MovieSorter

loading Title loading Tws summary loading Trust ▲ loading Year Viewable
The Expendables 3
Very Good 66 Points 2014

Barney Ross makes his third and likely last big screen appearance in The Expendables 3, an overstuffed moviestar montage. Sylvester Stallone has gathered a new crop of kick-ass action heroes to go along with his returning set of aging action heroes. Add Mel Gibson as the super-villain and you e…

Full Review »
WikChip Video The Movie In Brief
Angel Has Fallen
Very Good 66 Points 2019

Angel Has Fallen falls from the greatness reached by London Has Fallen to a very respectable Very Good, the same quality as the original Olympus Has Fallen, making for a damn good time at the movies.

Said another way, the White House headlined the very good Fallen 1

Full Review »
WikChip Video The drone attack starts the future.
Joe Kidd
Great 66 Points 1972

The great Elmore Leonard wrote two kinds of scripts, great ones and, well, er, the great Elmore Leonard wrote one kind of script, not counting the two genres he wrote: Westerns and darkly funny crime dramas. Known more now for the latter, he was a modern master of the former, populating his hair…

Full Review »
WikChip Video Guitar kicks in 40s into the Joe Kidd...
High Noon
Great 66 Points 1952

Gary Cooper walking alone down a dusty Western street to confront a gang of killers is as iconic as Hollywood gets, making High Noon an archetype even more than a legend. That’s quite a weight.

Fortunately the movie itself is engaging, suspenseful and tight. A mere 85 minutes, it runs in ne…

Full Review »
WikChip Video High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My D...
Shane
Great 66 Points 1953

“Shane, come back!” could have been a Simon & Garfunkel lyric. Instead, the troubadours chose Joe DiMaggio, another icon of mid-Century American manhood. Yet, Shane endures as a cultural touchstone.

Thousands of baby boomers were christened with his clarion clear name

Full Review »
WikChip Image Jack Palance: a badass star is born
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…

Full Review »
WikChip Image Lauren Bacall: strong & lovely
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…

Full Review »
WikChip Video Yowza, true Western entertainment
Unforgiven
Perfect 73 Points 1992

Just as Goodfellas is the ne plus ultra of mob movies, Unforgiven is the apotheosis of Westerns. In classic Western form the movie endorses the ethos of the lone righteous man doing what needs done, while at the same time baldly debunking the glorification of gunfighters in the Wild West. T…

Full Review »
2 Replies
  • Wick – Good call, Terry. A benchmark movie.
  • TerryEinstein – One of Clint Eastwood’s best and darkest movies. W...
White House Down
OK 83 Points 2013

White House Down is bombing at the box office, surprising both Hollywood and Channing Tatum fans.1 Stiff opening competition from The Heat is part of the reason, but this heavily hyped movie’s commercial coup de grâce is almost certainly its coup…

Full Review »
WikChip Image Good running-mates. Bad platform.
Hercules
Really Great 83 Points 2014

Brett Ratner’s Hercules is the first great Hercules movie, or at least the first great one of the past 50 years, which is long enough to be worthy of mythical status. Dwayne Johnson cuts a fine figure as the big man, backed by a platoon of British thespians and presented amid stunning vistas a…

Full Review »
WikChip Image Stunning image of the Acropolis in At...