Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 58%
| Bab'Aziz - The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul (2008) | "
The cycle of youth and age and the trope of a journey come together inevitably, maybe predictably, but not without sparks of wisdom." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 95%
| Diva (1981) | "
The movie’s a maelstrom of possibilities touching ethnic relations, high art, fashion and modern morality, not to mention cinema." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 63%
| Bra Boys (2008) | "
A messy, cheeky, inelegant but unusual and interesting memoir." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 43%
| What We Do Is Secret (2008) | "
The best parts of Secret recall Sid and Nancy. The worst evoke the last, inferior A Star Is Born." — Chicago Tribune Posted Aug 15, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 90%
| Wonderful Town (2007) | "
There's a folksy majesty to Wonderful Town, born of its leisurely pace, pastoral views of idyllic scenery and a storytelling drive set only slightly faster than slow motion. It recalls a lot of rustic, independent English-language films of the '90s" — Chicago Tribune Posted Aug 15, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 68%
| Girls Rock! (2008) | "
There's too little clarity or thoroughness in the biographies, too few prolonged scenes of the girls creating their songs." — Chicago Tribune Posted Aug 1, 2008 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 80%
| Yella (2007) | "
The German offering Yella begins with an utterly gripping first 15 minutes, follows with a passable drama and ends with a big disappointment." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jul 31, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 94%
| Chris & Don: A Love Story (2007) | "
There's a bit of Pygmalion meets The Portrait of Dorian Gray to it, and yet part of the documentary's slyness involves probing those aspects while never losing sight of the pain and glories of any emotional relationship that lasts as long as" — Chicago Tribune Posted Jul 31, 2008 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 74%
| A Jihad for Love (2007) | "
For various reasons, many of the subjects are interviewed with their faces blurred or hidden, understandably preserving anonymity but maintaining a distance that's unfortunate." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jul 24, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 67%
| CSNY Déjà Vu (2008) | "
CSNY: Déjà Vu brings back glimmers of the old glory and touchingly suggests that the body may age, but the spirit of the Woodstock nation endures." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jul 24, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 75%
| OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2008) | "
French cinema's reputation for subtlety goes up in smoke with OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies, a movie whose satire proves as lame as its clunky title." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 26, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 98%
| Surfwise (2008) | "
The unorthodox upbringing of the Paskowitz clan is the subject of Surfwise, the story of a family who lived on the road, camped at the beachfront and fashioned its own vanguard version of 1960s-'70s alternative lifestyles." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 19, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 90%
| Refusenik (2008) | "
There are fascinating archival clips that show rare glimpses of early years of struggle behind the Iron Curtain, while the story eventually moves through such momentous footage as the Helsinki Accords and the fall of the Berlin Wall." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 19, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 73%
| When Did You Last See Your Father? (2008) | "
The catharsis here is all the more moving because of what wasn’t finished, what remained unsaid and what in the answer to the title’s question proves unknowable." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 13, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 66%
| Fugitive Pieces (2008) | "
Fugitive Pieces is often quiet, lyrical, reflective and underplayed. It doesn't minimize Holocaust suffering--far from it--but it strives, often successfully, to unearth the innate good in people Anne Frank alluded to so eloquently." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 13, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 73%
| This Is My Father (1999) | "
The disturbing, embarrassing domestic moments and conflicts are quirky, slightly weird, and yet they boast the shock of recognition because they're so true to the strife in every family." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 12, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 87%
| Roman de Gare (2008) | "
Lelouch's deft touch with various cinematic styles, however surface, enables him to interweave pastoral elegy, quirky social comedy and thriller with fluid ease." — Chicago Tribune Posted May 22, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 70%
| Irina Palm (2008) | "
Irina Palm is saddled with an odd title, an outlandish plot and an unlikely star--notorious rock maven Marianne Faithfull cast as a suburban frump. But it turns out a success" — Chicago Tribune Posted May 15, 2008 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 94%
| Last Year at Marienbad (1961) | "
To even talk of a story is nonsensical, since a central aesthetic of the film involves the effects of fantasy, time and subjective memory on human consciousness. Marienbad takes place in a heightened, sci-fi nightmare world where knowing, believing" — Chicago Tribune Posted May 1, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 51%
| Then She Found Me (2008) | "
There's a gentle realism that makes room for laughs, drama and the slightest touch of farce, never spilling into the comically cheap and managing to explore subtler issues involving adoption" — Chicago Tribune Posted May 1, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 24%
| The Life Before Her Eyes (2008) | "
It's too clever by half, too facile in its use of sensationalist headline material, too far-fetched in its psychological fancy." — Chicago Tribune Posted Apr 24, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 86%
| My Brother Is An Only Child (2006) | "
The fey illogic in the title of My Brother is an Only Child hints at the style of this funny-sad film, which flips from dark to light moods and back with suave, unpredictable dexterity." — Chicago Tribune Posted Apr 10, 2008 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 56%
| Shelter (2008) | "
Shelter may only be shoreline deep, and its ending fanciful, but the film captures the beauty, thrill and ache of young love and extracts a casual joy out of the process." — Chicago Tribune Posted Apr 3, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| N/A | Girls Rock (2004) | "
There's too little clarity or thoroughness in the biographies, too few prolonged scenes of the girls creating their songs." — Chicago Tribune Posted Mar 6, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 79%
| Chicago 10 (2008) | "
Morgen's best achievement is the news footage, more detailed looks at events outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel and in Chicago parks than you typically see on TV rehashes." — Chicago Tribune Posted Feb 28, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 38%
| Dead Man's Bounty (2007) | "
Summer Love is fraught with feverish moods, bold imagination and a devilishly complicated exploration of the genre's iconography. It is also maddeningly paced, often like watching paint dry, albeit paint that's the garish tones of buckets of blood." — Chicago Tribune Posted Feb 21, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| Black White + Gray: A Portrait Of Sam Wagstaff And Robert Mapplethorpe (2007) | "
The movie makes its main point. Wagstaff was an important, complex, fascinating figure, well worth remembering." — Chicago Tribune Posted Feb 14, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 10%
| Fool's Gold (2008) | "
Fool's Gold is a movie that keeps reminding you of its antecedents, all the way back to 1984 and the comic adventure Romancing the Stone." — Chicago Tribune Posted Feb 7, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 59%
| Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland (2008) | "
The delight stems from the quartet of lesser known comics Vaughn chose to place at the movie's center, as well as the unpretentious way we learn so much about them--their motives, pains, struggles and revealing ethnic and class backgrounds." — Chicago Tribune Posted Feb 7, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 98%
| Nanking (2007) | "
Sheds light on particular wartime atrocities largely neglected in the collective memory." — Chicago Tribune Posted Feb 1, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 42%
| The Bucket List (2007) | "
A manipulative look at dying with dignity and a lame yarn about as realistic as the fantasy in The Princess Bride." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jan 11, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 46%
| Zebraman (2004) | "
Its odd clash of shifting sensibilities is just as often wearisome as engaging." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jan 4, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| N/A | Fireworks Wednesday (2008) | "
Honest, sincere, blunt and yet provocative in its look at ordinary marriage, friendship and betrayal." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jan 3, 2008 |
Rotten 2
| Rotten 17%
| Revolver (2007) | "
Not the disaster described in the British press but unlikely to restore Ritchie’s luster." — Chicago Tribune Posted Dec 17, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 76%
| Meeting Resistance (2007) | "
The problem with the film is that it makes for better journalism than cinema." — Chicago Tribune Posted Dec 14, 2007 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 12%
| Strength and Honour (2007) | "
Relentlessly dismal and dismally predictable." — Chicago Tribune Posted Dec 7, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 38%
| August Rush (2007) | "
It's an unabashed feel-good weeper, and those eager for that type of fare might as well settle for this one. But an equal number will be put off by the bad dialogue, transparent manipulation and saccharine overkill." — Chicago Tribune Posted Nov 20, 2007 |
Rotten 1/4
| Fresh 64%
| Naked Boys Singing (2007) | "
Naked Boys live are a hoot. Frozen on celluloid, they're tacky." — Chicago Tribune Posted Nov 15, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 21%
| Fred Claus (2007) | "
Fred Claus seems a clever installment, not a seasonal classic, a buffet whose many nibbles you sample, move on and quickly forget." — Chicago Tribune Posted Nov 8, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 79%
| Jimmy Carter Man From Plains (2007) | "
Carter comes off as compassionate and intelligent. But the complex issues brought up in his book don't get much more than a superficial debate." — Chicago Tribune Posted Nov 1, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 23%
| Slipstream (2007) | "
Slipstream is bold, experimental, off-the-wall kicky and utterly exasperating." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 25, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 64%
| Khadak (2006) | "
It gorgeously recalls Fellini and Koyaanisqatsi and hauntingly pits ancient tradition against science, oppression and industrial rot." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 18, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 58%
| Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007) | "
Chop off a star if you're not up for highly experimental cinema." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 18, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 76%
| Canvas (2007) | "
Despite its admirable qualities, Canvas fizzles and falls into cliche." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 11, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 73%
| I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2007) | "
I’ve no clue how the world will take to I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. For Chicago, it’s a scrumptious, four-star banquet." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 4, 2007 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 51%
| The Kingdom (2007) | "
The Kingdom has a heart and a viewpoint. It's a thrill ride with a lingering thought or two in its wake. But the explosions, breakneck chases, daredevil escapes and predictability about which side will be victorious remain its foremost mission." — Chicago Tribune Posted Sep 28, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 41%
| Dedication (2007) | "
Dedication is engaging for a while, but flits from style to style, from dark to loopy comedy, only to settle on gooey romance." — Chicago Tribune Posted Sep 20, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 43%
| December Boys (2007) | "
Juvenile viewers may well benefit from the movie. But, for the adult, it’s ultimately a film that arrives too early for the season in its title and too late in terms of style and impact." — Chicago Tribune Posted Sep 20, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 80%
| Vanaja (2007) | "
Vanaja, a film exploring the tensions of the caste system in contemporary rural India, boasts a compelling story on-screen and off." — Chicago Tribune Posted Sep 13, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 59%
| Dans Paris (2007) | "
Dans Paris is limned with human stumbling, snatches of temporary joy laced with existential disquiet and the desperation of souls at sea in a sterile universe but not to be denied grasps of pleasure." — Chicago Tribune Posted Aug 30, 2007 |
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