the opening titles, which are perfectly high fashion. …

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WikChip Image Avedon's timeless portrait of Hepburn
12 Angry Men
Good 66 Points 1957

12 Angry Men has lost its punch, coming across today as more tortured and melodramatic than taut and credible. Still, it’s a classic, enduring as a case study of group dynamics more than as a compelling drama.

The well-known story follows a jury into and through their deliberations on a murd…

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WikChip Image 12 Great Actors