Brandon Judell Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Brandon Judell

Send Email
Official Websites:
indiewire.com

Brandon Judell

"Writing is one-tenth perspiration and nine-tenths masturbation. (Gary Oldman as Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears)"

Agrees with the Tomatometer 75% of the time.

Biography:: Cinema editor of New York Theatre Wire and contributor to CultureCatch.com and indieWire. My articles have also appeared in THE BAY AREA REPORTER; Detour, aRude, Filmmaker, The Bay Area Reporter, SOHO STYLE; SMOKE AFFAIR; The Advocate, and FLAIR. My short stories have been anthologized in Libido, and A Member of the Family (Dutton).
Favorites:: Central Station;The Celebration; Beautiful Thing; Battle of Algiers; Another Country; Ghost Dog; Surrender, Dorothy; The King is Alive: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Boys Don't Cry; Keep the River on the Right; I Love You, Alice B. Toklas; Laurel and Hardy's The Brats; Jules and Jim; Once Were Warriors; Ladybird, Ladybird; You're a Big Boy Now; Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush
Publications:: aRude , Aufbau , Bay Area Reporter , Black Bear Film Festival , Critics Inc./America Online , CultureCatch , Cyberlinc , Detour Magazine , Entertainment Asylum , Fashion Wire Daily , Filmmaker , Forward , Gay City News , Gay.com UK , GreenCine , Hollywood.com , indieWIRE , Jednet , New York Theatre Wire , PlanetOut , PopcornQ , scotsgay.com , Soho Style , The New Lesbian and Gay Voice
Critics' Group:: New York Film Critics Online

Total Reviews:: 713
Total QuickRatings:: 250

Location:: New York City

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 713

Previous | Next

Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	——	Shahid ()	" The film, which apparently was made by Mehta to battle growing negative allegations against the late Shahid, includes numerous fictionalized moments. Solidly acted by all, Shahid would no doubt have benefited from a more documentary feel. " — CultureCatch Posted May 22, 2013
	——	Shesh peamim (Six Acts) ()	" The acting, direction, and editing by Arik Lahav-Leibovich are all first rate, but possibly the dispiriting hopelessness of Gili's downward plunge to complete sexual objectification is too predictable from Act One. Predictable, but sadly too believable." — CultureCatch Posted Apr 21, 2013
	——	Lily ()	" With Grantham as the star, supplying an award-worthy, brave performance, the film is about a happy person regaining her happiness. Lily is discovering that the segments of her life will never fit together again, but what the hell? " — CultureCatch Posted Apr 15, 2013
9/10	——	Plynace wiezowce (Floating Skyscrapers) ()	" A plaintive cry for gay rights and familial acceptance, the film is yet erotic and often rises to the giddy heights of an ecstatic, intimate pure cinema." — CultureCatch Posted Apr 15, 2013
	88%	The Angels' Share (2013)	" Scent, fine acting, plus superb cinematography carry you through. However, you can't help but feel you've been cheated out of a truly devastating drama by folks in search of something more commercially palatable and, consequently, less plausible. " — CultureCatch Posted Apr 9, 2013
	87%	Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2013)	" Cut down from a four-hour documentary by Vasyukov, the result is a film lacking in catastrophic tragedies of any sort that holds you nonetheless with its raw view of lives spurning quotidian modern comforts with a vengeance." — CultureCatch Posted Mar 23, 2013
	19%	Inescapable (2013)	" Clearly meaning Inescapable as an act of love, Ms. Nada, a Canadian filmmaker with Syrian/Palestinian parents, has instead done a great disservice to her gene pool and our film-loving sensibilities. Irksome would be a more appropriate title." — CultureCatch Posted Mar 18, 2013
	——	Kaibyô Otama-ga-ike (The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond) ()	" With a striking palette of greens and vermillions, an eerie soundtrack, inept swordfighting, and several performances that would fit right into an Abbot and Costello burlesque, 'Ghost Cat' is the perfect film for those fans of tasteful B-cinema inanity." — New York Theatre Wire Posted Feb 12, 2013
9/10	91%	Caesar Must Die (2013)	" Here's an extraordinary melding of the actualities of modern man with his ancient past. Sadly, humankind hasn't made much progress when it comes to controlling its ambitious and testosterone-tinged impulses. Happily, human frailties make great art." — CultureCatch Posted Feb 9, 2013
	——	Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft (2013)	" 'Bad' films can be loads of fun. Just seek out the classics of Ed Wood. There is, however, no joie de vivre to be found here, just dreary, uncampy mediocrity shoveled up like manure on a pig farm." — CultureCatch Posted Feb 4, 2013
	88%	Yossi (2013)	" Directed by Eytan Fox, the gifted helmer of the international hit Walk on Water, 'Yossi,' a work of special depth, is yet another of his incisive character studies of a man who doesn't quite fit in until he finally does." — CultureCatch Posted Feb 4, 2013
10/10	92%	No (2013)	" This battle and this triumph of an ad executive makes NO the first great film of 2013, and Bernal's performance the one that will be the hardest to outshine. " — GreenCine Posted Jan 16, 2013
	19%	The Baytown Outlaws (2013)	" This ode to Tarantino, 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!,' and Jerry Lewis marathons is deliriously silly, frenetically violent, and insanely entertaining, especially for those who prefer 'Mad Max' over 'The Rules of the Game.'" — CultureCatch Posted Jan 13, 2013
	93%	Iron Man (2008)	" Why did Iron Man seem so slight to me when I've watched it on my computer? Quite possibly these "event" pictures need a huge screen and a pounding sound system to convince viewers of their worth." — CultureCatch Posted Jan 8, 2013
	93%	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	" But one of the most fascinating moments in the picture occurs when Captain America, referring to Thor, notes: "There's only one God, ma'am. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." Ah, monotheism versus paganism. Can they exist side by side? " — CultureCatch Posted Jan 8, 2013
	88%	Django Unchained (2012)	" The end result is a goofily unhinged, consistently engrossing, facetious look at one of the darkest moments in American history through the eyes of someone who's spent too much time in the cinema watching inconsequential flicks. " — CultureCatch Posted Dec 15, 2012
	86%	Madrid, 1987 (2012)	" Seldom has a great film accomplished so much with so little. Well, that's if you consider an insanely quotable screenplay so little." — GreenCine Posted Nov 12, 2012
9/10	79%	The Other Son (2012)	" An unbelievable situation becomes remarkably tangible here and oh so pertinent." — GreenCine Posted Oct 31, 2012
	96%	Argo (2012)	" With a tension right out of the best of Hitchcock, Affleck directs Chris Terrio's masterful screenplay with a restraint that never overplays the comic elements or overstates the obvious -- and with a velocity that seldom allows you to catch a breath." — CultureCatch Posted Oct 31, 2012
	79%	I Killed My Mother (2013)	" This just might be as close as we'll ever get to seeing "Catcher in the Rye" on the screen. Truly hilarious." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	——	Going South (Plein sud) (2009)	" Worth viewing if you can enjoy a world populated by distraught people who all look like supermodels yet can act." — GreenCine Posted Oct 31, 2012
	——	Do Começo ao Fim (From Beginning to End) (2009)	" Does for gay male incest what "Finding Nemo" did for lesbian-voiced fish. " — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	——	Crayfish (Raci) ()	" A slight Bulgarian comic tragedy in which two poor pals do each other in by accident after being hired by warring crime lords." — GreenCine Posted Oct 31, 2012
	——	All That I Love (Wszystko, co kocham) (2010)	" A highly affable feature about a group of lads forming a punk rock band in 1981 as their country goes totalitarian. Unlikely heroes, they get to sing, and the lead loses his virginity on a beach. What better way is there to spend one's youth?" — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	45%	Some Days Are Better Than Others (2011)	" Sort of a neutered Todd Solondz comedy. No sperm shots, murders, or pedophilia. Just lonely people trying to reach out now and then to each other, plus numerous shots of the sun's rays reacting on soap bubbles." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	57%	Re:Generation (2012)	" An astounding exploration of the corrupt media that has shaped today's society into a mindless behemoth that knows more about Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton than it does the C.E.O.s who have made greed into a "positive" trait. " — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	89%	The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (2011)	" These butch lesbian sibling farmers, who have a comedy singing act (acoustic country songs), are shown fighting for gay rights and surviving cancer over the decades, and they are endearing in their suits and fake moustaches. " — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	——	Woman Without Piano ()	" Carmen Machi's performance is understated comic genius." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	——	Estigmas (Stigmata) (2010)	" This Spanish adaptation of an Italian graphic novel follows Bruno, a giant of a man, played by real life Spanish shot-put champion Manuel Martinez. . . Black-and-white except for some final shots of red, this is a film you won't mind viewing once." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	53%	Agora (2010)	" A humorless feminist toga epic that fascinates with its intelligence and its abhorrence of the birth of Judeo/Christian culture." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	60%	Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel (2010)	" A seamless, eye-opening entertainment about the civil rights activist side of the Playboy publisher." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	85%	Blessed (2009)	" Unforgiving in its shrewd relentlessness, the cast is flawless as is the direction." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	84%	Hipsters (2011)	" Imagine Baz Luhrmann on borscht." — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	61%	Leaves of Grass (2010)	" I could only bear 35 minutes, and I haven't walked out of anything since 'You, Me and Dupree.' " — indieWIRE Posted Oct 31, 2012
	38%	Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)	" The film keeps drifting back to the dalliance between the cousins, and Daisy, while kindly, lacks a dynamic persona, an eccentric nature, or a wit to relish. When she's on screen, you often can't wait until Eleanor Roosevelt or Bertie pop in again." — CultureCatch Posted Oct 5, 2012
	60%	Camille Redouble ()	" A smile-engendering journey back to youthful innocence that we all wish we could take." — CultureCatch Posted Sep 28, 2012
	84%	Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)	" The film often soars into the imaginary heavens of delight but then just as quickly sputters and crash lands due to Coppola's leaden helming." — GreenCine Posted Sep 28, 2012
	41%	The Ninth Gate (1999)	" Polanski revisits Satan with less than devilish fun." — indieWIRE Posted Sep 14, 2012
	77%	Plata quemada (Burnt Money) (2001)	" A beautifully realized, fevered and smart retelling of an actual robbery that went very amiss back in sixties' Argentina." — indieWIRE Posted Sep 14, 2012
	87%	The Matchmaker (2012)	" The Matchmaker is to fine drama what gefilte fish is to lox. Hold the cream cheese. " — CultureCatch Posted Aug 23, 2012
	0%	General Education (2012)	" With its hackneyed outlook and lack of a moral core or a purpose, 'General Education' is little more than a defective episode of 'Saved by the Bell.' " — CultureCatch Posted Aug 18, 2012
	31%	Total Recall (2012)	" For all of you in search of a dark, humorless dystopian tale, one that's an inept remake of a celebrated sci-fi epic... one that would be hard to differentiate from a computer game, look no further. " — CultureCatch Posted Aug 3, 2012
	——	Sedona (2012)	" A tiny, low-budget American indie, Sedona is a love letter to this small Arizona town with its jaw-dropping red sandstone formations, a major draw for those seeking mystical transformations." — CultureCatch Posted Jul 23, 2012
	87%	The Dark Knight Rises (2012)	" 'The Dark Knight Rises' is so unintelligible, both plot-wise and sound-wise, I'd say nearly a quarter of the dialog was muddled. And if you just want to focus on the lead villain Bane, raise that figure to 75%. " — CultureCatch Posted Jul 18, 2012
	75%	Dwae-ji-ui wang (The King of Pigs) ()	" A searing depiction of Korean society as a bully's utopia, where "money only follows the rich,"The King of the Pigs is animated fare definitely not meant for children. Instead, it's a hard-hitting, never-less-than-engrossing, film noirish exercise." — CultureCatch Posted Jul 17, 2012
	92%	Farewell, My Queen (2012)	" An opulent imagining of Marie Antoinette's last days." — CultureCatch Posted Jul 17, 2012
6/10	——	You Are the Apple of My Eye (Na xie nian, wo men yi qi zhui de nu hai) ()	" This quirky rendering of director/writer Ko's first love that lasted from his days in high school in 1994 to his post-college years as a novelist in 2005 is very crotch-oriented. " — CultureCatch Posted Jul 13, 2012
	77%	Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)	" The closer you are to puberty, the more you'll be blown away by "Katy Perry: Part of Me." Just imagine Madonna's "Truth or Dare" (1991), but without the sexual innuendo, glamour, wit, and Warren Beatty. " — New York Theatre Wire Posted Jul 5, 2012
	73%	The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)	" Astutely cast, soundly directly, and penned by a bevy of screendom's top writers, this actioner swings from effective drama to endearing teen romance to campy monster brawls, all in glorious 3-D. " — CultureCatch Posted Jul 3, 2012

Showing 1 - 50 of 713

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)