Barbara Shulgasser

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Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Examiner
For 249 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Barbara Shulgasser's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 A Family Thing
Lowest review score: 0 Love Stinks
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 117 out of 249
  2. Mixed: 72 out of 249
  3. Negative: 60 out of 249
249 movie reviews
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    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Jefferson in Paris
    This movie would have had a chance of being interesting had it been about Sally Hemmings.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    First Kid
    The only remarkable feature about this otherwise routine movie is that it vilifies two current icons of American life. One is The Internet and the other is The Mall.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Clockers
    Lee seems to think that all his major characters are basically good people who deserve another chance, and so for the sake of an inappropriate happy ending, everyone important gets one.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Face/Off
    The trouble comes when Woo's patented - that is, oft-repeated - style overwhelms any hope of discerning story or acting through the haze of burning, crashing, bleeding and exploding.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Georgia
    Leigh plays the tragic and annoying Sadie as if she loved and hated the character simultaneously. And to the degree that this courageous movie succeeds it will elicit the same feelings in the audience.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The Frighteners
    The Frighteners is a gooey pastiche of Casper, Ghost, Poltergeist, Back to the Future (it's produced by Future director Robert Zemeckis), Ghostbusters, and episodes of Columbo.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Shanghai Triad
    The film itself never felt quite so densely plotted as Yimou apparently had hoped.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Heat
    There isn't much to recommend this movie until Pacino and De Niro finally share the first of their two scenes together.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Mother
    With this marvelous premise to launch it, the film fails nevertheless. The trouble is that none of the dialogue is funny enough to fulfill the expectations that Brooks' full-bodied stand-up comedian delivery promises every time he opens his mouth.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The Boxer
    Most disappointing is the fact that the movie ends so abruptly that you can't help wondering what the whole story amounts to, moving as it is.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Kundun
    Martin Scorsese is certainly one of the great living movie directors. Sadly, this does not mean he can't make a mistake. Kundun is a mistake.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Breakdown
    When you really think about Breakdown - and believe me, that would probably require spending more time thinking about the movie than the filmmakers did - it doesn't make much sense.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The City of Lost Children
    I'm not really sure who would enjoy this movie.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Mulan
    It's hard not to keep thinking that this movie is basically "Yentl" with a nose job.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Cry, the Beloved Country
    There isn't much to hold onto with this movie. If anything, Cry trivializes the plight of the South Africans in its breezy treatment of apartheid.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Event Horizon
    But in its own overblown, melodramatic way, complete with hideous and obtrusive music by Michael Kamen, clanging sound effects that will leave your ears ringing and a penchant on the part of director Paul Anderson ( "Mortal Kombat" ) for quick flashes of blood-drenched gore, Event Horizon is kind of a hoot.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The Big Lebowski
    It is a visual tour de force, but as a whole the movie slowly deflates into a cross between "Arizona" and "The Hudsucker Proxy".
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Unstrung Heroes
    Unfortunately, the movie never really goes anywhere. It's all pleasant enough to watch, but you never feel that Danny and Arthur's craziness (eventually Danny is committed), Sid's stoicism, Selma's selflessness and Steven's despair coalesce to mean anything significant or illuminating.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Live Flesh
    The real trouble with this movie is that it represents the continuing departure of Almodovar from the chaotic, riotous and anti-social roots that gave his best movies their zest.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The Bridges of Madison County
    Director Eastwood favors naturalism and sometimes the effort to reproduce what it is like to meet someone new bogs the picture down irreparably.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    While You Were Sleeping
    In general, the script is just slightly above sitcom level, but a few lines, owing to great delivery by terrific actors, raise this a few notches on the comedy scale.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Emma
    I tried to find in Paltrow what all her admirers in numerous magazine articles have reported. I tried to ignore a less than enchanting English accent and a tendency to be wiped off the screen whenever other actors were given much to do.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Oscar and Lucinda
    While Blanchett glows with intelligence, passion and a quirky kind of beauty, the movie she is in fails her in a number of essential ways.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Cop Land
    Cop Land presents a fairly involved plot, and Mangold is not equipped to do more than blurt all the information onto the screen and let the nuances settle where they may.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The Nutty Professor
    Be that as it may, the movie offers the uplifting news bulletin that life is not about being happy with how much you weigh but with what kind of person you are. This is where the movie starts getting sloppy.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Kids
    They have created a strange document about the unmaking of young lives, but it is a movie made without comment. Clark has stepped back into objectivity so far that he has neglected his role as interpreter for us.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The Long Kiss Goodnight
    One of the most blithely, giddily ridiculous movies to come along in ages.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Executive Decision
    This is a Seagal movie without Seagal and a Jack Ryan movie without Jack Ryan.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    The Negotiator
    When the mystery is unraveled and the frame-up is revealed, I, personally, had no idea what anyone was talking about.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Barbara Shulgasser
    Contact
    This bloated, self-important and logically absurd movie, made by the director of the equally historically hysterical "Forrest Gump," pretends to the thrones of Serious Thinking, of Important Messages and of Intellectual Provocation. If there were truly anything serious, important or intellectual about this movie, this planet would be in big trouble.
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