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The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
The Fox
(Rydell, 1967)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
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At Long Last Love
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Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)
Mike's Murder
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Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
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Sh! The Octopus
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The Mating Season
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Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
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Run of the Arrow
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House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Macabre
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The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
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1960's
Key Witness
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Summer and Smoke
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The Chapman Report
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Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
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Tropic of Cancer
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I Never Sang for My Father
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Sometimes a Great Notion
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Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
'Doc'
(Perry, 1971)
The Music Lovers
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Drive, He Said
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The Steagle
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The Last Movie
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Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
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Pete 'n' Tillie
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Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing
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Man on a Swing
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Open Season
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The Tamarind Seed
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Law and Disorder
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Homebodies
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Stardust
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Celine and Julie Go Boating
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1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
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At Long Last Love
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Hearts of the West
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Welcome to L.A.
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W.C. Fields and Me
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Citizens Band
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Twilight's Last Gleaming
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Looking for Mr. Goodbar
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Movie Movie
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The Medusa Touch
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American Hot Wax
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Hot Stuff
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Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
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Rich Kids
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Nightwing
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Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Running on Empty
(Lumet, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Men Don't Leave
(Brickman, 1990)
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

July 30

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

Charlie St. Cloud

The Concert

Dinner for Shmucks

The Dry Land

The Extra Man

Get Low

Helen

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel

Smash His Camera

What's the Matter with Kansas?

Who Killed Nancy

Wait In Line, Fella

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So Newsweek's David Ansen, Variety's Todd McCarthy and the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt get to ignore the 11.30 Invictus review embargo and everyone else has to wait...is that it? Because they're big shots with special privileges? Are we still living in 1997?

And now Huffington Post-er Pamela Ezell has chimed in with an opinion -- "On a scale of one to 10, Invictus is a six," she says. "Add it to your Netflix queue or watch it on pay-per-view. Those lucky enough to be on a trans-Atlantic flight next year will probably have a chance to see Invictus on the plane, since its political theme and World Cup rugby depictions will undoubtedly make the film more popular abroad than it is here."

A columnist friend says he's waiting for Monday anyway -- "What's the difference? Nobody's reading this weekend" -- but the dam is clearly cracking and all bets are off. I've been chewing Invictus over in my head and may as well unload now. It's a likable, very decent film in many respects -- Morgan Freeman is delightful as Mandela, and an almost certain Best Actor nominee -- but it seems fair to mention other impressions.

What Kind of "Good"?<< previous | next >>Invictus Is...

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 27, 2009 at 9:54 AM

comment #1

great scott says ...

A big shot with special privileges is anybody who gets to see a movie for free three weeks before the rest of us lemmings are given the privilige to pay our hard earned money to see it ourselves.

Posted by great scott at November 27, 2009 10:23 AM

comment #2

Phreaker says ...

I think it comes down to keeping your word. If you made an agreement with the studio not to talk about it until the 30th, you should keep your end of the bargain, don't you think? Unless your word means nothing. That's my take on embargoes. But I guess it depends on who you are and what you decide your ethics are as a journalist or even as a blogger.

Posted by Phreaker at November 27, 2009 10:30 AM

comment #3

Phreaker says ...

And the key to that Huffington Post review and the six rating, she adds:

On a scale of one to 10, one being "don't see," and 10 being "go see, even if you have to hire a sitter,"

Go see even if you have to hire a sitter - can I think of a single movie this year that is THAT good? No, not really.

Posted by Phreaker at November 27, 2009 10:32 AM

comment #4

teeem says ...

you're doing fine with your "Brothers" embargo.

Posted by teeem at November 27, 2009 10:41 AM

comment #5

lazarus says ...

Nice to see you're not drinking the Clint Kool-Aid this time around, Jeff, but that wasn't much of an "unload". More thoughts, please?

Also, from McCarthy's review:

"Directed by Eastwood with straightforward confidence"

"...his calm, equitable, fair-minded directorial temperament"

Give me a break. We've known Eastwood is straightforward and confident his entire career, and "calm and fair-minded" says nothing to me. It sounds like what you'd say when there's nothing very artistic or admirable about the effort. The guy's 79; we'll assume he's pretty calm without having to be told.

Posted by lazarus at November 27, 2009 10:54 AM

comment #6

Phreaker says ...

Uh, wrong Lazarus - Clint is not knowing or being fair-minded - he's known for taking a very strong position and for being an extremist, whether it's assisted suicide or taking the law into your own hands. Calm and fair-minded is a mature departure.

Posted by Phreaker at November 27, 2009 11:11 AM

comment #7

Colin says ...

A) Respect the embargo. I know Variety is the most pretentious movie rag out there, but they should still pretend to have ethics.

B) People that grade films on a 1-10 scale are twits. ("writers" at CHUD,/Film, etc.)

Posted by Colin at November 27, 2009 11:15 AM

comment #8

lazarus says ...

Phreaker, considering Eastwood is conservative, I thought his take on assisted suicide was a pretty balanced one? And even in Unforgiven, it was certainly a nuanced depiction of revenge and the toll that violence takes.

Just because someone is very confident in their beliefs doesn't make him an extremist.

Posted by lazarus at November 27, 2009 11:28 AM

comment #9

Colin says ...

It would be very wrong to label Eastwood an extremist.

He's not a Jon Voight or Craig T. Nelson, espousing ignorance as loud as they can. Eastwood believes what he believes, isn't a hypocrite, and keeps to himself.

Posted by Colin at November 27, 2009 11:31 AM

comment #10

Sams says ...

Was Mandela's accent too difficult for an actor of Morgan Freeman's talents to master? It was distracting listening to him looking like Mandela but sounding like Morgan Freeman. Not best actor material for me for that reason.

Posted by Sams at November 27, 2009 11:56 AM

comment #11

Mr. F. says ...

My assumption on review embargos (at least for non-genre movies) has always been -- from the studios' perspective -- "If you loved the movie, there is no embargo... if you didn't, then no mention of the movie until the day it's released." Am I wrong? Isn't that always the studios' unspoken rule?

Posted by Mr. F. at November 27, 2009 12:02 PM

comment #12

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Nobody said squat to me directly about embargoes. I was just told about one second-hand. Plus when three critics weigh in (particularly two from the trades) and a random Huffington Post-er weighs in, I think it's okay to respond. Especially if you're trying to show love along with some truth.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/invictus-film-review-1004049135.story

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at November 27, 2009 12:55 PM

comment #13

Noel Murray says ...

I can't go see *any* movie without hiring a sitter.

Posted by Noel Murray at November 27, 2009 1:20 PM

comment #14

Mr. F. says ...

Oh, I get it -- it's just that if a critic wrote "Ed Wood would be proud... this is an utter masterpiece of terrible filmmaking," the marketing folks would sell it on their ads as "...a masterpiece..." That's the way they work.

ANY kind of embargo is BS -- if they show you the movie, you should be allowed to write whatever you want immediately after, whether it's good or bad; if they don't want that, they shouldn't screen it for critics at all and they'll miss out on generating any advance critical buzz. Shouldn't work any other way.

Posted by Mr. F. at November 27, 2009 1:23 PM

comment #15

Bob Hightower says ...

Don't the trades usually publish their reviews a bit earlier than the rest of the press? Or has that changed from before?

Posted by Bob Hightower at November 27, 2009 1:42 PM

comment #16

Bob Hightower says ...

Don't the trades usually publish their reviews a bit earlier than the rest of the press? Or has that changed from before?

Posted by Bob Hightower at November 27, 2009 1:42 PM

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comment #18