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).
Movies opening this week
98` Citizen Kane’ (revival): The comic-romantic-tragedy of a newspaper tycoon who won and lost too much and loved too little. Shot when director-co-writer-star-producer Welles was 25, with his inimitable Mercury Theater stage/radio troupe (including Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead) and cited many times as the movies’ ultimate masterpiece, this complex, spunky and brilliant newspaper biography is the one filmmaking achievement that can probably never be topped. Inspired by the controversial life of yellow journalism magnate William Randolph Hearst, “Kane” has come to transcend its subject, its era, its creators–even perhaps the movies themselves. With music by Bernard Herrmann, script by Welles and Herman Mankiewicz and photography (Bravo!) by Gregg Toland.
95 `Touch of Evil’ (revival)
Orson Welles
60 `Screen Door Jesus’
Kirk Davis
Movies now playing
77 `Munich’
Steven Spielberg
75 `Brokeback Mountain’
Ang Lee
74 `King Kong’
Peter Jackson
69 `Casanova’
Lasse Hallstrom
68 `Chronicles of Narnia:
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’
Andrew Adamson
68 `The Ringer’
Barry W. Blaustein
65 `The White Countess’
James Ivory
59 `Wolf Creek’
Greg McLean
57 `The Family Stone’
Thomas Bezucha
56 `Fun With Dick & Jane’
Dean Parisot
51 `Memoirs of a Geisha’
Rob Marshall
35 `Rumor Has It …’
Rob Reiner
28 `Cheaper by the Dozen 2′
Adam Shankman
New DVDs
88` Cafe Lumiere’: Hsiao-hsien Hou (“City of Sadness”) Taiwan’s justly renowned filmmaker examines Tokyo through the stylistic prism of one of his favorite directors and biggest influences: the late Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu (“Tokyo Story”). The story is simple–the problems of a young music researcher (pop star Yo Hitoto), who becomes pregnant but has no desire for marriage–but the treatment is visually austere and quietly moving.
81 `Austeria’
Cecil B. DeMille
76 `Old Wives for New/The Whispering Chorus’
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Previously released DVDs
87 `Seven Men From Now’
(special collector’s edition)
Budd Boetticher
83 `The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill’
Judy Irving
82`2046′
Wong Kar-Wai
81 `Toy Story 2′
(2-disc special edition)
Ash Brannon, John Lasseter
71 `Vodka Lemon’
Hiner Saleem
69 `The Brothers Grimm’
Terry Gilliam
68` Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express’
Carl Schenkel
64 `Chicago’
(The Razzle-Dazzle Edition)
Rob Marshall
63 `Serenity’ (widescreen edition)
Joss Whedon
62 `I Never Promised You A Rose Garden’
Anthony Page
60 `The Great Raid'(widescreen director’s cut)
John Dahl
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Edited by Michael Wilmington, Tribune movie critic
