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
81 `Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’: Wallace and Gromit, cheese-fancying British inventor and his resourceful pet dog–two of the greatest of all modern cartoon characters and stars of Nick Park’s tip-top shorts, “A Grand Day Out,” “The Wrong Trousers” and “A Close Shave”–get their own feature in this tense, giggly outing. Wittily, it pits the pair and their new “humane extermination” outfit, Anti-Pesto, against the mysterious bunny beast wreaking havoc in local vegetable gardens. Written and directed by Park and Steve Box.
70 `Separate Lies’
Julian Fellowes
62 `In Her Shoes’
Curtis Hanson
60 `The Gospel’
Rob Hardy
31 `Waiting…’
Rob McKittrick
Now playing
86 `Duma’
Carroll Ballard
78 `Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride’
Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
78 `A History of Violence’
David Cronenberg
77 `Oliver Twist’
Roman Polanski
74 `Serenity’
Joss Whedon
72 `Roll Bounce’
Malcolm D. Lee
New DVDs
94 `Alfred Hitchcock–
Masterpiece Collection’: “The Master of Suspense” is what he was called for most of his career, but “the Master of Cinema,” one of the art’s reigning giants, was the title he finally won by the end of his career. This Universal set contains 14 of his classics, along with his AFI tribute, an interview with Hitch, “making of” documentaries and commentaries. The movies: “Saboteur,” “Shadow of a Doubt,” “Rope,” “Rear Window,” “The Trouble with Harry,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Vertigo,” “Psycho,” “The Birds,” “Marnie,” “Torn Curtain,” “Topaz,” “Frenzy” and “Family Plot.”
88 The Val Lewton
Horror Collection
(`Cat People’/`The Curse of the Cat People’/`I Walked with a Zombie’/`The Body Snatcher’/`Isle of the Dead’/`Bedlam’/`The Leopard Man’/`The Ghost Ship’/`The 7th Victim’/`Shadows in the Dark’)
88 `Cat People’/`The Curse
of the Cat People’
Gunther Fritsch, Robert Wise
88 `Men in War’
Anthony Mann
87 `Chronicle of Anna’
Magdalena Bach
87 `I Walked with a Zombie’/`The Body Snatcher’
Jacques Tourneur
85 `The Fly–Collector’s Edition’
David Cronenberg
83 `Cinderella’
Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske
81 `Teorema’
Pier Paolo Pasolini
