Chicago Reader's Scores

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For 6,312 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 42% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 I Stand Alone
Lowest review score: 0 Old Dogs
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,983 out of 6312
  2. Mixed: 2,456 out of 6312
  3. Negative: 873 out of 6312
6312 movie reviews
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  1. The King and I
    A typically overproduced 1956 Fox film of the Rodgers and Hammerstein hit, with Yul Brynner as the king and Deborah Kerr as the British schoolteacher who comes to Siam to educate Brynner's army of children. Too long at 133 minutes, but the score is swell.
  2. A Face in the Crowd
    The script, by Budd Schulberg, is pat and badly proportioned, but the picture has a sharp, dirty appeal.
  3. Exotica
    What I like about these camera movements, combined with the exotic, erotic ambience of Mychael Danna's score, is that they simultaneously implicate us in the characters' fantasies and place us at some distance from them. We literally view the action from shifting perspectives, but the rhythm and direction of our drifting gaze seem to place us directly inside the obsessions of the characters.
  4. The Thomas Crown Affair
    It's a piece of disposable fluff -- though that's exactly what's so appealing about it.
  5. Rejoice and Shout
    This documentary on the history of gospel music can't measure up to George T. Nierenberg's colorful "Say Amen, Somebody" (1982), but it's so jammed with great archival performances, most of them included in their entirety, that it's worth seeing.
  6. A Man for All Seasons
    Robert Bolt's boring historical drama functions best as an anthology of British acting styles, circa 1966.
  7. All That Jazz
    Almost every scene is excruciating (and a few are appalling), yet the film stirs an obscene fascination with its rapid, speed-freak cutting and passionate psychological striptease. This is the feverish, painful expression of a man who lives in mortal fear of his own mediocrity.
  8. God Grew Tired of Us
    The message, unspoken but inescapable, is that a little sharing might feed wealthy and poor alike.
  9. Kissing Jessica Stein
    This is possibly the funniest lesbian romp since "Go Fish."
  10. Seabiscuit
    Maybe the magic will work for those who loved the book, but I found this film stultifyingly self-important and, despite the regularity with which it cuts to the chase, weirdly static.
  11. Burn! (re-release)
    An unusually successful attempt to mate good drama with political analysis.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Secret
    Bittersweet drama.
  13. 3-Iron
    The illicit lovers in this eerie South Korean drama communicate whole worlds without ever speaking.
  14. Earth
    This first feature from Disney's new nature division has an encyclopedic reach and spectacular footage shot by more than two dozen crack cinematographers.
  15. Superman Returns
    Singer draws heavily on the 1978 hit that launched the Warner Brothers franchise, with Brandon Routh dully impersonating Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, Kevin Spacey getting all the good lines as the villainous Lex Luthor, and stock footage of Marlon Brando proving that death isn't always a good career move.
  16. Men in Black
    Don't expect any psychological depth here, but the cool wit and fun... are deftly maintained, and Sonnenfeld provides a bountiful supply of both fanciful beasties and ingenious visuals.
  17. Dances with Wolves
    Sincere, capable, at times moving, but overextended, this picture is seriously hampered by its tendency to linger over everything--especially landscapes with silhouetted figures, and not excluding its own good intentions.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Pi
    With this odd mixture of elements the film's tone is gloomy, portentous, and hysterical, yet at the same time strangely earnest and square, as if David Lynch had tried to somehow make a movie version of Scientific American.
  19. Blindsight
    The kids are impressively plucky, but Weihenmayer comes off as an egomaniac, arguing with his team and endangering the youngsters' lives. Lucy Walker directed this cloying and manipulative 2006 documentary.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Good Hair
    An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off.
  21. Presumed Innocent
    A top-notch courtroom drama that will keep you guessing if you haven't read the book; even if you have, it is still a very well crafted story.
  22. These Are the Damned
    More than an interesting curiosity, it's one of Losey's best English efforts, and Viveca Lindfors contributes a striking part as an eccentric sculptress.
  23. Northern Lights
    John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath seems like the obvious inspiration here, in both its proletarian sentiment and its primal arrangement of characters against the harsh landscape.
  24. Let It Rain
    Like her previous feature, "Look at Me" (2004), this relationship drama is mature and intelligent, but the character conflicts are so decorously handled that after a while the whole enterprise begins to seem more like a good waiter than a good story.
  25. Sign 'o' the Times
    Prince himself, passing through a spectrum of costumes and sexual roles, is never less than commanding, as performer, composer, and director.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Welcome to Sarajevo
    It keeps the gag quotient lower than Reds but has a similar effect: more urgent in its desire to make us care about the events it depicts, it nonetheless reduces the war in Bosnia to mere scenery for the hackneyed journey of a world-weary journalist from cynicism to caring activism.
  27. Tell Them Who You Are
    The elder Wexler keeps insisting that he won't sign a release for the film unless he approves of the finished product, so he must have been pleased with its brutally honest assessment of him as a gifted filmmaker who never realized his true potential.
  28. Hellboy
    Played by Ron Perlman, he's the most magnetic action hero I've come across in a long while.
  29. Sleepless in Seattle
    Nora Ephron, who wrote and directed this, repeatedly alludes to the 1957 "An Affair to Remember" as her principal point of reference, yet at no point does she indicate any awareness of what makes that tragicomic love story sublime and this one merely cutesy.
  30. Candy Mountain
    Ambling along like a wry, laid-back “Heart of Darkness” this likable and touching film makes full use of Frank’s remarkable photographic eye and Wurlitzer’s witty, acerbic, and quasi-mystical handling of myth that has already served him well in his novels. The results are a resonant reflection on the music business and a memorable ode to wanderlust–with lots of good music (by Dr. John, Joe Strummer, and others) on the sound track.
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