Adam Nayman Movie Reviews & Previews

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Adam Nayman

""There is no way out of here. It will be dark soon" - Torgo "KHAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" -Capt. Kirk "Can you dig it? - Cyrus, leader of the Riffs"

Agrees with the Tomatometer 78% of the time.

Biography:: a 21 year old film critic at Eye Magazine in Toronto, Adam has been writing about movies for as long as he can remember, and just can't believe they're paying him for it.
Favorites:: 2001: A Space Odyssey Grand Illusion Manos: Hands of Fate 400 Blows
Publications:: Boxoffice Magazine , eye WEEKLY , L.A. Weekly , Reverse Shot , The Grid

Total Reviews:: 318
Total QuickRatings:: 8

Location:: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 51 - 100 of 318

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
3/5	73%	Gabi on the Roof in July (2011)	— eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 18, 2011
4/5	80%	Modra ()	" That the director's Slovakian relatives appear in background roles as members of Lina's extended clan gives MODRA the feeling of a home movie, but it's more accurate to say that this is personal filmmaking of a refreshingly modest stripe." — eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 11, 2011
1/5	4%	The Roommate (2011)	" No scares, no gore, no boobs, no anything: The Roommate plays like a thriller that's already edited itself for airplanes." — eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 7, 2011
5/5	79%	Attenberg (2012)	" An early contender for film of the year." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 21, 2011
3/5	96%	Breathless (À bout de souffle) (By a Tether) (1961)	— eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 14, 2011
2/5	90%	London River (2011)	— eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 14, 2011
1/5	10%	Season of the Witch (2011)	" There are almost no laughs to be had in Season of the Witch. That's unfortunate, because the only chance that this overproduced yet still shoddy piece of early-January multiplex fodder had of being entertaining was as an unintentional comedy classic." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 6, 2011
2/5	10%	Little Fockers (2010)	" Its leads' enthusiasm notwithstanding, Little Fockers is a barely tolerable sitcom concoction." — eye WEEKLY Posted Dec 24, 2010
2/5	40%	Summerhood (2008)	" Let the record show that it's better than Hot Tub Time Machine, though that's not much of a compliment." — eye WEEKLY Posted Nov 5, 2010
2/5	47%	Hereafter (2010)	" Special mention must be made of Bryce Dallas Howard, who takes a swing at the Manic Pixie Dream Girl role and hits a stand-up double; it's not exactly a good performance, but it briefly energizes a moribund movie. " — eye WEEKLY Posted Oct 18, 2010
1/5	64%	Secretariat (2010)	" Scarcely a scene goes by where Penny's savvy, grace, and generosity aren't explicitly cited by some character or another, often in the process of apologizing for not recognizing her visionary brilliance in the first place." — eye WEEKLY Posted Oct 8, 2010
2/5	52%	I'm Still Here (2010)	" I'm Still Here's gruelling faux-doc assemblage loses its charm after about 40 minutes." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 24, 2010
3/5	85%	Easy A (2010)	" Stone, however, passes with flying colours: at this point, she's the clear heiress-apparent to Anna Faris' crown." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 17, 2010
3/5	43%	Dinner for Schmucks (2010)	" Rudd has mastered the role of the tetchy mensch. He's a straight-man foil with the slightly crooked delivery." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jul 30, 2010
2/5	62%	Salt (2010)	" Salt is less fun than it sounds." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jul 30, 2010
	94%	The Dark Knight (2008)	" Flawed and overrated." — Reverse Shot Posted Jul 6, 2010
	93%	Iron Man (2008)	" Clever and cogent beats idiotic and incoherent, and Iron Man is spryer than the overwhelming majority of films in its budget range." — Reverse Shot Posted Jul 6, 2010
3/5	66%	The Karate Kid (2010)	" The remake of The Karate Kid impresses with its craft and its patience." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jul 6, 2010
3/5	99%	Toy Story 3 (2010)	" It's all neatly thought out and executed but, at this point, the Pixar mixture of antic slapstick and hard-sell sentimentality has lost some of its potency." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jun 17, 2010
4/5	47%	MacGruber (2010)	" The filmmakers deploy kid-genre conventions and soundtrack cues with affection, including the best montage-for-the-sake-of-it since Team America: World Police." — eye WEEKLY Posted May 21, 2010
3/5	71%	The Crazies (2010)	" This new film has the advantage of superior craft: Maxime Alexandre's cinematography brings the various cramped suspense set pieces to vivid, dingy life." — eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 25, 2010
	14%	This Beautiful City (2007)	" The only real notes of authenticity are struck by the actors, and even then, only on the distaff side." — L.A. Weekly Posted Aug 27, 2009
	——	Hania (2007)	" There is more to movies than pretty pictures. And make no mistake, Hania is plenty pretty." — L.A. Weekly Posted Dec 11, 2008
2/5	3%	The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008)	" Unfortunately, the performances are so slack and the filmmaking so clunky that any intentional humour gets lost in a sea of inadvertent giggles." — eye WEEKLY Posted Oct 31, 2008
4/5	69%	Hadewijch (2010)	" Dumont's patient, suggestive approach transcends mere provocation: this is a film about absence with some real weight to it." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 12, 2008
	100%	Z Odzysku (Retrieval) (2006)	" Overall, it's still a fine debut, balancing its more ungainly dramatic turns with an absolutely perfect and poetic (dare I say Dardenne-esque?) final shot." — L.A. Weekly Posted Aug 7, 2008
3/5	54%	Viva (2007)	" Viva the film is as sly and knowing as Viva the character is endearingly oblivious." — eye WEEKLY Posted May 8, 2008
2/5	48%	The Ruins (2008)	" Paranoia, spinal injuries, psychic distress, impromptu amputations, self-mutilation -- it's all in there, convincingly rendered (the first-rate sound design exacerbates every fracture) and finally pointless." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 4, 2008
3/5	52%	Funny Games (2008)	" more than the sum of its facile narrative parts." — eye WEEKLY Posted Mar 13, 2008
3/5	77%	Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)	" more than the sum of its facile narrative parts." — eye WEEKLY Posted Mar 13, 2008
1/5	8%	10,000 B.C. (2008)	" This year's first Event Movie is almost guaranteed to wind up as its dumbest." — eye WEEKLY Posted Mar 13, 2008
	——	Noah's Ark (2007)	" It's finally nothing if not good-spirited." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 28, 2008
	——	Men in the Nude (2007)	" It's self-conscious in a way that distances us from the purportedly roiling emotions of the characters." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 21, 2008
	——	Iska's Journey ()	" Unfortunately, the movie itself is only intermittently gripping." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 15, 2008
	——	Just Sex and Nothing Else ()	" Precise camera setups, smarter-than-usual dialogue and fine, spontaneous-seeming ensemble work." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 7, 2008
	45%	American Military Intelligence and You! (2008)	" It would be a shame if this smarmy, kiddie-pool-shallow bit of gimmickry were to be confused with clear-eyed satire." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 7, 2008
2/5	22%	The Eye (2008)	" Alba is so believable as a woman thrown out of her comfort zone... that it's actually a disappointment when the plot kicks in." — eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 1, 2008
1/5	2%	Meet the Spartans (2008)	" Until the mainstream produces some films undeserving of idiot violation, the idiot violation represented by Meet the Spartans -- a Xerox of absolute zero -- will be par for the course." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 25, 2008
3/5	24%	Awake (2007)	" The twist-happy screenplay holds together, and the actors around Christensen are better than they have to be: not only reliable hands like Lena Olin and Arliss Howard, but also a perfectly cast Jessica Alba, smartly playing with and against her looks." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 10, 2008
1/5	12%	Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (AVP 2) (2007)	" Indifference is the name of the game across the board, really." — eye WEEKLY Posted Dec 28, 2007
3/5	70%	I Am Legend (2007)	" What we have here is about two-thirds great and one-third awful, and in that order." — eye WEEKLY Posted Dec 13, 2007
5/5	95%	Come and See (Idi i smotri) (1985)	" In Klimov's unshakable vision, death is casual, safety is impossible and beauty is backwards: this is peerlessly gorgeous filmmaking about absolute ugliness." — eye WEEKLY Posted Oct 15, 2007
1/5	14%	Skinwalkers (2007)	" What differentiates Skinwalkers from other bad werewolf movies is just how colossally bad it is: it makes Blood and Chocolate look like Ashes and Diamonds." — eye WEEKLY Posted Aug 10, 2007
2/5	33%	Walking to Werner (2006)	" It's an impressive odyssey, but the film -- which alternates between Phillips' ceaseless ramblings and interviews with the predictably eccentric folks he meets on the road -- plays like a prolonged death march." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jul 20, 2007
3/5	——	Red Without Blue ()	" Present-tense drama comes when one of the boys decides he wants to be a girl, a development the filmmakers mine -- responsibly but resourcefully -- for strains of significance." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jun 19, 2007
3/5	90%	Colma: The Musical (2006)	" Richard Wong's DV-shot musical channels an earnest, let's-put-on-a-show-ethos into a melancholy celebration of the titular San Francisco suburb." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jun 19, 2007
—	——	Dying at Grace ()	— eye WEEKLY Posted May 26, 2007
	——	The Parallel (2008)	" An amateurish mashup of The Butterfly Effect and The Family Man (talk about unholy hybrids!) that strains patience from the get-go." — L.A. Weekly Posted May 10, 2007
3/5	96%	The Cats of Mirikitani (2006)	" Her efforts, presented without even the faintest whiff of self-congratulation, yield revelation and real success, and keep The Cats of Mirikitani moving along a compelling and unpredictable trajectory." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 23, 2007
2.5/5	82%	Linda Linda Linda (2005)	" Director Nobuhiro Yamashita seems to be aiming for a laconic deadpan tone, yet the static camera work and even-keel pacing elicit more yawns than chuckles." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 12, 2007
	47%	Coffee Date (2006)	" How disappointing that a film that hints at the fluid, nonbinary natures of love and attraction should labor so hard to knot its own loose ends." — L.A. Weekly Posted Nov 9, 2006
	55%	Evil Aliens (2007)	" West seems to mistake smugness for genre savvy, and his aggressive, arm-punching brand of pandering quickly grows tiresome, and then unbearable." — L.A. Weekly Posted Sep 28, 2006
2/5	33%	Breaking and Entering (2007)	" Breaking and Entering is an intelligent movie with a great supporting cast -- virtues that prove to be its undoing." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
4/5	80%	Summer '04 (Sommer '04) (2007)	" A rare thing: a successfully asymmetrical drama." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
3/5	66%	Snow Cake (2006)	" Marc Evans' direction is alternately clear-eyed and blearily sentimental, but the film is a fine showcase for Weaver." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
4/5	99%	Deliver Us From Evil (2006)	" [A] blood-boiling documentary." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
4/5	91%	The Italian (2007)	" What began as a vivid tour of enclosed institutional rot segues, smartly and seamlessly, into a compelling open-road odyssey." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
4/5	88%	Requiem (2006)	" The film is incisive about the all-too-mundane social, physical and emotional pressures exacted upon its heroine." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
4/5	84%	Manufactured Landscapes (2007)	" Though its vistas may look alien, this urgent, quietly damning film never lets us forget that we, by dint of our comfy environs, are their creators." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
2/5	87%	Efter brylluppet (After the Wedding) (2006)	" This melodrama about a miserable Good Samaritan (Mads Mikkelsen) staring down a difficult (and heroically contrived) ethical dilemma gets soapier -- and dopier -- as it goes along." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
2/5	57%	The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (PU-239) (2008)	" The film is undone by sloppy plotting, over-deliberate writing and a few terrible ebbs in tone." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 23, 2006
	100%	Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006)	" While it doesn't deviate from the snippy, newsmagazine format of its predecessors, Iraq for Sale stays mostly on point and on target, as Greenwald trains his sights on the ruinous consequences of corporate involvement in the Iraq war." — L.A. Weekly Posted Sep 7, 2006
	56%	Nightmare Man (2006)	" All impenetrably dark nighttime shots, politely telegraphed shocks and limp, transparent misogyny masquerading as genre-savvy hijinks." — L.A. Weekly Posted Aug 3, 2006
	92%	The Fall of Fujimori (2006)	" The film is a must-see for Perry's one-on-one chats with her subject." — L.A. Weekly Posted May 4, 2006
	38%	Guys and Balls (Maenner Wie Wir) (2006)	" Guys and Balls is an inventory of such cliches, but at least they're trotted out with a modicum of proficiency." — L.A. Weekly Posted Apr 27, 2006
	60%	The Almost Guys (2006)	" The Almost Guys reveals itself as a mawkish men-on-the-road comedy, a stultifying cross-country odyssey of bonding, bickering and group peeing." — L.A. Weekly Posted Apr 20, 2006
	——	One Last Ride (2003)	" There's something about Cupo that keeps us interested despite the thinness of the material." — L.A. Weekly Posted Apr 6, 2006
	78%	CSA: Confederate States of America (2006)	" Sprung urgent and barn-side broad, in the tradition of all great, immodest proposals, C.S.A. is A-OK." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 23, 2006
4/4	81%	Private (2005)	" Offers a complex, non-partisan take on the Middle East conflict." — eye WEEKLY Posted Oct 11, 2005
3/5	69%	Sunflower (Xiang ri kui) (2007)	" This film marks a return to more accessible fare for Chinese director Zhang Yang." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 24, 2005
2.5/5	82%	The World's Fastest Indian (2005)	" The twin novelties of Sir Anthony Hopkins racing a motorcycle and speaking in a Kiwi dialect make The World's Fastest Indian worth seeing -- just barely." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 24, 2005
1.5/4	30%	50 Ways of Saying Fabulous (2006)	" Young lead Andrew Paterson is so likeable that the film occasionally threatens to be affecting, but a series of strenuously melodramatic developments late in the game kept us detached and unimpressed." — eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 9, 2005
2/5	33%	Sexual Dependency (2003)	" This bold experiment fails to hang together as a watchable film, straining audience sympathies in too many directions before finally collapsing under its own strident weight." — eye WEEKLY Posted Nov 30, 2004
3.5/5	63%	Magnifico (2003)	" That I bought into this transparent exercise in tear-jerking ... has as much to do with my own curious tolerance for subtitled excess as it does its own virtues of performance, scripting and direction." — eye WEEKLY Posted Oct 30, 2004
—	——	Decoys (2004)	— eye WEEKLY Posted Sep 4, 2004
3/5	——	Westray (2001)	" The power of the subject matter is undeniable, and there is some amazing footage of the post-explosion inquest, in which the buck is callously passed between every level of the mine's management team." — eye WEEKLY Posted Aug 10, 2004
—	——	How's Your News? (2001)	— eye WEEKLY Posted Aug 7, 2004
—	——	Daughters of the Sun (2004)	— eye WEEKLY Posted Aug 7, 2004
2.5/5	46%	Hidalgo (2004)	" Slow, plodding and arduous, though spiked with occasional hiccups of excitement." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 9, 2004
3.5/5	75%	Dawn of the Dead (2004)	" Basically, it's a very well-photographed and edited B-movie, admirably relying less on bass-chord jump scares than mercilessly ratcheted -- and usually character-based -- dramatic and logistical tension." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 9, 2004
1/5	22%	Taking Lives (2004)	" All together now: bo-ring." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 9, 2004
1.5/5	29%	Club Dread (2004)	" A movie made by guys who laugh at their own jokes, directed at people who will laugh at anything." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 9, 2004
5/5	89%	In This World (2003)	" Ferociously stakes a claim to the hearts, and minds, of viewers fortunate enough to see it." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 9, 2004
2.5/5	53%	The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2004)	" In a way, this failure is a product of its success: so adept is Blamire's backhanded homage that it results in a film every bit as gruelling as its antecedents." — eye WEEKLY Posted Apr 9, 2004
—	——	Bread Maker ()	— eye WEEKLY Posted Mar 16, 2004
—	——	Magical Life of Long Tack Sam ()	— eye WEEKLY Posted Mar 16, 2004
3/5	57%	Emile (2005)	" McKellen is superb as usual, and even if it's all a bit pat, the film quietly generates enough emotional momentum to be genuinely moving." — eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 11, 2004
—	——	Imitations of Life ()	— eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 4, 2004
2/5	17%	The Perfect Score (2004)	" Begins to feel like The Break and Enter Club." — eye WEEKLY Posted Feb 1, 2004
3.5/5	43%	Twentynine Palms (2004)	" A real, and uncompromising, achievement." — Boxoffice Magazine Posted Jan 18, 2004
1.5/5	85%	Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (Monsieur Ibrahim) (2003)	" Good intentions meet maladroit writing in Francois Dupreyon's tacky coming-of-age drama, which skillfully imagines the bustle of 1960s Paris but neglects to insert any plausible characters therein." — Boxoffice Magazine Posted Jan 18, 2004
1/5	4%	House of the Dead (2003)	" Boll directs the film as indiscriminately as his characters fire their weapons." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004
2/5	45%	Good Boy! (2003)	" The ensuing wackiness will no doubt please children given to mooning over the family pet; it will lull their parents into a painless, agreeable stupor." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004
2/5	19%	Chasing Liberty (2004)	" The thoroughly unremarkable Chasing Liberty makes it three negligible movies in a row for Mandy Moore." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004
1.5/5	38%	Brother Bear (2003)	" Skirts self-parody in its rigid adherence to the cartoon-epic template." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004
2.5/5	58%	The Missing (2003)	" Howard hasn't the conviction to make a truly tough-minded thriller. Instead, he indulges in every genre shortcut imaginable, resulting in a film that feels creakingly old the first time through." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004
2.5/5	24%	The Statement (2003)	" What hampers the film is a curious lack of urgency, manifested in plot developments that are either painfully perfunctory ... or else lazily contrived." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004
—	72%	Runaway Jury (2003)	— eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004
3.5/5	89%	In America (2003)	" As good as the Bolger sisters are, it's the hard-edged performances of Considine and Morton that truly bring urgency to the material." — eye WEEKLY Posted Jan 15, 2004

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