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The Long Goodbye
OK 66 Points 1973

More an oddball curiosity than a successful movie, The Long Goodbye dropped a Forties private-eye story into the Seventies. Robert Altman used that juxtaposition to show how times had changed in the twenty years since the Raymond Chandler novel on which the movie is based came out. That it does…

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WikChip Image Altman directs van Pallandt & Gould
Get Shorty
Really Great 66 Points 1995

Is there a more enjoyable Elmore Leonard movie or charismatic John Travolta movie than Get Shorty? So what if it’s a trifle, a light crime-comedy. It’s a movie about the love of movies, which it celebrates with sleek Hollywood panache, rich Elmore Leonard flair and charming details. In short, *…

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WikChip Video Chili Palmer gets lost in Touch of Evil
True Grit
Very Good 66 Points 1969

Star power in service to a (then) unconventional story makes for a very good movie. A grizzled John Wayne, shiny Glen Campbell and sharp Robert Duvall provide the star power, while a young girl hiring a de facto bounty hunter to track down her father’s killer provides the novel story.

Rescree…

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WikChip Video Yowza, true Western entertainment
Out of Sight
Really Great 66 Points 1998
Out of Sight and into the pantheon of crime-comedies – start with Stephen Soderburgh directing George Clooney in an Elmore Leonard story. Speaking of gorgeous, J-Lo gets into the trunk with G-Cloo.

Other positives: Bright bluesy opening; Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films producing; Clooney, youn…

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WikChip Image Trunk Spooning: Meet Cute Classic
In the Cut
Really Great 66 Points 2003

In the Cut deserves more than mere notoriety for a provocative title and Meg Ryan’s erotic performance, though the latter is monumental – No more RomComs for the RomCom Queen. – and vividly memorable.

Slow starting, moody, Jane Campion’s movie finally turns fully creepy 30 min in, not a mome…

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WikChip Video The movie's better than the trailer.
The Shootist
Good 66 Points 1976

John Wayne’s final movie serves as a benediction for gunfighters at the dawn of the 20th Century, and for Wayne’s career as a celluloid gunfighter. It does the latter better than the former, making it more of an obligation for fans of the Duke than for Western fans generally.

The Shootist b…

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WikChip Image Lauren Bacall: strong & lovely
The Grifters
Great 66 Points 1990

Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening use their considerable feminine wiles to control a man-in-the-middle. Talk about a double shot of mature sexiness, even if John Cusack proves barely worthy of their attentions. Of course Huston’s mobbed-up mom takes an immediate dislike to Bening’s sexed-up gi…

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WikChip Image Bening's sexy smooth grifter, on the ...
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BUtterfield 8
Very Good 66 Points 1960

Liz Taylor’s sultry star power makes BUtterfield 8 an enduring curiosity, now more legendary than ever in the wake of her death. A sophisticated story about sexual motives makes it a quality film.

La Liz plays a sometime model who cavorts with wealthy married men until falling for one in pa…

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WikChip Image Iconic Liz: Just ask Camille Paglia
A Secret
Really Great 66 Points 2007

More a wartime romantic mystery than anything, A Secret is nonetheless as fine a Holocaust picture as you’ll find. Being French, it’s also a sensual love story, or two.

Let’s start at the beginning even though the movie starts in the middle. A supremely athletic and thoroughly assimilated …

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WikChip Image Cécile De France: lithe object of desire
Heartburn
Very Good 66 Points 1986

Perfect credits lead to a fitfully entertaining movie about some monumentally smug people in Heartburn. Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson – in his prime – lead the credits. The great Mike Nichols directs, fifteen years after directing Nicholson in the scandalous Carnal Knowledge

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WikChip Image Jack in his prime