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On The Road
Very Good 66 Points 2013

I read On The Road by 21 because it was necessary. I saw On The Road this weekend to be entertained.

Entertaining it is, though cultural legacy aside, mad words about mad living don’t make a great movie, not without great acting and a cinematic story, neither of which On The Road has….

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WikChip Image Hand Check!
Cosmopolis
Barely OK 66 Points 2012

The poster tells the tale. Robert Pattinson starring in a David Cronenberg movie of a Don DeLillo book is all you need to know about Cosmopolis. A deeply surreal fable about the evil rich as embodied by a soulless manqué sums it up. Oh yeah, bloody wounds get inflicted. It is a David Cronenb…

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WikChip Image Financial vampire in 4 wheel stretch ...
Coco Chanel & I...
OK 66 Points 2010

Visually scintillating, musically avant-garde, dramatically turgid: This biopic of two cultural giants goes down like Brussels sprouts instead of foie gras. IOW, it takes effort to work through the two hour running time, when it should feel like savoring a rich delicacy. Pity, since Coco & Igor…

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WikChip Image Great design barely trumps turgid drama.
Double Indemnity
Perfect 66 Points 1944

Want to hear what perfect dialog sounds like? Listen to Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. Credit Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and director Billy Wilder, three legendary writers who didn’t get along but nonetheless birthed “the paradigmatic film noir.”1

A perfect…

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WikChip Video MacMurray & Stanwyck speak perfect di...
The House on Te...
OK 66 Points 1951

The House on Telegraph Hill is a triumph of art direction. That’s good. It’s also unintentionally campy. That’s bad. The result is a just OK movie, yet one that belongs in the San Francisco Cinema Hall of Fame.

The views are marvelous. And the views are the thing with San Francisco real…

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WikChip Image Grt Views, Lrg House, fake Telegraph ...
The Help
Very Good 66 Points 2011

Women rule The Help. They rule the Junior League, they rule their roosts and they rule each other. Some are white and privileged, most of whom behave in ugly ways. Others are black and disenfranchised. Their world seems far away, yet existed a mere 50 years ago in the Jim Crow South.

Vie…

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WikChip Image Someone get this woman an Oscar!
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.
Ben-Hur
Great 66 Points 1959

More than just the chariot race, Ben-Hur virtually defines big screen epic. At three and a half hours, it’s a lot of movie, full of bravura performances, grand visuals, and tasteful religious symbolism. One of only three movies to win 11 Oscars,1 it deserves the acclaim that accompanies the…

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WikChip Image Ben-Hur: This, in widescreen Technico...
The Blue Angel
Really Great 66 Points 1930

Seminal movie, thy name is The Blue Angel, Der Blaue Engel in its native German. Josef von Sternberg was 36 when he paired unknown Marlene Dietrich with eminent Emil Jannings. Dietrich and von Sternberg rocketed straight to Hollywood. Jannings was left behind, kind of like in the story its…

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WikChip Video Falling In Love Again with Marlene
From Russia wit...
Good 66 Points 1963

The best Bond? Hardly, notwithstanding its haughty reputation and terrific title.

Connery’s in rare form, granted. However the Bond girls are … who are they again? Former beauty queen Daniela Bianchi and a pair of Gypsies. Hardly Ursula Andress, Halle Berry or Jane Seymour.

The übervi…

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WikChip Image Connery & Miss World Runner-Up