Category: the classics
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Cate Blanchett Gives Her Best Performance Yet in ‘Tár’
Plus: Christian Tafdrup’s ‘Speak No Evil.’
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‘Across the 110th Street’ is a Bleak, Ambivalent Police Procedural
The film is a high-water mark for the 1970s procedural.
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‘Blue Collar”s Frankness Takes You Aback
‘Blue Collar’ doesn’t end on a hopeful note akin to the more widely seen, and still-good, mainstream unionization drama ‘Norma Rae,’ which came out the next year. It wades in, and stays put in, the hell of working a hard, badly paying job
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‘The Killing Floor’ is an Essential Historical Drama
‘The Killing Floor’ is as much an illuminating history lesson as it is a great, impassioned movie about the indignities of labor and the importance of fighting for a seat at the table.
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‘Norma Rae’ Still Invigorates
‘Norma Rae’ isn’t electrifying by force. Instead, just by carefully dramatizing the process of unionization, it captures the simple thrills of workplace organization — the pleasurable charge felt when you realize it’s possible to have a say in an arena where you never thought you’d have one.
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‘Chameleon Street’ Still Feels a Step Ahead
Faking it till you make it is rarely as literal as it is in ‘Chameleon Street.’
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A Young Woman Adrift
Sandrine Bonnaire is extraordinary in Agnès Varda’s masterful ‘Vagabond.’
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‘Summertime’ is an All-Time-Great Romantic Film
An American touching foreign land and getting “healed” in some way is a tired trope. But ‘Summertime’ energizes it.
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‘Bigger Than Life”s Resounding Anger
By ‘Bigger Than Life’’s end, which offers no resounding resolution, you feel practically pummeled by its driving dilemma.
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‘Charley Varrick’ is an Expertly Constructed Thriller
One of its many wonders is how it moves to and from the several characters involved in this cat-and-mouse chase without losing any of its high-stress momentum.
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‘Hopscotch’ is a Laid-Back Caper
It feels wrong calling a spy or chase movie “laid back,” but I can’t think of a better way to describe ‘Hopscotch,’ which could be classified under both subgenres.
Peterson Reviews 