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Philadelphia Daily News

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
B+
Mulan (1998) Gary Thompson It's almost July, but relief has finally arrived with Mulan, a charming Disney animated feature that stands as one of the company's better cartoon offerings in recent years.
Posted Dec 20, 2024
3.5/4
Hercules (1997) Ellen Gray After our long national nightmare of bell-ringers and spotted dogs, it's comforting to know there's again a film parents can take their kids to without feeling that they, too, have been asked to go the distance.
Posted Dec 18, 2024
3/4
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) Gary Thompson Disney is almost certainly needling its right-wing critics. Few of whom could quibble with the level of artistry.
Posted Dec 18, 2024
3.5/4
Pocahontas (1995) Bill Wedo For sheer artistry, this may well be the greatest cartoon movie ever. You could freeze-frame Pocahontas almost anywhere and that scene would stand by itself.
Posted Dec 17, 2024
3.5/4
Beauty and the Beast (1991) Gary Thompson Disney is dying for a hit, and it appears that Beauty and the Beast will bail the company out.
Posted Dec 16, 2024
2/4
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) Gary Thompson The movie's attention to its lavish trappings and to the trivial details of the plot is hard on the actors. None of them, except for Oldman, gets a compelling, meaty character to play. And Reeves' British accent is far more frightening than Oldman.
Posted Sep 26, 2024
The Conversation (1974) Joe Baltake A carefully plotted and very sophisticated horror film.
Posted Sep 24, 2024
Apocalypse Now (1979) Joe Baltake Luckily, Coppola's visuals counterbalance the film's messy, four-films-in-one structure, its lack of affinity for life and its mutant characters, none of whom can be related to as humans. But damn if the film doesn't grab you.
Posted Sep 23, 2024
Beetlejuice (1988) Renee Lucas Wayne Demented and demonic, Keaton is better than funny. He's a scream.
Posted Aug 21, 2024
C
Alien Resurrection (1997) Gary Thompson A walking-zombie sequel that looks and smells like a corpse brought back from the dead.
Posted Aug 07, 2024
2/4
Alien 3 (1992) Gary Thompson The result is a movie that is unusually brave for a "3," but not particularly diverting.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
2.5/4
Twister (1996) Gary Thompson A twister sucks up everything in its path. Much of the time, Twister just sucks.
Posted Jul 16, 2024
Jaws (1975) Joe Baltake It's Spielberg's film all the way and with some apparent Hurrah-for-Hitch techniques, he enthralls and scares the daylights out of us: You can almost feel the sun in the film, smell the ocean, taste the blood and sense the terror.
Posted Jul 02, 2024
2.5/4
Steel Magnolias (1989) Gary Thompson There are, however, too many characters, and consequently some of the main characters take too long to develop.
Posted May 03, 2024
Planet of the Apes (1968) Jack Helsel [Planet of the Apes] has the total effect of amusing viewers while making monkeys out of us to display our contemporary human foibles.
Posted May 01, 2024
Heavenly Bodies (1985) Dan Geringer It is 90 minutes of continuous Klutz Dancing to some truly dreadful elevator rock.
Posted Apr 15, 2024
Spaceballs (1987) Ben Yagoda Spaceballs isn't Brooks' unfunniest comedy (that would be History of the World, Part I) or his most tasteless (Blazing Saddles), but it ranks fairly high in both departments.
Posted Apr 11, 2024
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976) Joe Baltake [It] might seem like a pleasant enough diversion. What will ultimately emerge, however, in the process of evolution and reevaluation will be a minor comedy classic cut from the same bolt of cloth as... Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting.
Posted Apr 11, 2024
3.5/4
Little Women (1994) Gary Thompson Little Women manages to make quaint attributes like fortitude, scholarship, generosity, and decency seem admirable and in doing so reclaims the morality from the corrupt auspices of contemporary politics.
Posted Apr 11, 2024
Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Joe Baltake Lumet's film is a super-charged, multi-leveled work which smoothly succeeds on each of its levels as slapstick comedy, tense drama, caper tale, biographical material and character study.
Posted Apr 06, 2024
Lady Sings the Blues (1972) Joe Baltake Every minute is made to count --- thanks to all those fine Holiday numbers, John Alonzo's lovely camerawork, the details of the sets and costumes and, of course, Diana Ross.
Posted Apr 05, 2024
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Joe Baltake This is the year's big movie, not so much in size or proportions, but rather in terms of heart and spirit.
Posted Apr 03, 2024
1/4
Showgirls (1995) Gary Thompson Showgirls will be remembered as one of the most expensively, indulgently horrible movies ever made -- cult trash certain to be treasured by connoisseurs of bad dialogue, lousy performances and crap on a spectacular scale.
Posted Mar 27, 2024
B
Almost Famous (2000) Gary Thompson Crowe is a charming storyteller with a knack for romantic comedy that is actually romantic, and he shows his chops here. Even so, by movie's end, I'd had my fill of Patrick Fugit... There are too many good actors stealing too many scenes from him here.
Posted Mar 26, 2024
Chinatown (1974) Joe Baltake Opulent, romantic and movie-ish as all get-out, Roman Polanski's Chinatown is cut from the same belt of cloth as last year's The Sting -- only with more substance, verve and intelligence -- and promises to be just as big a hit.
Posted Mar 08, 2024
3/4
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Gary Thompson Even the most prosecutorial viewer will concede that Robbins and Freeman give The Shawshank Redemption a persuasive validity. They hold The Shawshank Redemption together as it gives way to story-driven melodrama.
Posted Mar 04, 2024
Dune (1984) Joe Baltake The film isn't entertaining, It is too deliberately paced, too enigmatic in its implications and a little too brutal and humorless in its poetry to entertain.
Posted Feb 14, 2024
3.5/4
Quiz Show (1994) Gary Thompson If you were truly shocked when you found out NBC blew up a "faulty" truck in order to get exciting video, well, then Quiz Show may chill you to the bone. Everyone else can enjoy it simply as an example of impeccable moviemaking.
Posted Feb 13, 2024
2/4
The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Gary Thompson The weakness which dogs most of the director's work is also evident. His characters are postured, impenetrable clichés. Mann is no great believer in dialogue, and though his images are often compelling, they do not explain his characters.
Posted Dec 15, 2023
2/4
Home Alone (1990) Gary Thompson Home Alone wanders like the Wise Men for a good hour before we reach the mildly funny slapstick conclusion, and the obligatory Christmas-miracle payoff.
Posted Nov 28, 2023
The Duellists (1977) Joe Baltake What we have here is a beautifully-mounted nothing about "the code of honor" during the Napoleonic era -- a cade that invariably inspires a dramatically-empty movie.
Posted Nov 21, 2023
The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) Joe Baltake The plot of this teen revenge fantasy may be hard to swallow, but the movie itself goes down easy, thanks in large part to the presence of stunning Helen Slater, who is totally credible as a young woman turned into an outlaw/heroine.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
Alien (1979) Joe Baltake You'll jump. You'll jump a lot. Scott uses the tracking shot as if he discovered it himself, and his film has been edited to the hilt. All of this not only adds to the chills, but also camouflages the weak small-talk dialog.
Posted Nov 16, 2023
Little Big Man (1970) Joe Baltake If there's anything more American than apple pie, it's an old-fashioned movie-movie about life of Everyman. Such films are terribly rare these days, so welcome Arthur Penn's Little Big Man with open arms.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
B-
Smoke Signals (1998) Gary Thompson Smoke Signals' strengths are its lyrical attempts to explain Victor's search for himself amid the scattered remnants of his father's life... Its weaknesses are the usual low-budget, independent pitfalls some stiff acting and shaky editing.
Posted Nov 08, 2023
The Last Picture Show (1971) Joe Baltake At a time when everything about movies is frantic and vulgar, it's rather nice to savor a homey, quiet film like The Last Picture Show -- one that's witty, wise and even a little wistful.
Posted Oct 25, 2023
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) Joe Baltake [Ellen Burstyn] gives her most relaxed, spirited performance to date as Alice -- pure "movie star" stuff that mixes and mingles the best of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Doris Day, Thelma Ritter and just about any other actress you'd like to name.
Posted Oct 12, 2023
Raging Bull (1980) Joe Baltake Raging Bull is a modern epic in that it is ambitious and audacious -- an experimental film that plays with time, with a person's life and with a message... Scorsese has created a work that's at once appealing and appalling.
Posted Oct 11, 2023
Taxi Driver (1976) Joe Baltake Superficially, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver is a haunting psychodrama about a pathetic soul who's been beaten down by society. On a much more ambitious level, however, the film is one of the most savage indictments against "little" people ever captured.
Posted Oct 06, 2023
The Exorcist (1973) Joe Baltake A grim, poorly paced effort that lacks the two ingredients necessary for total credibility in horror films: Genuine enthrallment and Hitchcockian-style black humor.
Posted Sep 27, 2023
Rain Man (1988) Barbara Beck Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of Raymond is light years away from the big lunk Lenny in Of Mice and Men or the deaf-mute girl in Johnny Belinda. It is, quite simply, the most memorable, impassioned performance of the year.
Posted Sep 13, 2023
3.5/4
Lone Star (1996) Gary Thompson Lone Star is also about storytelling, its power and its role in cultural history. When are myths destructive, and when are they more important or more truthful than the facts?
Posted Sep 06, 2023
2.5/4
Selena (1997) Gary Thompson The movie is a domino chain of rags-to-riches showbiz clichés, and once the first domino falls, the rest of the movie topples predictably into place.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
2/4
When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) Gary Thompson It's emotionally grueling, but what is the point? When A Man Loves A Woman never transcends the docudrama format.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
3.5/4
Hard-Boiled (1992) Gary Thompson It's not for all tastes, but Hard-Boiled provides a rare opportunity for action fans to see the work one of the genre's contemporary masters.
Posted Jul 27, 2023
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) Gene Seymour ... For a third go around, it's not bad.
Posted Jul 25, 2023
Macbeth (1971) Joe Baltake Macbeth is a film which must be seen, if only for its look and feel.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
B
The Matrix (1999) Gary Thompson It's to the credit of "Matrix" that descriptions of its plot have to be generic. It contains a ton of surprises and mostly makes sense on its own daffy terms.
Posted Jul 12, 2023
Phantom of the Paradise (1974) Joe Baltake De Palma's movie doesn't always work as fast, alert screen fun -- but it does boast more irresistible assets than most other movies, namely the kinky performances of Wiliams, Ms. Harper and Gerrit Graham.
Posted Jun 27, 2023
The Great Outdoors (1988) Dan Geringer John Hughes is the Crazy Eddie of movies aimed at teen-agers with nothing better to do.
Posted Jun 16, 2023
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