Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 7,613 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 62% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Autumn Tale
Lowest review score: 0 Car 54, Where Are You?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,116 out of 7613
  2. Mixed: 1,475 out of 7613
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7613
7613 movie reviews
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  1. White Palace
    In spite of its limitations as art, White Palace is never less than watchable, thanks largely to the resources of its two stars and the dense supporting cast Mandoki has assembled - a cast that includes fast, effective turns from Kathy Bates, Renee Taylor, Eileen Brennan, Jason Alexander and Steven Hill. Mandoki has come a long way from the almost comic mawkishness of his first )feature, "Gaby - A True Story," and though his sentimental streak is never exactly inconspicuous, he has learned to balance it with a well-timed wit. [19 Oct 1990, p.D2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  2. Avalon
    What Levinson has created here is a generic memory film, so vague in its particulars that virtually anyone's family experiences can be plugged into it. [19 Oct 1990, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  3. Reversal of Fortune
    Irons' Von Bulow is easily the most attractive and entertaining movie heavy since James Mason's villain in ''North by Northwest,'' a figure with whom he shares a taste for elegant homes and wry understatement. [17 Oct 1990]
    • Chicago Tribune
  4. The Hot Spot
    Pretty silly. The Hot Spot certainly is, and it's occasionally quite entertaining for it, though the picture never really achieves a dimension beyond that of a Playboy Party Joke. [26 Oct 1990, Friday, p.I]
    • Chicago Tribune
  5. Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael
    The character played by Ryder is really the centerpiece of the story, and she is the best part of this slight story...The rest of the movie is a fairly standard portrait of small-town life, with characters in more pain than is typical of such films. [12 Oct 1990, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  6. Memphis Belle
    The B-17 was a machine designed to accomplish a specific task, and so is Memphis Belle. The mission of this movie is to provoke a strong but narrow range of emotions in the viewer. It may succeed, but its mechanical nature is never in doubt. [12 Oct 1990, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  7. Mr. Destiny
    It's to Belushi's credit that, under such severely strained circumstances, he manages to come off as both likable and plausible - qualities that the venal Mr. Destiny otherwise lacks. [12 Oct 1990, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  8. Miller's Crossing
    The Coens have technique and they have taste; what they do not yet have is the ability to move beyond their handsome imagery to the human center of their material. [5 Oct 1990, Friday, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  9. Marked for Death
    Marked for Death is, even by the xenophobic standards of the recent action genre, uncommonly racist and misogynistic.
  10. Henry & June
    Kaufman wants to be bold in his depiction of lovemaking, but he keeps copping out, cutting away from the deed to such time-worn metaphors as booming bongo drums, pots that boil over on stove tops and African dancers gyrating wildly. Were Kaufman's frankness ever to equal the "passion and honesty" he praises in Miller's work, the film would merit at least an NC-21, if not 41. [05 Oct 1990, p.I]
    • Chicago Tribune
  11. Desperate Hours
    We keep waiting for the movie to stand for something more than a manual of cruelty, but it never does, even though director Cimino makes a heavy-handed attempt through Western locations and Red River Valley on the soundtrack to recall the heroism of another age. [05 Oct 1990, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  12. An Angel at My Table
    This is filmmaking at the very peak of the medium`s potential.
  13. King of New York
    Walken seems to run on his own alternative fuel source - he's always easier to observe than to understand - which makes him the natural villainous hero for Abel Ferrara's seedy King of New York, a film more interested in leaving impressions than spinning a smooth narrative. [11 Dec 1990, p.9]
    • Chicago Tribune
  14. Pacific Heights
    Pacific Heights wastes our time and the talent of three top actors, Michael Keaton, Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine. What possibly attracted them to this inconsequential exploitation film about a tenant from hell terrorizing his landlords in an effort to steal their home? We keep waiting for the film to develop some larger meaning or greater purpose. It never does. [29 Sept 1990, p.C2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  15. Texasville
    This is a very strong midlife-crisis movie about women. [28 Sep 1990, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  16. Narrow Margin
    Hyams' script may lack emotional thrust, but it's economical, and it tweaks the genre's traditional heroism, if only faintly. [21 Sep 1990, p.H]
    • Chicago Tribune
  17. State of Grace
    The sentiments expressed are really no more noble or refined than those of a Chuck Norris picture, though Joano's style tries to stamp art all over the sequence. It sure isn't that, but it isn't good action either. [14 Sep 1990, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  18. White Hunter Black Heart
    Though critical of the director's selfish character, the story does make a case for the macho man as someone who won't tolerate phonies. [14 Sep 1990, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  19. Hardware
    Though it does know how to hammer home a point, Hardware doesn't always have matching nuts and bolts. It has an anarchic quality, a jolting, disorienting rhythm that makes us unsure of time frame in certain stretches and of motivation in others. [14 Sep 1990, p.I]
    • Chicago Tribune
  20. Postcards from the Edge
    Postcards From the Edge is alive only when it's being as mean and vicious as its little heart can be, which is more than often enough. [12 Sep 1990, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  21. Goodfellas
    All of the performances are first-rate; Pesci stands out, though, with his seemingly unscripted manner. GoodFellas is easily one of the year's best films. [21 September 1990, Friday, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  22. The Killer
    The American distributor of John Woo's amazing Hong Kong feature, The Killer, is taking the easy way out and selling the picture as camp. But this movie is no joke: It's one of the most intense, passionate pieces of filmmaking you are ever likely to see. [10 May 1991, p.H]
    • Chicago Tribune
  23. Darkman
    What no plot summary of Darkman can provide is how much director Raimi ("The Evil Dead") brings to the party. In addition to giving us a conflicted hero - more disturbed than Batman - Raimi fills every action sequence and even routine plot scenes with fresh images that reflect his Darkman's rage. [24 Aug. 1990]
    • Chicago Tribune
  24. After Dark, My Sweet
    After Dark, My Sweet does capture Thompson's characteristic mood - a sort of lurid fatality, where moral questions have long since dropped out and there isn't much use struggling - but it doesn't have much of his distinctive, disruptive texture. The film is much too smooth for that, much too professional and much too carefully executed. [24 Aug 1990, p.H]
    • Chicago Tribune
  25. Men at Work
    A movie about a pair of garbagemen that falls into the general category of refuse. [28 Aug 1990, p.4C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  26. The Witches
    There are moments of genuine charm and solid invention, but it's a film that doesn't believe enough in itself. [28 Aug 1990, p.4C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  27. Pump Up the Volume
    Pump Up the Volume, an exceedingly well-written teenager-full-of-angst melodrama about a high school student who operates a pirate radio broadcast that criticizes parents and teachers while revealing the turmoil of adolescence.
    • Chicago Tribune
  28. My Blue Heaven
    Someone should have told Steve Martin that, prodigiously talented though he is, his over-the-top caricature of a displaced mobster could not sustain an entire movie, particularly one as scattershot as My Blue Heaven. [20 Aug 1990, p.2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  29. The Exorcist III
    Eventually, Blatty's cat-and-mouse game with the viewer gets a little tiresome, and his own story, by definition, leads to a corner: an all-out, free-for-all exorcism finish that seems a bit dated now.
  30. Taking Care of Business
    Veteran director Arthur Hiller keeps the vehicle galloping along with a sure hand, careful not to let any of it sink to a fatal level of believability and always on the prowl for whatever wit can be harvested from any gizmo at hand. [17 Aug 1990, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
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