Brandon Judell Movie Reviews & Previews

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Brandon Judell

"Writing is one-tenth perspiration and nine-tenths masturbation. (Gary Oldman as Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears)"

Agrees with the Tomatometer 75% of the time.

Biography:: Cinema editor of New York Theatre Wire and contributor to CultureCatch.com and indieWire. My articles have also appeared in THE BAY AREA REPORTER; Detour, aRude, Filmmaker, The Bay Area Reporter, SOHO STYLE; SMOKE AFFAIR; The Advocate, and FLAIR. My short stories have been anthologized in Libido, and A Member of the Family (Dutton).
Favorites:: Central Station;The Celebration; Beautiful Thing; Battle of Algiers; Another Country; Ghost Dog; Surrender, Dorothy; The King is Alive: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Boys Don't Cry; Keep the River on the Right; I Love You, Alice B. Toklas; Laurel and Hardy's The Brats; Jules and Jim; Once Were Warriors; Ladybird, Ladybird; You're a Big Boy Now; Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush
Publications:: aRude , Aufbau , Bay Area Reporter , Black Bear Film Festival , Critics Inc./America Online , CultureCatch , Cyberlinc , Detour Magazine , Entertainment Asylum , Fashion Wire Daily , Filmmaker , Forward , Gay City News , Gay.com UK , GreenCine , Hollywood.com , IFC Rant , indieWIRE , Jednet , Journal of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care , New York Theatre Wire , PlanetOut , PopcornQ , scotsgay.com , Soho Style , The New Lesbian and Gay Voice
Critics' Group:: New York Film Critics Online

Total Reviews:: 655
Total QuickRatings:: 250

Location:: New York City

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 655

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	38%	Private Romeo (2012)	" In the end, Private Romeo, with its indie budget, handsomely captures the uncompromising nature of young love, and "it ends with a long deep sigh, like the breeze of the evening," as Samuel Coleridge said it should." — CultureCatch Posted Feb 11, 2012
	100%	Bullhead (2012)	" This violently absorbing, and at times highly funny, thriller is held together by Schoenaerts's searing performance, which is never oversized even though his character is." — CultureCatch Posted Feb 7, 2012
	——	Life and Death on the A List (1997)	" Corcoran's direction captures the plight of what it is to have been young, beautiful and worshipped, then to suddenly find yourself older, not so wiser, and battling a not so pleasant disease." — PopcornQ Posted Jan 28, 2012
	68%	Jeffrey (1995)	" The most offensive film of the decade has arrived, thank God, and it was worth waiting for. " — PlanetOut Posted Jan 28, 2012
	——	First Position (2012)	" This masterfully thoughtful documentary incisively records the trials and tribulations of getting en pointe as a career move." — CultureCatch Posted Jan 20, 2012
	34%	Joyful Noise (2012)	" Imagine a mediocre episode of 'Glee' as envisioned by Billy Graham, and you're halfway to Joyful Noise." — CultureCatch Posted Jan 17, 2012
	99%	A Separation (2011)	" The emotional oscillations that pulsate through A Separation -- with its tangle of unfulfilled needs, sliding values, unspoken desires, male posturing, and feminist dilemmas -- are as thrilling as the antics in any Hitchcockian thriller. " — CultureCatch Posted Jan 11, 2012
	96%	Pariah (2011)	" . . . a joyous, inspirational film that is inarguably a "must see" for all." — New York Theatre Wire Posted Jan 8, 2012
	82%	TrollHunter (2011)	" The trolls here all are the spitting image of Muppets with a hyperthyroid problem. In fact, imagine a Sweetums doll after three wash cycles. " — CultureCatch Posted Jan 4, 2012
	71%	Hanna (2011)	" A sour, empty graphic novel of an escapade from the man who once helmed 'Atonement,' 'Hanna' gets intensely more godawful as it approaches its climax." — GreenCine Posted Nov 27, 2011
6/10	81%	Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)	" What could up have amounted to a highly moving work of art is constantly diminished by low-grade TV sitcom humor such as can be found on any series starring Kevin James or James Belushi." — GreenCine Posted Nov 27, 2011
7/10	84%	Contagion (2011)	" A paean to death by bat droppings mixed with a bit of pork." — CultureCatch Posted Nov 27, 2011
9/10	84%	My Week with Marilyn (2011)	" Williams doesn't mime Monroe, she embodies Monroe: all of her frailties, her naiveties, her veiled strengths, and her flirtations. She is never less than breathlessly breathtaking. " — CultureCatch Posted Nov 16, 2011
	90%	The Descendants (2011)	" There are too many times when you are not sure whether to laugh or be doleful or squirm. For example, the grandmother with Alzheimer's who thinks she'll be visiting Queen Elizabeth. This turns into a tasteless Judd Apatow moment." — CultureCatch Posted Oct 16, 2011
9/10	78%	Melancholia (2011)	" No one else since Ingmar Bergman and Chantal Akerman has so consistently and illustriously particularized the disintegration of females stuck in an interminable, patriarchal dystopia." — CultureCatch Posted Oct 1, 2011
	——	A Woman with Red Hair (1979)	" The moral of the film seems to be: To win the affections of a female, just slap her around, rape her, and if that doesn't work, lend her out to your pals. Ah, doesn't it make you just yearn for the Seventies?" — CultureCatch Posted Sep 19, 2011
	5%	The Family Tree (2011)	" So in the end what we are presented with is a mildly affable comedy of familial dysfunction that wants to chide the times for being both morally and emotionally obtuse. Instead, The Family Tree winds up being little more than a film uprooted." — CultureCatch Posted Aug 30, 2011
	83%	Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)	" In what is easily one of the better films of the year, director Rupert Wyatt, with a first-rate screenplay, melds thrills with wit and state-of-the-art special effects to create a flick you're ready to watch again as soon as it ends." — CultureCatch Posted Aug 26, 2011
	59%	Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (2011)	" The scariest aspect might be Guy Pearce's black hair dye, which appears to have been sprayed on a la one of those old TV after-midnight infomercials. " — CultureCatch Posted Aug 26, 2011
	74%	Fright Night (2011)	" Silly, scary, and consistently entertaining, Fright Night was made for popcorn noshing-or vice versa." — CultureCatch Posted Aug 26, 2011
	78%	Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)	" But it is Gosling who steals the show. Flexing his extraordinarily buffed torso and his acting chops, the young star proves his comic skills are as well honed as his dramatic ones, and that's saying a lot." — New York Theatre Wire Posted Aug 4, 2011
	——	Ask Not ()	" A thorough look at the military's homophobic policies" — IFC Rant Posted Jul 29, 2011
	40%	Otto; or Up with Dead People (2008)	" Its metaphorical examination of the plight of queer zombies in Germany is readymade for former LaBruce fans. Get ready for copulation with a hole in the stomach and such memorable quotes as "I was a zombie with an identity crisis."" — indieWIRE Posted Jul 29, 2011
	100%	They Killed Sister Dorothy (2008)	" a stirring doc on how landowners paid to have an activist nun slaughtered in Brazil" — indieWIRE Posted Jul 29, 2011
	——	The Wrecking Crew (2008)	" This sing-along, joyful doc unearths a group of musicians who actually played all the music on the LPS by the Byrds, Cher, Nancy and Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, the Monkees, and Captain and Tennille. A must to see and listen to." — GreenCine Posted Jul 29, 2011
	68%	Fugitive Pieces (2008)	" Distractingly jumping back and forth in time, the film falters badly in the modern era, yet its tale is still a moving one." — indieWIRE Posted Jul 29, 2011
	29%	Kiss the Bride (2008)	" This is another one of those poorly-acted, TV sitcoms that only gets into film fests because it has two guys kissing. That Tori Spelling stars is enough of a review by itself. " — indieWIRE Posted Jul 29, 2011
	75%	Elegy (2008)	" Your final affection for this literary treat of sorts is how well you accept the finale, which is touching, and intellectually potent, yet possibly one depressant too many. " — GreenCine Posted Jul 29, 2011
	92%	Ballast (2008)	" His brilliant "Ballast" was as much a hit in Seattle as it was at Sundance." — GreenCine Posted Jul 29, 2011
	——	Epitaph (Gidam) (2009)	" A Japanese morgue-based horror film lacking in much horror" — GreenCine Posted Jul 29, 2011
	53%	Battle in Seattle (2008)	" This thriller will inspire any leftie cells you might possess to stand up and cheer. " — GreenCine Posted Jul 29, 2011
	44%	Cowboys & Aliens (2011)	" Bang! Bang! You're Bored. What we get are leaden dialogue ("My name is Ella. Where did you get your bracelet?"), sophomoric chatter ("Don't yank it. It's not your pecker.), and clich�d gabbling ("Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! How did they build this thing?")" — CultureCatch Posted Jul 29, 2011
	95%	The Guard (2011)	" After the screening of The Guard, a retired British schoolmarm from Leicestershire, who stays with me annually whether I desire it or not, noted, 'What a joy! How refreshing! Do you think it will be a success?' " — CultureCatch Posted Jul 24, 2011
	71%	The Future (2011)	" Ms. July reclaims the glory she first garnered for her prize-winning feature debut Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005). Also a performance artist and a short story writer, she is very much the ovaries' answer to Woody Allen. " — CultureCatch Posted Jul 24, 2011
	53%	Brighton Rock (2011)	" A beautifully acted, smartly directed crime drama with one of the more clever finales of the year. " — CultureCatch Posted Jul 15, 2011
	84%	Beginners (2011)	" Life-affirming, endlessly witty, and beautifully realized cinematically, the seamlessly flowing Beginners is nigh perfection." — CultureCatch Posted Jul 15, 2011
	61%	Gun Hill Road (2011)	" ...Astonishingly absorbing: sensuous, hard-hitting, and well written, with a bang-up closing shot...One of the more perceptive depictions of teen sexual angst, parental and peer bullying, and transsexual identity to have ever hit the screen. " — CultureCatch Posted Jul 5, 2011
8/10	80%	Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (2012)	" "Straight" from Sundance, CLSASS might just be the most hilarious film of 2011. " — CultureCatch Posted Jun 26, 2011
4/10	39%	Cars 2 (2011)	" Even with its highly adroit usage of 3D, this animated exercise in busyness has an incomprehensible James Bond-ian storyline that should baffle young ones as much as it grates on their elders. " — CultureCatch Posted Jun 26, 2011
	67%	Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish (2011)	" If Shakespeare were alive today and in good health, as I'd wish him to be in, he'd probably be begging for a circumcision to honor this little film that gets the gist of his most famous tragedy down pretty well." — GreenCine Posted Jun 25, 2011
	43%	Uncle Kent ()	" Swanberg seems to be making films that can be mistaken for reality TV shows, except his characters are the type that would never be considered for such programming because they are a bit too uncolorful, almost but not quite milquetoast-y." — CultureCatch Posted Jun 25, 2011
8/10	100%	Leap Year (2011)	" Del Carmen's sort of the shadow version of Anna Magnani. Emotionally frail, slumbering, and nearly inarticulate, yet hungry, seething, and Earth-Motherish. A powerful performance in one of the most explicit and shocking films of the past several years." — CultureCatch Posted Jun 24, 2011
	87%	Submarine (2011)	" It's a whimsical love letter to adolescent inadequacy and the overcoming thereof, one that might be backed up by the anonymous quote, "Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-o to a tree." " — CultureCatch Posted May 22, 2011
	——	Do Not Disturb (2011)	" Do Not Disturb is not unassailably dreadful-and, in fact, Diva Zappa as the maid and Troy Garity as a Mafioso are quite fine--but the whole venture comes off as little more than an innocuous student project that should have stayed in the classroom. " — CultureCatch Posted Apr 28, 2011
	23%	Angels Crest (2011)	" We watch as this open wound of a father slowly fragments. Thanks to Dekker's brave, nuanced performance, this vision is simultaneously thrilling and harrowing." — GreenCine Posted Apr 28, 2011
9/10	100%	L'Amour Fou ()	" A true must-see if you adore fashion, interior design, the Sixties and Seventies, travel, and an exploration of depressed genius with guest appearances by Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger." — CultureCatch Posted Apr 14, 2011
	58%	Yves Saint Laurent - L'amour fou (2011)	" A true must-see if you adore fashion, interior design, the Sixties and Seventies, travel, and an exploration of depressed genius with guest appearances by Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger." — CultureCatch Posted Apr 14, 2011
10/10	97%	A Film Unfinished (2010)	" Painful, eye-opening, and extraordinarily necessary to view, especially by the young to whom the Holocaust is nowadays too abstract a notion to fully mentally envision in all of its grotesqueness" — GreenCine Posted Mar 22, 2011
	43%	Cracks (2011)	" A concrete depiction of every Right Wing fundamentalist's greatest nightmare and fantasy, it's shocking to learn that such a pro-gay producer as Christine Vachon (e.g. Go Fish; Swoon) is involved here. " — CultureCatch Posted Mar 8, 2011

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