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
82 `The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till’: Great crimes can sum up an era. Keith Beauchamp’s powerful film on the 1955 Emmett Louis Till case revisits one of the most horrifying public episodes of the ’50s civil rights years: the murder of Chicagoan Till–a 14-year-old African-American boy beaten and slain after supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi–and the subsequent acquittal of his killers. Photos of Till’s mutilated body became emblems of the period, and Beauchamp’s film, which prompted the Justice Department to reopen the case, brings it all movingly back into focus.
78 `Touch the Sound’
Thomas Riedelsheimer
77 `The War Within’
Joseph Castelo
62 `A Decent Factory’
Thomas Balmes
52 `Domino’
Tony Scott
51 `Elizabethtown’
Cameron Crowe
Now playing
81 `Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’
Steve Box, Nick Park
78 `A History of Violence’
David Cronenberg
77 `Oliver Twist’
Roman Polanski
74 `Serenity’
Joss Whedon
72 `Roll Bounce’
Malcolm D. Lee
72 `The Prize Winner
of Defiance, Ohio’
Jane Anderson
66 `The Greatest Game
Ever Played’
Bill Paxton
63 `Dear Wendy’
Thomas Vinterberg
63 `In Her Shoes’
Curtis Hanson
56 `Flightplan’
Robert Schwentke
New DVDs
76 `Z Channel–A Magnificent Obsession’: For Los Angeles movie buffs and moviemakers in the ’80s, Z Channel–an independent cable station for film aficionados–was a treasure trove of foreign films, classics, auteur American movies, neglected or uncut masterpieces and even some late night Euro-porn. Those fans, including Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, Jacqueline Bisset and Alexander Payne, here recall the channel’s heyday, its mercurial boss-programmer Jerry Harvey, the station’s abrupt corporate-induced 1988 demise and Harvey’s subsequent killing of his wife and himself. Not just a cinephile’s feast but a dark human drama, directed by Alexandra Cassavetes (John’s daughter).
73 `The Sisterhood
of the Traveling Pants’
Ken Kwapis
69 `Super Size Me’
Morgan Spurlock
65 `Heat’
Paul Morrissey
60 `Kicking & Screaming’
Jesse Dylan
59 `McLintock’
Andrew McLaglen
58 `High Tension’
Alexandre Aja
56 `Kingdom of Heaven’
Ridley Scott
54 `A Love Song for Bobby Long’
Shainee Gabel
Previously released
94 Alfred Hitchcock–
The Masterpiece Collection
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 Seventh Victim’ and `Shadows in the Dark’)
88 `Men in War’
Anthony Mann
86 `The Fly’
David Cronenberg
83 `Cinderella’
Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske
78 `Alfred Hitchcock Presents’–
Season One
76 `Gladiator’
Rowdy Herrington
72 `The Warriors’ Walter Hill
70 `My Summer of Love’
Pawel Pawlikowski
63 `The Interpreter’
Sydney Pollack
