Peter Canavese Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Peter Canavese

Send Email
Official Websites:
grouchoreviews.com

Peter Canavese

""I got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it." ?Groucho Marx in Duck Soup "

Agrees with the Tomatometer 81% of the time.

Biography:: Since 1987, Peter "Groucho" Canavese has been writing film reviews and articles in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. Peter authors and maintains an exhaustive website called GrouchoReviews and is the chief film critic for monthly ON Magazine (since 1995), and Celluloid Dreams, a weekly radio show devoted to film (Celluloid Dreams runs on KSJS?90.5 FM?every Monday at 5pm). Since 2009, he has regularly contributed film reviews to Palo Alto Weekly. His reviews have also appeared in the San Jose Mercury News (1991-1994), in Bay Area weekly Alternate101 (2007-2008), and on Portland's 1190 KEX drive-time show Mark & Dave (2008).
Favorites:: Citizen Kane, Brazil, Duck Soup, Ikiru, North by Northwest, 8 1/2
Publications:: Groucho Reviews , ON Magazine , Palo Alto Weekly

Total Reviews:: 1663
Total QuickRatings:: 3

Location:: San Jose, CA

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 1663

Previous | Next

Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
2.5/4	66%	The Dictator (2012)	" Cohen's act wears thin...still, The Dictator has several memorable moments..." — Groucho Reviews Posted May 15, 2012
2.5/4	41%	Dark Shadows (2012)	" By asking the audience to take far too much on faith, Dark Shadows can only be an interesting failure." — Groucho Reviews Posted May 11, 2012
1/4	21%	Darling Companion (2012)	" Currish...the film's niche audience is indiscriminate aging dog lovers; people lovers should look elsewhere. " — Groucho Reviews Posted May 10, 2012
2.5/4	75%	The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)	" "Eat Gray Love"...the whole enterprise [is] too platitudinous, but with powerhouse actors like Dench, Nighy and Wilkinson, even a critic can agree it's better to be plucky than a sour stick-in-the-mud." — Groucho Reviews Posted May 10, 2012
2.5/4	78%	Armour of God (Long xiong hu di) (Operation Condor 2) (1987)	" Plenty fun: as per the Jackie Chan standard, it's total nonsense, but unpretentiously entertaining and occasionally ingenious. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted May 9, 2012
3/4	93%	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	" It's quite possible that The Avengers has more action than any movie ever made...[but] for all its thrill-ride clutter, The Avengers is just about as simplistic as them fightin'-robot pictures..." — Groucho Reviews Posted May 1, 2012
2.5/4	——	Desir�e (1954)	" This story framed as a historical account of the only woman to stand up to Napoleon doesn't quite conquer our interest, though it is itself an intriguing piece of Hollywood history due to the presence of Brando in an iconic role. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 23, 2012
2.5/4	70%	Bell, Book and Candle (1958)	" The airy Novak makes a strong impression, Stewart's comic chops remain in fine fettle, and the distinctive supporting cast can't be beat... [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 23, 2012
2.5/4	74%	Chimpanzee (2012)	" Decide for yourself if the narration is a necessary concession for kids: it's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition that doesn't make but also doesn't quite break Chimpanzee." — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 19, 2012
3/4	96%	Monsieur Lazhar (2012)	" A sensitive and fairly subtle work, with the deceptive simplicity of a well-honed short story." — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 19, 2012
1.5/4	35%	Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)	" Intensely juvenile, casually sexist, and blatantly stupid in ways that few if any over the age of "T for Teen" or bereft of a Y chromosome could enjoy. [3D Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 13, 2012
1.5/4	76%	Damsels in Distress (2012)	" Since the halfwitty Damsels in Distress wants to have it both ways, its satire is about as cutting as a plastic knife through a porterhouse." — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 12, 2012
3/4	90%	The Cabin in the Woods (2012)	" A next-generation Scream, a self-referential horror film that tongue-in-cheekily deconstructs its own genre." — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 12, 2012
3/4	77%	War Horse (2011)	" "How Green Was My Valley, How Smart Was My Horse." [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 6, 2012
2/4	44%	J. Edgar (2011)	" Despite the odd sharp observation, somehow J. Edgar comes off like the Max Fischer Players' production of Serpico... [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 6, 2012
2/4	43%	American Reunion (2012)	" Predictability is the fatal flaw of any American sequel, and while this one comes closest in tone to the original film, that's a decidedly double-edged sword." — Groucho Reviews Posted Apr 6, 2012
3.5/4	79%	The Deep Blue Sea (2012)	" This exquisite realization is as vital as can be in depicting the timeless tortures of the romantically damned." — Groucho Reviews Posted Mar 30, 2012
2.5/4	50%	Mirror Mirror (2012)	" By toning down his excesses for a mass audience of largely children, the self-billed Tarsem hits his sweet spot, serving up lavish sets and costumes to create a fantasy world that doesn't make us want to scratch our eyeballs out." — Groucho Reviews Posted Mar 30, 2012
3/4	91%	Footnote (2012)	" Largely concerned with the prickliness and delicacy around legacy, and the attendant patrilineal complications...But it's as much about the egotism and dysfunction of academia, reflected in the complex personalities of Eliezer and Uriel." — Groucho Reviews Posted Mar 22, 2012
3/4	84%	The Hunger Games (2012)	" If The Hunger Games on screen doesn't exactly catch fire (as does its hero Katniss Everdeen), its savvy pop culture mash-up and the charge of teens in life-and-death peril remain intact." — Groucho Reviews Posted Mar 22, 2012
2.5/4	55%	Being Flynn (2012)	" It's simply difficult to throw in with the film's reality-if not its essential story, then its details: Being Flynn feels indie art-directed instead of observed." — Groucho Reviews Posted Mar 22, 2012
2.5/4	42%	Silent House (2012)	" The haunted House may be a built on a shaky foundation, but its scare tactics are sound, and its gimmickry is enough to stand out in a crowded genre neighborhood." — Groucho Reviews Posted Mar 9, 2012
2/4	76%	We Need to Talk About Kevin (2012)	" An annoying provocation with too little to say, a serious credibility deficit, a whiff of misandry, and a miscalculated, unseemly gusto for abusing its hero. Instead of having catharsis, the audience just gets had." — Groucho Reviews Posted Mar 2, 2012
3.5/4	94%	The Secret World of Arrietty (2012)	" That relaxed pace allows the story to breathe—forget the franticness of most American animation—and along with the gorgeously detailed art, lush color, and swoony music...the film is all but guaranteed to entrance children." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 18, 2012
3.5/4	99%	A Separation (2011)	" Above all, Farhadi’s parable teaches that a rush to judgment inevitably turns back on the judge." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 3, 2012
2/4	74%	Big Miracle (2012)	" Perhaps the title sets an expectation Ken Kwapis’ movie can’t quite deliver." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 3, 2012
3/4	78%	The Grey (2012)	" Though it does thrill with intense, close-cropped action photography, swift editing, and vivid sound design, The Grey makes as much of an impression by being unexpectedly emotional." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 27, 2012
2/4	47%	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012)	" Except as a tool for pediatric grief counseling, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close amounts to a fetishization of its own trappings (the boy, NYC, 9/11) more interested in Oscar than Oskar." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 20, 2012
2.5/4	80%	Haywire (2012)	" Finds Soderbergh keeping it simple, stupid, by filling the story's hollowness with kick-butt action and elements of style." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 20, 2012
3.5/4	78%	Il Momento della Verita (The Moment of Truth) (1965)	" This fable of the disposable performer rising above his class transcends ordinary fiction to be an expressive visual record of the art of bullfighting: primal, brutal, repellent and magnetic in equal measure. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 16, 2012
3/4	72%	Carnage (2011)	" A slow disintegration of the thin veneer of social niceties, revealing the human animalism underneath. Like Reza's equally popular Art, God of Carnage isn't as deep as it would have you believe, but both plays are catnip for actors." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 13, 2012
3.5/4	91%	Sid & Nancy (1986)	" Oldman's mid-film music-video performance of 'My Way' before a neon staircase compares favorably-as a revelation of character through performance-to Robert De Niro's framing monologues in Raging Bull. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 11, 2012
3/4	74%	Fright Night (2011)	" While it's unspooling, it has enough visual snap, narrative tension, and humor for a satisfying 'drive-in movie' diversion. [3D Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 6, 2012
2/4	61%	Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (2011)	" An orgiastic celebration of Glee concocted by its own creators...sort of like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but with more hot air. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 31, 2011
4/4	100%	Three Colors: Blue (Trois Couleurs: Bleu) (1993)	" Kieslowski...implies, not for the first or last time, a form of divine intervention or destiny at work... [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 31, 2011
4/4	91%	Three Colors: White (Trzy kolory: Bialy) (Trois Couleurs: Blanc) (1994)	" Karol Karol embodies his homeland, going for broke--in criminal fashion, if necessary--to stake its claim as a player in the European landscape. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 31, 2011
4/4	100%	Three Colors: Red (Trois couleurs: Rouge) (1994)	" Explores fraternity in large part as much through the dynamic of neighbors and community as through potential one-on-one friendships or romances. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 31, 2011
3/4	95%	The Guard (2011)	" Self-conscious gestures in the direction of fish-out-of-water comedies, buddy-cop movies and Westerns don't amount to much in and of themselves, but they tie together as a functional clothesline for character comedy... [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 29, 2011
3/4	61%	The Rocketeer (1991)	" A charmer in its gee-whiz, irony-light resuscitation of the movie serials of the '30s. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 29, 2011
3.5/4	83%	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)	" Whether coolly dispatching a fly or eating a Wimpy burger with knife and fork, Oldman carefully makes every gesture part of his quiet revelation of character. " — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 23, 2011
1.5/4	67%	We Bought a Zoo (2011)	" Let me begin by saying something nice about Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo: kids will probably like it. Okay, that’s all I’ve got." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 23, 2011
2.5/4	83%	Dolphin Tale (2011)	" In the hands of actor-turned-director Charles Martin Smith, this kid-centric drama provides a welcome family option with positive values and a minimum of frantic, noisy CGI. It's a tale told on a human (and animal) scale." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 22, 2011
3/4	87%	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)	" Fincher is perfectly suited to the material, with its voluminous clues to be organized and parsed, its emotional austerity, and its serial murder, rape, and sundry sick plot twists." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 21, 2011
3/4	80%	Shame (2011)	" A mood piece, as abstract and engrossing as the many Bach piano selections laid on the soundtrack." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 16, 2011
3/4	80%	Young Adult (2011)	" What ultimately makes Young Adult worth the trip is Theron’s uncompromising performance, which dares to make Mavis unlikeable and, in the process, earns our pity and, more disturbingly, our identification." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 16, 2011
4/4	93%	West Side Story (1961)	" A landmark screen musical that left its own indelible stamp on popular culture. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 11, 2011
1.5/4	7%	New Year's Eve (2011)	" I tell ya, I haven't heard this much talk about ball-dropping since the junior high locker room." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 8, 2011
3.5/4	98%	The Artist (2011)	" Though this pastiche has been crafted by film nerds and largely for them, Michel Hazanavicius' feature has an emotional generosity that speaks louder than words." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 7, 2011
2.5/4	83%	My Week with Marilyn (2011)	" Williams is better than the picture, but within the screenplay's constraints, she nails every possible nuance of physical and emotional expression. It's dazzling work, and reason alone to spend ninety-nine minutes "with Marilyn."" — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 23, 2011

Showing 1 - 50 of 1663

Previous | Next

Sort by Rating:

Sort results by this critic's rating. This option is only available for critics with a rating system (4 star, letter grade, 1-10, etc.)
Sort by T-meter:

Sort results by the Tomatometer (percentage of critics recommending a certain movie)