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
75 `Oliver Twist’: Few great novels have been filmed more often than “Oliver Twist”–whether tragically, comically or, as in the Lionel Bart-Carol Reed version, musically–and, filmed here once again, Charles Dickens’ blood-chilling, heart-rending tale of an innocent runaway lost in a world of London street crime still packs a wallop. Ronald Harwood adapts; Roman Polanski, who had a Twistian boyhood himself (as a Jewish child dodging Nazis in WW II Poland), visualizes the tale with his usual dark panache. Ben Kingsley makes a notable Fagin.
75 `Tony Takitani’
Jun Ichikawa
73 `The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio’
Jane Anderson
71 `Serenity’
Joss Whedon
70 `Keane’
Lodge Kerrigan
69 `The Greatest Game Ever Played’
Bill Paxton
49 `MirrorMask’
Dave McKean
Movies now playing
82 `A History of Violence’
David Cronenberg
80 `Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride’
Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
71 `Thumbsucker’
Mike Mills
68 `Proof’
John Madden
63 `Lord of War’
Andrew Niccol
63 `Dear Wendy’
Thomas Vinterberg
62 `An Unfinished Life’
Lasse Hallstrom
New DVDs
86 `The Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus’: Michael Palin, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam–the six daft, daffy, sometimes demonically funny chaps known collectively as Monty Python, changed and warped British television comedy in ways that owe a bit to the Goon Show gang, the “Beyond the Fringe” guys and the Marx Brothers, but ultimately spring from their own individual, anarchic and sometimes very silly brand of twisted wit. Now, instead of racing between separate DVDs, switching discs, breathing heavily, you can now down the whole blast in one gulp.
83 `Henry–Portrait of a Serial Killer’
Dir., John McNaughton
83 `Quilombo’
Carlos Diegues
82 `The Stationmaster’s Wife’
Rainer Fassbinder
82 `Look Back in Anger’
Judi Dench
79 `Empire of the Sun’
Steven Spielberg
78 `The Man Who Fell to Earth’
Nicolas Roeg
73 `Oliver’
Carol Reed
71 `Lords of Dogtown’
Catherine Hardwicke
Previously released
90 `Bob Dylan–No Direction Home’
Martin Scorsese
90 `Masculin Feminin’
Jean-Luc Godard
89 `In the Year of the Pig’
Emile Antonio
88 `Point of Order’
Emile Antonio
84 `Naked’
Mike Leigh
