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Pal Joey
Great 66 Points 1957

Frank Sinatra won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical as the womanizing nightclub singer in Pal Joey. Sandwiched between the glamorous Rita Hayworth and the luscious Kim Novak, he’s at his lounge-lizard best in this mid-century paean to pre-liberation sexual politics. It’s a wh…

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WikChip Video The Lady is a Tramp - Sinatra simmers
The Philadelphi...
Very Good 66 Points 1940

Call me crazy, but I find The Philadelphia Story inferior to Bringing Up Baby, its contemporaneous cousin. Katherine Hepburn’s comeback movie – the picture that cemented her status as a hit-making star – is a very fine romcom and an understandable member of seven American Film Institute all-t…

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WikChip Image Starburst: Grant, Hepburn, Stewart
The Seven Year ...
Very Good 66 Points 1955

A severely dated farce would hardly be worth watching now if it didn’t star Marilyn Monroe at her most incandescent. Even better, The Seven Year Itch features Marilyn standing atop a windy subway grate in a rather famous white halter dress – widely considered one of the iconic images of the 20…

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WikChip Image Another dress that deserves fame
How to Marry a ...
Very Good 66 Points 1953

How to Marry a Millionaire opens with a five minute bravura orchestral concert, which amazing though it is, is five minutes of men in tuxes when you’re expecting Marilyn Monroe.

Then you get Lauren Bacall as the queen bee, the head girl, the model with a plan. And a luscious Marilyn. And …

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WikChip Image Marilyn at the premier. 'Nuff said.
Fences
Very Good 3 Points 2016

2016 was a great year in movie history filled with gems like Fences that in the end enthrall loyal moviegoers of all types. Weary of the empathy saturation inflicted on American society over the past several years, fans can walk into this safe darkness of anticipation knowing that Viola Davis pe…

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Cat on a Hot Ti...
Very Good 66 Points 1958

The eyes have it! Well, the eyes and the lies have it. The eyes belong to golden superstars Paul Newman & Elizabeth Taylor — his intense blue orbs opposite her intoxicating violet ones, no FX involved with either. The lies, well, the lies drive the story, with the fancy word “mendacity” bandied a…

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WikChip Video Liz Taylor gets sexy with Paul Newman
Dial M for Murder
Good 66 Points 1954

Dial M for Murder is lesser Hitchcock, yet worth watching for its classic tropes, timeless title and for Grace Kelly. But, the convoluted and constrained plot is insufficiently removed from its stage play roots.

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WikChip Image Hitch loved blond: Grace Kelly's Gold...
Bus Stop
Good 66 Points 1956

Marilyn Monroe rescues Bus Stop, as she rescued so many of her movies, her luminescent sexuality juxtaposed against an American society inchoately besotted with her. True fans can’t avert their eyes.

To be clear, Bus Stop is a cheesy time-capsule, a Fifties classic capable of making "Alan…

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WikChip Video The Making of Bus Stop - Documentary
August: Osage C...
Good 66 Points 2013

Unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way, wrote Tolstoy. The Oklahoma family in August: Osage County is unhappy because their matriarch is a pill popping shrew. This monstrous maternal presence is masterfully played by the incomparable Meryl Streep. She’s vividly entertaining, albe…

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WikChip Image Mother-Daughter embrace. Isn't that n...
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