ROTTEN TOMATOES: Harvey O'Brien

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HARVEY O'BRIEN

"If I didn't love movies, I wouldn't do what I do."

Agrees with the Tomatometer 69% of the time.

Biography: Dr. Harvey O'Brien was born in New York. After emigrating to rural West Clare in the Republic of Ireland in 1975, he instinctively gravitated towards the largest nearby urban centre, and now lives in Dublin. He is currently preparing a book on the history of documentary film in Ireland, but previously taught film studies at University College Dublin and at the National College of Art and Design. He contributes to Film Irelandmagazine and writes short fiction. He was recently published in Cineasteand Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television and has been a columnist for both regional and national publications. Harvey is also a member of the Irish Film and Television Academy.

Publications: Harvey's Movie Review

Total Reviews: 594
Total QuickRatings: 8

Location: Dublin, Ireland

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date (default)

—	N/A	Ivan the Terrible - Pt. 1 & 2 (1944)	Click here to read article Posted Dec 24, 2005
—	Rotten 54%	Veronica Guerin (2003)	Click here to read article Posted Jul 16, 2003
Rotten	Rotten 42%	Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)	" It is just too hard to have fun with this movie, and it really shouldn�t be." Posted Jul 3, 2003
Fresh	N/A	The Book That Wrote Itself (1999)	" Blurs the boundaries between vanity production and authorial tour-de-force." Posted Jun 25, 2003
Fresh	N/A	The Crooked Mile (2001)	" Unremarkable but entirely pleasant." Posted Jun 25, 2003
Rotten	N/A	Puckoon (2002)	" Lacks many ineffable qualities including charm, irony, and subtlety, all of which were sorely needed to make the film work." Posted Jun 25, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 71%	Phone Booth (2003)	" It is amazing that Phonebooth gets away with stretching a twenty minute short idea into a feature film without managing to feel stretched" Posted Jun 25, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 68%	Red Dragon (2002)	" A terrific cast buoys a basic rendering of Thomas Harris' novel" Posted Jun 25, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 69%	Max (2002)	" a thought-provoking film, and though not revolutionary, it is daring in tackling the subject it does, which makes it worthwhile" Posted Jun 25, 2003
Fresh	Rotten 43%	City Hunter (1992)	" Frantic to a fault and including references to various popular cultural icons including the Street Fighter II video game, City Hunter manages to upstage its own exuberant star" Posted Jun 22, 2003
Rotten	Fresh 75%	Game of Death (1978)	" disgusting, ghoulish" Posted Jun 22, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 100%	Return of the Dragon (1973)	" It's hard to really hate the film, perhaps precisely because Lee clearly tries so hard" Posted Jun 22, 2003
Fresh	N/A	Last Days in Dublin (2001)	" Lance Daly's no-budget feature benefits from an ironic sense of humour about itself which helps to smooth over the lack of niceties." Posted Jun 16, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 88%	X2: X-Men United (2003)	" The sequel to X-Men is an equally accomplished comic book film aimed at audiences above the age of seven" Posted Jun 13, 2003
Rotten	Fresh 73%	The Matrix Reloaded (2003)	" The faithful will receive the Word like Holy Scripture, but unbelievers will not be converted" Posted Jun 6, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 92%	Champion (1949)	" a fairly uncompromising film with a strong polemical centre" Posted Apr 9, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 77%	The Pledge (2001)	" a gripping adult drama which does not condescend to its audience" Posted Apr 9, 2003
Rotten	Rotten 59%	The Sum of All Fears (2002)	" The patently absurd premise is unfortunately played with the sincerity due to it in a post 9/11 context, only with the added sanctimony of a self-satisfied neo-imperialist fantasy" Posted Apr 3, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 80%	Posse (1975)	" a minor classic of the western from a period in which the genre was finding it difficult to survive" Posted Apr 3, 2003
Fresh	Rotten 42%	The Core (2003)	" Oh, come on: what were you expecting?" Posted Mar 30, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 74%	Frailty (2002)	" serious appreciation of schisms in the American moral conscience which brings visual weight to a solid script and keeps its audience riveted at almost every turn" Posted Mar 29, 2003
Rotten	Fresh 82%	Road to Perdition (2002)	" seems to expect more of itself than was reasonable under the circumstances and invites the audience to share its anticipation" Posted Mar 29, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 91%	Far From Heaven (2002)	" Self-conscious cinematic reconstruction of the 1950s melodrama as envisioned by Douglas Sirk. If that sentence has no meaning for you, then the film probably won�t either." Posted Mar 29, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 81%	The Hours (2002)	" not a crowd-pleaser, but those who do find a place in their hearts for it will probably love it beyond all reason" Posted Mar 29, 2003
Rotten	N/A	The Mapmaker (2001)	" Well-intentioned but heavy-handed low-budget political thriller set in the border counties of Northern Ireland." Posted Mar 24, 2003
Fresh	Rotten 49%	The Heart of Me (2003)	" becomes increasingly intricate and well timed as it goes, and builds to a lovely climax" Posted Mar 24, 2003
Fresh	N/A	Resurrection Man (1998)	" an effective genre piece which sustains an atmosphere of dark horror in spite of the absence of the supernatural" Posted Mar 18, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 77%	The Good Thief (2003)	" an essentially modest and undemanding film which may be either too wildly praised or too indiscriminately condemned for it to find its feet at the box office" Posted Mar 18, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 91%	Adaptation (2002)	" not so much a movie as it is a thesis on screenwriting" Posted Mar 18, 2003
Rotten	Fresh 74%	Signs (2002)	" best thought of as a quiet counterpoint to the grand spectacles of the pre-millenium years." Posted Feb 4, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 85%	About Schmidt (2002)	" not the multiplex muncher it has been marketed to be, though it is a worthwhile viewing experience" Posted Feb 4, 2003
Rotten	Rotten 47%	The Banger Sisters (2002)	" you are left with the impression of a movie which is less sure about what it wants to be than its characters are, undermining whatever points the director wanted to make" Posted Jan 28, 2003
Rotten	Fresh 87%	Chicago (2002)	" Not all spectacles are equal though, and the spectacle of a film flailing desperately to win love and admiration is not unlike the story at its centre -- cautionary" Posted Jan 28, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 76%	Gangs of New York (2002)	" An epic drowned in blood..." Posted Jan 15, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 96%	Bowling for Columbine (2002)	" Effective but occasionally manipulative documentary polemic" Posted Jan 3, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 84%	Donnie Darko (2001)	" a film with many great qualities but which is less satisfying than it is promising" Posted Jan 3, 2003
N/A	Fresh 82%	The Good Girl (2002)	" If Aniston were not in it, would you bother?" MISCELLANEOUS Posted Jan 3, 2003
Rotten	Rotten 59%	Die Another Day (2002)	" the Bond people have responded to xXx by caving in: they are now trying to imitate their own imitations" Posted Jan 3, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 82%	One Hour Photo (2002)	" a fairly rewarding little movie which should please genre fans with a little more patience than your average stalk �n� slash fan" Posted Jan 3, 2003
Fresh	Rotten 37%	Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)	" might have enough legs to take the franchise to yet another big screen outing before the whole thing gets put out to pasture" Posted Jan 3, 2003
Rotten	Fresh 82%	The Good Girl (2002)	" If Aniston were not in it, would you bother?" Posted Jan 3, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 96%	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)	" The fragmented narrative leaves Jackson juggling too many characters and too many stories, sometimes to the detriment of each and all of them" Posted Jan 2, 2003
Fresh	Fresh 92%	Bloody Sunday (2002)	" Greengrass has delivered an undoubted stylistic tour-de-force, and has managed elements such as sound and cinematography with skill" Posted Nov 20, 2002
Rotten	Fresh 82%	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)	" Long and plodding viewing like the first." Posted Nov 15, 2002
Rotten	Rotten 48%	Unfaithful (2002)	" Handsome but superficial" Posted Nov 14, 2002
Rotten	N/A	With or Without You (1999)	" bland and generic to the point where there is little real reason to recommend it" Posted Nov 13, 2002
Fresh	N/A	Wild About Harry (2000)	" pleasant enough, well acted, and generally entertaining, but not especially inspiring" Posted Nov 13, 2002
Fresh	Fresh 85%	Lilo & Stitch (2002)	" a harmless and enjoyable little movie which, after quite a bright start, does eventually settle into the expected Disney stuff before picking up again for a sci-fi chase finale" Posted Nov 8, 2002
Fresh	Fresh 88%	28 Days Later (2003)	" Though wildly overpraised in the press, 28 days later... is not at all bad. It combines skill and low-budget abandon in a way which makes it superior to many genre entries without offering any kind of revolution." Posted Nov 8, 2002
Fresh	Fresh 92%	Insomnia (2002)	" a rare example of an American remake which actually improves upon its predecessor" Posted Nov 5, 2002

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HARVEY O'BRIEN

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