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Ian Waldron-Mantgani

Ian Waldron-Mantgani

""I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator -- you're no Jack Kennedy." (Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle, 1988 vice presidential debate.)"

Agrees with the Tomatometer 70% of the time.

Biography:
Born in Sligo, Ireland -- also the birthplace of brilliant filmmaker Neil Jordan -- Ian Waldron-Mantgani is the mixed-race son of an Indian-born doctor and Irish-born occupational therapist. He gained access to the internet in 1996 and immediately started posting movie reviews on message boards. After quotes in such publications as the Sunday Times, Ian decided it was time to create his own website. 'The UK Critic' first appeared online at the beginning of 1998, and quickly became Britain's pre-eminent centre of online criticism. On top of schoolwork, sporting activities and personal commitments, Ian reviewed every nationwide release in the year 2000, and continues to update his site weekly with every release of note. He sees the vast majority of films in his own time, with his own money. Despite the lack of monetary compensation, Ian?s reviews are heavily syndicated; he is a DVD reviewer for Apollo Guide, and has in the past served as head critic on CompuServe's UK Entertainment Forum and System Operator for Compuserve?s Empire Magazine forum. Pieces can also be found on entertainmentnutz.com, alltank.com, Reel Talk Movies, GDoggyDog?s Movie Reviews and the rec.arts.movies-reviews newsgroup. Ian makes regular contributions to Ebert?s Movie Answer Man column and provided " of the most amusing entries" to Ebert's witty book of movie cliches "The Bigger Little Movie Glossary". International awards received include four nominations for Online Film Critics Society Member of the Month, and Ian is one of the only British residents in the organisation -- serving the posts of full member, OFCS Mentor, Awards Committee member and Governing Committee member. As of September 2002, Ian has been studying a BA course in Film Studies at Sheffield Hallam University, which has the highest entry requirements of any pure film course in England.
Favorites:
Favorite film of all time: 12 Angry Men (1957) Favorite UK cinema releases of 2001: Requiem for a Dream, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Traffic, The Contender, You Can Count on Me, The Pledge, Ghost World, Girlfight, Almost Famous, Quills, Audition, Castaway, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Osmosis Jones, Thirteen Days
Publications:
Apollo Guide , ReelTalk Movie Reviews , UK Critic
Total Reviews:
732
Total QuickRatings:
10
Location:
Liverpool, UK

Best Reviewed Films

Showing 1 - 50 of 730
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
4/4 84% Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) — UK Critic
Posted Oct 31, 2004
4/4 60% The Dreamers (2004) " It's thrilling." — UK Critic
Posted Mar 18, 2004
4/4 94% The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) " Ultimately this journey has been about the endgame, and now that we're here, we get a shattering sense of all that is at stake." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 4, 2004
4/4 80% Gremlins (1984) " A movie that lives inside our memories of movies, and tramples all over them with a crazed, subversive joy." — UK Critic
Posted Dec 14, 2003
4/4 48% She's Having a Baby (1988) " It should have been the movie where Hughes got Oscar nominations; the Academy weren't going to award his comedies, but here is where he showed he could branch out and grow up." — UK Critic
Posted Nov 16, 2003
4/4 94% Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) " The dialogue of Preston Sturges shoots and shoots, never seems to miss, and convinces you of its genius in around about a minute." — UK Critic
Posted Oct 22, 2003
4/4 85% Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) " Has all the coolness and daring and wit through which Tarantino made his name. It delivers what we expected, and packs some shocking punches on top." — UK Critic
Posted Oct 17, 2003
4/4 83% Beverly Hills Cop (1984) " One of the great popular entertainments of our time, a film that still has a place on the top 40 list of American box-office champs, and continues to look slick and full of energy almost twenty years after opening." — UK Critic
Posted Sep 10, 2003
4/4 97% If.... (1968) " To describe it in text makes it sound like an obliquely hardcore art movie. But it speaks for itself, as a sensory and emotional experience." — UK Critic
Posted Aug 17, 2003
4/4 98% Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) " At the end of both movies, I find myself overcome by an extraordinary swell of emotion." — UK Critic
Posted Jul 23, 2003
4/4 100% The Terminator (1984) " At the end of both movies, I find myself overcome by an extraordinary swell of emotion." — UK Critic
Posted Jul 23, 2003
4/4 74% The Matrix Reloaded (2003) " There are levels on which it works, and levels on which it doesn't, but all of them hold our attention." — UK Critic
Posted Jul 6, 2003
4/4 97% Rope (1948) " A minor masterpiece; Hitchcock could turn out brilliance even when he considered himself to be simply playing around." — UK Critic
Posted Jul 6, 2003
10/10 98% Taxi Driver (1976) " A movie to educate us about life on darker sides of the soul, or steer us away from living that life. It draws us in with a conviction that makes us feel like we're living it." — UK Critic
Posted Jul 6, 2003
4/4 98% E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) " The simple truth is, no other movie has the same power to unite audiences in wonder and fulfilment." — UK Critic
Posted Apr 13, 2003
4/4 91% Adaptation (2002) " Gets thoughts and sentences rushing down the hallways of the mind, screaming at each other to get past." — UK Critic
Posted Mar 16, 2003
4/4 56% Irreversible (2002) " Few films are as uncomfortably involving as this one -- the techniques lack subtlety, and could have come off as amateurish, but they pound and build in the way that bad recollections circle in the mind to create queasiness and stress." — UK Critic
Posted Feb 23, 2003
4/4 81% The Hours (2002) " It captures the feeling of a long, forgiving gaze." — UK Critic
Posted Feb 23, 2003
4/4 64% Basic Instinct (1992) " Could we be ready to stop snickering about it and admit to its status as a modern classic?" — UK Critic
Posted Feb 16, 2003
4/4 96% Catch Me If You Can (2002) " This movie got me grinning. There's a part of us that cannot help be entertained by the sight of someone getting away with something." — UK Critic
Posted Feb 9, 2003
4/4 90% Cidade de Deus (City of God) (2003) " Heartbreaking and savage without being affectedly artsy or lingering. It employs sound and visuals that have a knack for conveying senses of humour, rhythms of days and the auras and values of people." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 19, 2003
4/4 100% 12 Angry Men (Twelve Angry Men) (1957) " An intense concentration of power, and my all-time favourite film." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 10, 2003
4/4 96% Bowling for Columbine (2002) " It could change America, not only because it is full of necessary discussion points, but because it is so accessible that it makes complex politics understandable to viewers looking for nothing but energetic entertainment." — UK Critic
Posted Dec 10, 2002
4/4 83% Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) " I stopped thinking about how good it all was, and started doing nothing but reacting to it - feeling a part of its grand locations, thinking urgently as the protagonists struggled, feeling at the mercy of its inventiveness, gasping at its visual delights." — UK Critic
Posted Nov 26, 2002
4/4 77% Changing Lanes (2002) " One of the best films I have ever seen, constantly pulling the rug from underneath us, seeing things from new sides, plunging deeper, getting more intense." — UK Critic
Posted Nov 5, 2002
4/4 74% Signs (2002) " The work of a filmmaker who has secrets buried at the heart of his story and knows how to take time revealing them. Strange occurrences build in the mind of the viewer and take on extreme urgency." — UK Critic
Posted Oct 6, 2002
4/4 74% Frailty (2002) " This film is a thinking outside of the box, an answer to viewers who think we can convince ourselves of what not to expect." — UK Critic
Posted Oct 6, 2002
4/4 90% Lantana (2002) " It makes thoughts and emotional webs run wild in our heads, and leaves us unsure of how to describe them, simply by focusing on the complexity of people." — UK Critic
Posted Sep 9, 2002
4/4 77% Tape (2001) " The screenplay features nothing but talk, but this is one of the most tightly wound films of the year." — UK Critic
Posted Jul 24, 2002
4/4 89% Spider-Man (2002) " A review threatens to turn into a session of gushing because the film is that type of experience; watching it, I kept wanting to applaud." — UK Critic
Posted Jun 17, 2002
4/4 85% Monster's Ball (2001) " A great film. Considers genuine personalities and extreme feelings, and lingers in the mind, holding some kind of spell over us long after it has ended." — UK Critic
Posted Jun 10, 2002
4/4 80% Waking Life (2001) " Groundbreaking filmmaking techniques and otherworldly rhythm... liberating, dreamy, joyous." — UK Critic
Posted May 14, 2002
4/4 91% Y Tu Mamá También (2001) " A wonderful, forgiving movie -- one that understands how desire sometimes sidetracks us, because that's the way nature works" — UK Critic
Posted Apr 22, 2002
4/4 93% In the Bedroom (2001) " Tremendously powerful... emotions below the surface are made devastatingly clear" — UK Critic
Posted Mar 17, 2002
4/4 54% Bully (2001) " Joins the list of great American films about killing" — UK Critic
Posted Mar 10, 2002
4/4 80% Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) " A wondrous achievement whose life, wit and vision made me grin" — UK Critic
Posted Feb 17, 2002
4/4 88% Girlfight (2000) " One of the best films of the year." — UK Critic
Posted Jul 16, 2001
4/4 95% You Can Count On Me (2000) — UK Critic
Posted Jun 4, 2001
4/4 78% Requiem for a Dream (2000) " You can't walk out of this movie. If you want to leave, you'll run." — UK Critic
Posted Feb 12, 2001
10/10 97% Casablanca (1943) — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 81% Wonder Boys (2000) " Mess is excruciating to experience and hilarious to watch." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 63% Strange Days (1995) — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
4/4 88% Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen (2000) — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 92% Evil Angels (A Cry in the Dark) (1988) — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 85% The Blair Witch Project (1999) " It's beautifully conceived, brilliantly constructed, and, like the villain herself, spellbinding." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 79% The Butcher Boy (1997) " This potentially disturbing film is handled as a crazy, unstoppable black comedy." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 77% Eyes Wide Shut (1999) " Every moment holds our attention, as the outwardly inviting turns dangerous and the outwardly sinister is revealed to be rather innocent." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 88% Felicia's Journey (1999) — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 81% Fight Club (1999) " The cool charisma of Norton and Pitt is ... vital in seducing us, and both actors carry themselves confidently while speaking their dialogue with tough, throaty assurance." — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
10/10 95% The Filth and the Fury (2000) — UK Critic
Posted Jan 1, 2000
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