Mike Clark

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USA Today
For 1,327 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Mike Clark's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Vertigo
Lowest review score: 12 Jawbreaker
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 843 out of 1327
  2. Mixed: 296 out of 1327
  3. Negative: 188 out of 1327
1327 movie reviews
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    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    My Left Foot
    Like too many others, I resisted seeing (or at least, rushing out to) this film, fully expecting a stolid, respectable bummer; what I found, without the filmmakers ever having cheapened the material, is one of 1989's most entertaining movies. There is even, I swear, a barroom brawl that's out (and worthy) of John Ford. [3 Jan 1990, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    To Catch a Thief
    Conceived as froth with an edge and a smash on both counts. [11 May 2007, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Force of Evil
    Pearson's scenes with Garfield are among the most supercharged ever. [28 May 2004, p.6E]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Starship Troopers
    This twisted space opera serves up carcasses in six-digit figures but is foremost a sendup for the ages.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    A History of Violence
    Violence is in the spirit of the hardest-hitting film noir offerings from the '50s, but far more explicit. It's also in the spirit of the Western.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    The Band Wagon
    With songs Triplets, Dancing in the Dark and Shine on Your Shoes, it's my fave musical. [18 Mar 2005, p.6E]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    The Accidental Tourist
    The chief delight is Kasdan. “Body Heat” was appropriately slick, but “The Big Chill” and “Silverado” too much so. Tourist is edgier - also the work of a genuine craftsman. Frankly, I didn't think Kasdan had it in him. [23 Dec 1988, Life, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    4 Little Girls
    This subject demands consummate screen treatment and now has absolutely gotten it from director/producer Spike Lee. [10 Jul 1997, Pg.02.D]
    • USA Today
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Gigi
    Minnelli's other Oscar-winning perennial. [19 Sep 2008, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Spider-Man 2
    With special effects so convincing you don't even think about them, a head-case hero and a three-dimensional villain who is his equal, socko Spider-Man 2 has something for everyone.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Capturing the Friedmans
    Not since "Memento" has a movie served up such a provocative mind-bender, and the Sundance winner by first-time filmmaker Andrew Jarecki has the advantage of being true.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Do the Right Thing
    This is a fascinating movie experience. [30 June 1989, Life, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Secrets & Lies
    Blethyn is so astonishing that you forget you're seeing a performance.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Quiz Show
    Quiz Show is half-a-dozen movies, nearly all exceptional, and a lion's share assemblage of the year's top male performances. A watershed scandal revisited, it's also a riveting revenge story motivated by seething resentment. [14 Sept 1994, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 69 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Eyes Wide Shut
    A precisely modulated and mostly mesmerizing 2¾-hour suspense movie, in part because it's one of the most bravely disturbing screen works ever attempted about thoughts withheld by even the most devoted marriage partners and the ramifications of voicing them.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Brokeback Mountain
    It's a heart-wrenching portrayal of unfulfilled Wyoming love, but this time, we don't mean Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur in "Shane."
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    The Major and the Minor
    This breezy farce has lost just enough of its luster to seem no longer disproportionately funnier than its oft-televised Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis remake You're Never Too Young. [29 May 1998]
    • USA Today
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Dazed and Confused
    The "Age of Innocence" oozes anthropological dazzle, but Dazed and Confused may some day rate its own Smithsonian showings for clinically re-creating the High School Experience 1976. [20 Sept 1993]
    • USA Today
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Liam
    Ultimately grim, Liam is ripe in humanity --and even comedy.
    • USA Today
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Memento
    Has the unanticipated craft and artfully ambiguous appeal of last year's "Croupier," a movie whose art-house word-of-mouth success could be duplicated here.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    The relaxed and confident Crusade is the first Jones outing to benefit from actual characterizations. [24 May 1989, Life, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Sanjuro
    Jaded samurai Toshiro Mifune shows younger warriors the ropes, just as John Wayne used to toughen up tenderfoots on the range. [21 Apr 1995, p.3D]
    • USA Today
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Glengarry Glen Ross
    Director James Foley deftly juggles expressionistic actor closeups with drab widescreen shots that convey abject seediness. [30 Sep 1992, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Die Hard
    The result is a foot-stomping rouser. Where else can you get a cop in his underwear boogalooing with skyscraper terrorists? [15 July 1988, Life, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Magnolia
    The most imperfect of the year's best movies, Magnolia's flaws are easily forgiven because they are the result of go-for-broke ambition.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    A Mighty Wind
    Like the first half of "Best in Show," the movie is so deadpan that sometimes you have to pinch yourself to realize how potently satirical it is.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Carrie
    Sissy Spacek goes vengefully telekinetic in one of director Brian De Palma's best movies, and her scenes with mom Piper Laurie (both actresses were Oscar-nominated) release a lot of energy themselves. [29 Jun 2004]
    • USA Today
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    Jerry Maguire
    Overstuffed but exuberantly humane.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    The Pianist
    With this 2002 Cannes Film Festival best-picture winner, Polanski skips the quirky flourishes and simply brings history to life.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    The Search
    The first movie Montgomery Clift made (but second released) was Howard Hawks' all-time Western Red River. In the interim, director Fred Zinnemann stole some thunder by showcasing the actor in this semi-documentary about European children left homeless and without parents after World War II, filmed on location in the then-U.S. Occupied Zone of Germany. [23 Oct 2009, p.3D]
    • USA Today
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