The National Society of Film Critics is a 57-member group comprising critics from major newspapers and magazines across the U.S. Movies and DVD/videos in their first national release (some of which have yet to open in Chicago) are ranked by NSFC members for the poll on a scale of 100 possible points. The averaged ratings correspond to the following key: 100-81 = excellent; 80-61 = good; 60-41 = average; 40-21 = fair; 20-0 = poor.
The NSFC Web site, which contains more complete rankings of films and video past and present, as well as film descriptions, links to reviews by NSFC members, and the group’s history can be visited at
http://nsfc.zap2it.com/nsfc/cda/index.jsp.
NSFC chairman: David Sterritt (Christian Science Monitor).
Poll editor: Michael Wilmington (Chicago Tribune).
New movies
85 `Elevator to the Gallows’: Louis Malle’s “Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud” (or “Elevator to the Gallows”) is a re-released classic, a grippingly suspenseful 1957 French thriller about a killer (Maurice Ronet) who gets trapped in an elevator at night; his adulterous partner in crime (Jeanne Moreau) who, bewildered by his absence, wanders around Paris; and two reckless kids who steal his car and go on a mini-crime spree of their own. Masterfully plotted and expertly acted, it’s also a real exercise in cinema style, heavily influenced by suspense master Alfred Hitchcock and art-house legend Robert Bresson. And, lest we forget, it has a great original jazz soundtrack by trumpet giant Miles Davis. (French, with English subtitles.)
72 `Steal Me’
Melissa Painter
70 `Cote D’Azur’
Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau
63 `The Thing About My Folks’
Raymond De Felitta
62 `Lord of War’
Andrew Niccol
50 `Just Like Heaven’
Mark Waters
Coming soon
83 `The Weeping Meadow’
Theo Angelopoulos
72 `Proof’
John Madden
71 `Thumbsucker’
Mike Mills
65 `Everything Is Illuminated’
Liev Schreiber
Movies now playing
78 `The Memory of a Killer’
Erik van Looy
67 `The Constant Gardener’
Fernando Meirelles
66 `The Transporter 2′
Louis Leterrier
65 `The Brothers Grimm’
Terry Gilliam
62 `An Unfinished Life’
Lasse Hallstrom
52 `The Exorcism of Emily Rose’
Scott Derrickson
47 `Green Street Hooligans’
Lexi Alexander
42 `Underclassman’
Marcos Siega
30 `The Man’
Les Mayfield
New DVDs
91 Avant Garde–Experimental Cinema of the 1920s: Kino’s wonderful two-disc package of the cream of the French and American experimental shorts of the late silent and early sound eras contains almost every classic you can remember of that description, save Bunuel and Dali’s “Un Chien Andalou”–and this package gives you the artistic context for that last devilishly odd masterpiece. Among the several dozen films presented here: Ivens’ “Rain,” Kirsanoff’s “Menilmontant,” Leger’s “Ballet Mecanique,” Epstein’s “La Glace a Trois Faces,” Metzner’s “Uberfall,” Strand’s “Manhatta,” Eisenstein’s “Romance Sentimentale,” the teenaged Orson Welles’ “Hearts of Age” and many more–plus excellent notes.
85 `Bunny Lake Is Missing’
Otto Preminger
85 Charley Chase Collection II
Leo McCarey
83 Harold Lloyd Collection II
Various directors
82 Oliver Hardy Collection
Various directors
82 `Head-On’
Fatih Akin
80 `Coal Miner’s Daughter’
25th anniversary edition
Michael Apted
79 `Winter Solstice’
Josh Sternfeld
79 `Nobody Knows’
Hirokazu Koreeda
76 `Rumble Fish’
Francis Coppola
75 `The Wild One’
Laszlo Benedek
73 `Places in the Heart’
Robert Benton
72 `Ben-Hur’
(four-disc collector’s edition)
William Wyler
72 `Micki + Maude’
Blake Edwards
71 `Laurel Canyon’
Lisa Cholodenko
70 `Fever Pitch’
Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
68 `Masked and Anonymous’
Larry Charles
56 `The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy’
Garth Jennings
52 `Jersey Girl’
David Morris
Previously released
90 `I Vitelloni’
Federico Fellini
89 `Miracle of Morgan’s Creek’
Preston Sturges
86 `The Innocents’
Jack Clayton
