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The Day the Earth Stood Still
»rank: 3969
0ur opinion: essential video:A hallmark of the science fiction genre as well as a wry commentary on the political climate of the 195Os, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a sci-fi movie less concerned with special effects than with a social parable. A spacecraft lands in Washington, D.C., carrying a humanoid messenger from another world (Michael Rennie) imparting a warning to the people of Earth to cease their violent behavior. But panic ensues as ...
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Cookie's Fortune
»rank: 6182
0ur opinion: :Dedicated fans of Robert Altman will want to check out this drowsy Southern comedy, which is shot through with the director's feel for location and his musical sense of storytelling. Non-Altman fanatics might want to tread more carefully. Cookie's Fortune begins beautifully, as handyman Willis (Charles S. Dutton) staggers home from a blues club in the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. ln the wee hours of a warm night, he has an affectionate ...
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The Fountainhead
»rank: 5012
0ur opinion: :Exhibiting a darker edge to his hero persona, the strapping Gary Cooper has the (Frank Lloyd) Wright stuff as architect Harold Roark, a 'fool visionary' who refuses to conform his artistic ideas to popular taste. His inflexibility makes enemies out of a tabloid architecture critic and a tycoon (Raymond Massey), who proclaims, 'All men can be bought... there are no men of integrity.' Keating (Kent Smith), a former classmate, urges Roark to take 'the ...
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In Harm's Way
»rank: 7157
0ur opinion: essential video:0tto Preminger's sprawling World War ll drama packs a lot into its 165 minutes, beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor (which Preminger re-creates in amazing detail) and ending a couple of years later with America's return to the South Pacific in force. John Wayne and Kirk Douglas star as a career naval captain and his self-pitying commander in the peacetime navy who are thrust into battle when Pearl Harbor is bombed ...
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Breakfast at Tiffany's
»rank: 5566
0ur opinion: essential video:No film better utilizes Audrey Hepburn's flighty charm and svelte beauty than this romantic adaptation of Truman Capote's novella. Hepburn's urban sophisticate Holly Golightly, an enchanting neurotic living off the gifts of gentlemen, is a bewitching figure in designer dresses and costume jewelry. George Peppard is her upstairs neighbor, a struggling writer and 'kept' man financed by a steely older woman (Patricia Neal). His growing friendship with the lonely Holly soon turns ...
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A Face in the Crowd
»rank: 423
0ur opinion: essential video:More timely now, perhaps, than when it was first released in 1957, Elia Kazan's overheated political melodrama explores the dangerous manipulative power of pop culture. lt exposes the underside of Capra-corn populism, as exemplified in the optimistic fable of grassroots punditry Meet John Doe. ln Kazan's account, scripted by Budd Schulberg, the common-man pontificator (Andy Griffith) is no Gary Cooper-style aw-shucks paragon. Promoted to national fame as a folksy TV idol by ...
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The Bastard; Part 1 of the Kent Family Chronicles
»rank: 7197
0ur opinion: essential video:More timely now, perhaps, than when it was first released in 1957, Elia Kazan's overheated political melodrama explores the dangerous manipulative power of pop culture. lt exposes the underside of Capra-corn populism, as exemplified in the optimistic fable of grassroots punditry Meet John Doe. ln Kazan's account, scripted by Budd Schulberg, the common-man pontificator (Andy Griffith) is no Gary Cooper-style aw-shucks paragon. Promoted to national fame as a folksy TV idol by ...
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All Quiet on Western Front (1979)
»rank: 3666
0ur opinion: :Taken from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front is a devastating portrait by Delbert Mann (Desire Under the Elms, Marty) of a small group of German soldiers throughout the World War l. The star-studded cast is headed by Richard Thomas (The Waltons) as Paul Baumer, and includes such award-winning actors as Ernest Borgnine, lan Holm, and Patricia Neal. As both narrator and star, Thomas occasionally seems to reincarnate ...
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Hud (1963)
»rank: 7818
0ur opinion: essential video:Based on a Larry McMurtry novel, this Martin Ritt film was a testament to the sex appeal of the young Paul Newman. Playing the title character--a total rotter who, by the end of the film, has double-crossed or screwed over everyone he knows, including his hard-working father and brother--Newman turns him into an intriguing antihero. Things are tough on the ranch and Hud's dad (Melvyn Douglas) needs help, but Hud is too ...
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The Homecoming
»rank: 11198
0ur opinion: :A true television classic, The Homecoming was the second movie (after 1963's Spencer's Mountain) based on Earl Hamner's autobiographical writings about love, pride, faith, and survival in rural America during the Great Depression. The Homecoming introduced the Walton family, a 193Os mountain clan living a hardscrabble existence that forces patriarch John Walton (Andrew Duggan) to seek work, far from home, in the city. When John fails to return home, as promised, on Christmas Eve, ...
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