Edward Guthmann

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San Francisco Chronicle
For 526 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 45% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1 point higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Edward Guthmann's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Thieves
Lowest review score: 0 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 317 out of 526
  2. Mixed: 155 out of 526
  3. Negative: 54 out of 526
526 movie reviews
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    • 59 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    The First Wives Club
    It's a glamorous revenge romp, a "9 to 5" mixed with "Auntie Mame," and it gives each star the opportunity to do her best work in a long, long time.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    The Wings of the Dove
    The difference is that Iain Softley, who directed Wings of the Dove, and his screenwriter Hossein Amini, who wrote the overlooked "Jude," are keen observers who bring a wealth of ambiguity and mystery to the surface -- and release their characters from the cliches that easily could have swallowed them.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    The Night of the Hunter
    Part fairy tale and part bogeyman thriller -- a juicy allegory of evil, greed and innocence, told with an eerie visual poetry.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Lola
    Soft, evanescent and bittersweet.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Dead Man Walking
    Acting rarely gets better than this.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Dead Again
    Deliciously witty and entertaining… A first-rate thriller, one that's likely to generate as much word-of-mouth as “Alien,'' “Carrie'' and “Psycho'' did in their time. [23 Aug 1991, Daily Notebook, p.F1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Light Sleeper
    I think what I like best about Light Sleeper -- more than Dafoe's peculiar magic or Schrader's wise, sympathetic writing -- is the fact that it gives you so much to chew on. So many contemporary films seem to evaporate as soon as you walk out of the theater. Light Sleeper resonates. [04 Sep 1992, p.C1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    American Beauty
    A wonder of a film -- a luminous, beautifully executed drama that gathers the best cast of the year -- the best American film of the year.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    When We Were Kings
    On a deeper level -- and this is where When We Were Kings exceeds its expectations and becomes a great film -- Gast examines African American pride.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Shine
    Delivers a full emotional palette without undue sentimentalizing.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Maborosi
    Kore-eda weaves these images and others, building a multilayered fugue that contemplates death, asks if mourning ever truly ends and addresses the ephemeral nature of love, family and home. Everything we value and use to define and frame our lives, he suggests, is always at risk.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    The Truman Show
    An original, inspired piece of work.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    42: Forty Two Up
    This is an amazing record of a group of lives -- and probably more resonant than anyone could have imagined when the project began.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Yi Yi
    Wise, delicate and impeccably performed, Yi Yi is a three- hour drama that looks at one middle-class family in transition -- and does so with such a kind and probing eye that we all see our lives reflected through Yang's lens.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Paris Is Burning
    Technically rough and ragged, Paris nonetheless does an excellent job of digesting a rich, multilayered subculture, and breaking it down for a general audience without oversimplification. [09 Aug 1991, p.F1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Intervista
    Although it's told in the light, piquant style of his best comedies, there's a sadness at the root of Federico Fellini's Intervista. [31 Mar 1993, p.D3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 63 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Dancer in the Dark
    A thrilling, audacious work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Bulworth
    Beatty has fashioned a hilarious morality tale that delivers a surprisingly potent, angry message beneath the laughs.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
    Naked Gun 33 1/3 is a feast of pointless, shamelessly silly, almost consistently funny gags. Another comic gem. [18 Mar 1994, p.C1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 61 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Addams Family Values
    Addams Family Values is so much better than the first film -- partly because Sonnenfeld, who made his directing debut with the first film, has refined his directing chops, but mostly because Rudnick has contributed a delightful, mock- macabre script. [19 Nov 1993, p.C1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Dirty Pretty Things
    All told, the best ensemble cast I've seen this year.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Before Night Falls
    It's an horrific and tragic story, but somehow made beautiful through the care and attention of Schnabel's direction and Bardem's tender, unforgettable performance.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Spartacus
    Spartacus isn't the greatest epic ever made, but it's head and shoulders above most of the sword-and-sandal wheezers that came out in the '50s and '60s. And, given the prohibitive costs of shooting an epic today, it's the kind of movie we're not likely to see anymore -- except in well-deserved revivals like this one. [13 May 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Happy Together
    Loose, buoyant and bracingly original.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Kids
    None of the advance hype on Kids can prepare you for the raw, stripped-down reality that Larry Clark captures in his astonishing first film. Nothing can prepare you, because no other film has ever caught the recklessness, sweat and tingly heat of teenage sexuality so effectively.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    The Wedding Banquet
    It's a wise, sweet-natured film, and one that manages to have fun with its charac ters without judgment or condescension. [04 Aug 1993, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Lost in Translation
    A delicate, beautifully observed study of impossible romance, Lost in Translation is one of the best films this year.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Days of Heaven
    Days of Heaven is a visual poem. Slow and elegant, reverential in the way it celebrates the earth's contours and the play of light. [27 Oct. 1999, p.B3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 69 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Viva Las Vegas
    By far Elvis' best post-Army flick, and you can thank Ann-Margret for that distinction. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 43 Metascore
    • 100 Edward Guthmann
    Chain Reaction
    A conspiracy tale of high-tech chicanery, Chain Reaction has better acting, better writing, more spectacular chase sequences and more genuine drama than all of this summer's blockbusters. It's also got Morgan Freeman, as good an actor as we have today, which easily qualifies it as the one action film you should see this summer if you see no other.
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