Ben Sachs Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Ben Sachs

Ben Sachs

Agrees with the Tomatometer 66% of the time.

Publications:: Chicago Reader

Total Reviews:: 242

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 242

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T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
50%	Thanks For Sharing (2013)	" At least most of the cast is appealing, with Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Gad, and Alecia Moore (better known as pop singer Pink) delivering the uninspired dialogue with relative finesse." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 3, 2013
78%	Metallica Through the Never (2013)	" Even as someone who finds Metallica's music silly (ditto the movie's incoherent apocalyptic fantasy sequences), I was floored by much of the visual imagination." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 3, 2013
46%	Parkland (2013)	" All we learn is that this happened and then this and then this -- the movie is like a multimillion-dollar grade-school play." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 3, 2013
98%	Gravity (2013)	" That rarest of breeds: the intellectual blockbuster." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 3, 2013
69%	I Declare War (2013)	" This Canadian feature cleverly mixes archetypes from war films and coming-of-age movies, defamiliarizing both genres in the process." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 26, 2013
83%	Computer Chess (2013)	" A breakthrough -- not just for indie writer-director Andrew Bujalski, but for American movie comedy." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 26, 2013
100%	Mother Of George (2013)	" The movie's an eyeful, and the filmmakers' attention to surface texture results in passages of genuine eroticism." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 26, 2013
95%	Enough Said (2013)	" Holofcener elicits relaxed and relatable work from the entire cast, and she displays a strong ear for the patter of upper-middle-class passive-aggression." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 26, 2013
56%	My Lucky Star (2013)	" The movie displays a fair amount of visual invention in its sight gags, stunt choreography, and bright color schemes." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 19, 2013
53%	The Muslims Are Coming (2013)	" For better and for worse, this feels less like a feature film than a stretched-out Daily Show segment." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 19, 2013
3%	Getaway (2013)	" This latter-day B movie can be rather fun in its preposterousness and bargain-basement style." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 19, 2013
98%	Wadjda (2013)	" Though writer-director Haifaa Al-Mansour doesn't break new ground aesthetically, she relates the experience of a Saudi Arabian girl's coming of age clearly and unsentimentally, which alone makes this a must-see." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 19, 2013
51%	A Single Shot (2013)	" This often feels familiar, but it's refreshing to see such time-worn material revived without ironic detachment. " — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 19, 2013
34%	Salinger (2013)	" Any insights the film has to impart about the writing process are delivered in embarrassingly literal fashion." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 19, 2013
——	Tepenin ardi (Beyond the Hill) ()	" With its stunning Anatolian landscapes, arty photography, and pregnant silences, this debut feature by writer-director Emin Alper initially recalls the work of Nuri Bilge Ceylan." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 12, 2013
23%	A Teacher (2013)	" The movie is lifeless for its first hour, and the last-minute outpourings are too little, too late." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 12, 2013
83%	The Patience Stone (2013)	" Most impressive, however, is Farahani's lead performance. Though often pitiable, the heroine never registers as a martyr or a victim, but a relatable, multifaceted human being." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 5, 2013
81%	Una noche (One Night) (2013)	" Writer-director Lucy Mulloy displays much promise in her first feature, a gritty teen drama shot in Havana with a nonprofessional cast." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 5, 2013
90%	The Attack (2013)	" Screenwriters Ziad Doueiri and Joelle Touma pull quite a few punches here, making the doctor improbably naive about Israeli-Palestinian tensions so that his transformation seems profound." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 29, 2013
40%	American Made Movie (2013)	" As an educational film, though, it's quite successful, explaining concepts like trade deficits and supply and demand with enough visual pizzazz to hold the interest of a lay audience." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 29, 2013
81%	Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)	" Writer-director David Lowery strains for poetry at every turn, and only the strain registers." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 29, 2013
74%	The Grandmaster (2013)	" The action choreography (by the great Yuen Woo-ping) feels oddly rhythmless; likewise, Wong's depictions of the larger-than-life characters achieve little emotional resonance." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 29, 2013
46%	Closed Circuit (2013)	" The lawyers are supposed to be former lovers, but the film doesn't allow the leads to display any chemistry; likewise, it doesn't generate any suspense from its tried-and-true conspiracy premise." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 29, 2013
97%	Drug War (2013)	" Few other working filmmakers display this degree of visual sophistication and old-school craftsmanship. " — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 15, 2013
22%	The Canyons (2013)	" Ellis throws in lots of references to social media in a desperate bid for cultural currency, while Schrader intersperses the drama with pretentious shots of boarded-up movie theaters to suggest this is all a metaphor for the death of cinema." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 15, 2013
73%	Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013)	" The movie's a mess, but a unique and provocative one." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 15, 2013
26%	Jobs (2013)	" Two movies seem to be wrestling for control [here]. One is a poor man's Social Network that depicts Jobs as a brilliant, antisocial jerk; the other is an embarrassing piece of hagiography that treats Jobs like a messiah. " — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 15, 2013
84%	Prince Avalanche (2013)	" David Gordon Green somehow brings together the poetic sensibility of his independent art movies and the humorous lowbrow non sequiturs of his studio comedies; the results are one of a kind and often weirdly moving. " — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 15, 2013
91%	Blue Jasmine (2013)	" This also benefits from one of the strongest casts he's assembled in years: Cate Blanchett is exceptional in the lead, and there are strong supporting turns from Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, and (in a surprise dramatic turn) Andrew Dice Clay." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 9, 2013
47%	We're The Millers (2013)	" The filmmakers lack the courage of their convictions, falling back on moments of egregiously false sentimentality whenever the material threatens to turn dark." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 7, 2013
78%	Europa Report (2013)	" I'm not qualified to judge the accuracy of the scientific detail, though the filmmakers convey a genuine respect for hard science instead of the cursory interest shown by most science fiction movies." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 7, 2013
68%	Elysium (2013)	" The visual style evokes numerous bone-crushing blockbusters of recent years, but part of what makes this so invigorating is the way it turns the genre on its head, critiquing military might and voicing sympathy for the disenfranchised." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 7, 2013
——	For The Cause ()	" It may be schematic in its organization (and somewhat plain in its visual style), but what it has to say isn't at all simple, and much of the dialogue conveys the messiness of real life." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 2, 2013
77%	Hors Satan (2013)	" I find the movie mind-blowing, though it will likely alienate as many viewers as it impresses." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 2, 2013
95%	The Hunt (2013)	" Vinterberg orchestrates the material impressively, increasing tension little by little until it becomes overwhelming." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 1, 2013
53%	Wasteland (2013)	" This British heist picture is familiar but energetic genre filmmaking, more interesting in its particulars than in its overall conception." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 1, 2013
70%	The Happy Poet (2013)	" [Paul Gordon generates] good-natured humor through earthy characterization and precise observation of what it's like to run a small business. (His editing, which often approximates the rhythm of workaday drudgery, is clever without being cutesy.) " — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 26, 2013
14%	R.I.P.D. (2013)	" This spends little time on exposition and doesn't go in for any false pathos; compared with most recent comic-book movies, this is lean, unpretentious filmmaking--and to my taste, a lot more fun for it. " — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 25, 2013
——	The Late George Apley (1947)	" Few Hollywood filmmakers had his [Mankiewicz] flair for staging verbose conversation; this remains effervescent and visually elegant even when the material verges on stodginess. " — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 25, 2013
98%	Blackfish (2013)	" Unfortunately, this feels like a ten-minute news segment blown up to theatrical proportions. " — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 25, 2013
52%	The To Do List (2013)	" This raunchy teen comedy is novel insofar as it recasts familiar gross-out gags from a female perspective; otherwise it's basically an American Pie knockoff." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 25, 2013
11%	Oconomowoc (2013)	" Gillies never gives us any reason to care about these people, though some of the one-liners are amusing." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 19, 2013
81%	Crystal Fairy (2013)	" Silva based the story on a personal experience from his early 20s, which he realizes with vivid detail and wry, humane observation; the humor is sweet and lingers in the memory." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 19, 2013
86%	The Conjuring (2013)	" It's generic and lazy as storytelling, but this time there's almost enough playful camerawork to distract from the feeble conception." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 18, 2013
47%	I'm So Excited! (2013)	" The party in the sky comes to represent Almodovar's faith in the power of imagination, which allows us to transcend even the most horrifying tragedies." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 11, 2013
17%	As Cool As I Am (2013)	" This coming-of-age drama might trade in familiar narrative developments, but its characterization is rather nuanced." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 27, 2013
——	Men In Hope (Muzi V Nadeji) (2013)	" Old-fashioned in the worst sense, this 2011 sex farce from the Czech Republic perpetuates disgusting notions of male privilege along with the worn-out genre conventions." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 27, 2013
61%	Byzantium (2013)	" This feels tired as storytelling despite some evocative imagery and typically lush camerawork." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 27, 2013
76%	Augustine (2013)	" The psychosexual drama plays out beneath the surface -- the movie is so understated it sometimes feels inert." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 21, 2013

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