|
4/4
|
97%
|
Exotica (1994) |
"
One of the most despairing movies, and yet there is in the precision of its craft and the depth of its empathy something fundamentally uplifting."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Aug 3, 2012
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
The Sweet Hereafter (1997) |
"
In its unsparing depiction of the loneliness and despair that afflicts the tragedy-wracked town of Sam Dent, The Sweet Hereafter is one of the coldest movies ever made."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Aug 3, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
100%
|
Sommarlek (Summerplay) (Illicit Interlude) (Summer Interlude) (1951) |
"
Its dark power derives from the tension between the adult woman at the movie's centre and the girl this woman remembers being."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Aug 3, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
100%
|
Summer With Monika (Sommaren med Monika) (1953) |
"
In the annals of Early Bergman, Summer with Monika is The Big One. The irony is that it's among the slightest of his works."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Aug 3, 2012
|
|
B
|
93%
|
Turn Me On, Dammit! (2012) |
"
Its even-handed treatment of imperfect characters compares quite favorably with mainstream Hollywood stuff like Easy A."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Mar 30, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
——
|
L'Ultimo treno della notte (Night Train Murders)(Xmas Massacre)(Don't Ride on Late Night Trains) (1975) |
"
Pedestrian. Director Aldo Lado never ventures far down the more surreal or dreamlike paths favoured by his better-known compatriots in the genre arts."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Mar 11, 2012
|
|
A+
|
98%
|
Annie Hall (1977) |
"
Annie Hall expanded Woody Allen's canvas to incorporate real wisdom alongside the punchlines."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Mar 11, 2012
|
|
A+
|
98%
|
Manhattan (1979) |
"
Manhattan is one of the greatest films ever made, with a final passage that's truly devastating."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Mar 11, 2012
|
|
C-
|
41%
|
Silent House (2012) |
"
Despite spending too much screen time sobbing, shrieking, or putting on a game face as the camera peers down her shirt, Elizabeth Olsen comes out ahead. "
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Mar 11, 2012
|
|
B-
|
80%
|
Haywire (2012) |
"
Soderbergh's approach is a little too stripped-down - when you're making a conventional genre movie, the absence of conventional genre elements becomes distracting in itself."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 23, 2012
|
|
B-
|
98%
|
The Artist (2011) |
"
The Artist plays less like an original take on the early sound era than as fan fiction set in the world of Singin' in the Rain."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
C+
|
78%
|
A Dangerous Method (2011) |
"
Scenes built on line after line of historically accurate but awkward, overly mannered dialogue distract and eventually grate."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
B+
|
86%
|
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) |
"
You get the sense Blomkvist and Salander might march with Occupy Sweden protesters; in its way The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is another movie about the 99 percent."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
B
|
95%
|
Pina (2011) |
"
It's not an overview of Bausch's career or a statement on her art, but a celebration of her work and the dancers who bring it to life."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
B-
|
72%
|
The Dead (2011) |
"
You get used to the sight of the slow-moving undead swaying against the film's natural landscapes like half-imagined phantoms, and somehow that makes them more unnerving."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Oct 7, 2011
|
|
B-
|
——
|
Rote Sonne (Red Sun) (1970) |
"
Puts an alluring, unnerving, yet weirdly dispassionate spin on social unrest in Germany circa 1969."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Aug 18, 2011
|
|
B
|
91%
|
Tabloid (2011) |
"
First-tier documentarian Errol Morris finds himself slumming a bit with Tabloid."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jul 15, 2011
|
|
A
|
96%
|
Solyaris (Solaris) (1976) |
"
In Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris, we have made contact with the aliens, and they want you to call your mom."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Jun 8, 2011
|
|
B
|
88%
|
X-Men: First Class (2011) |
"
I'm generally sick of remakes and relaunches and reboots, but this revamped X-Men origin story is kind of fun."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jun 8, 2011
|
|
A-
|
84%
|
The Tree of Life (2011) |
"
Terrence Malick is hardly the first filmmaker to show us characters who cry out at the silence of God, but he is perhaps the most unquestionably American."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jun 1, 2011
|
|
A
|
90%
|
Blow Out (1981) |
"
If cynicism were a superhero franchise, Blow Out would be its origin story."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted May 18, 2011
|
|
C
|
34%
|
Hall Pass (2011) |
"
Sporadically funny, but it wastes a lot of time on dreary clichés."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Feb 25, 2011
|
|
B+
|
96%
|
The Social Network (2010) |
"
There's a real mischievousness to David Fincher's approach."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
C+
|
——
|
Soul Patrol (2001) |
"
Gives off a subtle but unusual vibe that's somehow suggestive of the rifts in South African culture."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
A+
|
100%
|
The Maltese Falcon (1941) |
"
Immaculately designed, evocatively photographed, and easy to watch but also spiky, morally complex, and ultimately unsettling."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
C
|
36%
|
Repo Chick (2011) |
"
It shouldn't even be watchable, but writer-director Alex Cox manages to keep the cheese factor low."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
B+
|
73%
|
The Housemaid (2011) |
"
The perverse thing is that the film goes down so easily and elegantly, like a fine chocolate and a swig of merlot."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
C+
|
87%
|
Black Swan (2010) |
"
Robert Altman's paean to this behind-the-scenes process was affectionately dubbed The Company. Aronofsky's may as well be titled Army of One."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Dec 6, 2010
|
|
A
|
88%
|
Certified Copy (Copie Conforme) (2011) |
"
This is one of the great films about film, a master class in performance and character and narrative."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Sep 30, 2010
|
|
A-
|
90%
|
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2011) |
"
Uncle Boonmee is less a case study in death by degrees than it is a magical and baffling tone poem on the idea of reincarnation."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Sep 25, 2010
|
|
B-
|
72%
|
Enter the Void (Soudain le vide) (2010) |
"
Full of stimulating, often challenging imagery that's rooted in a kind of sentimentality."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Sep 23, 2010
|
|
B+
|
86%
|
Buried (2010) |
"
Cleverly written and staged with plenty of wound-up energy, plus a climax that sucks the air out of the theater."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Sep 23, 2010
|
|
B
|
94%
|
The Town (2010) |
"
The Town has showcase heist sequences and car chases that avoid the usual pitfalls of over-the-top silliness and/or incoherence."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Sep 17, 2010
|
|
C+
|
85%
|
Easy A (2010) |
"
The whole affair is PG-13 toothless and TV slick - I kept feeling that the movie was insisting on its own embraceability, and I resisted."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Sep 17, 2010
|
|
B-
|
69%
|
Life During Wartime (2010) |
"
Viewing it feels not unlike having a dream about people you knew a long, long time ago."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Aug 3, 2010
|
|
B
|
92%
|
Django (1966) |
"
Django is a mean, unpretentious genre wallow."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Aug 3, 2010
|
|
B+
|
92%
|
Dogtooth (Kynodontas) (2010) |
"
Director Giorgos Lanthimos may be influenced by Michael Haneke's clinical approach as well as by David Lynch's affection for the weird."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jul 15, 2010
|
|
B-
|
86%
|
Inception (2010) |
"
Christopher Nolan's films are things of beauty, precisely constructed and expertly executed. But you wouldn't want to live there."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jul 15, 2010
|
|
B
|
85%
|
The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band) (2009) |
"
Executed at an incredibly high level of craft and with an off-putting degree of self-confidence."
—
Film Freak Central
Posted Jun 28, 2010
|
|
B+
|
55%
|
The Killer Inside Me (2010) |
"
In this terrific, magnetic performance, Affleck is a bit charismatic, somewhat awkward, and utterly despicable, all at the same time"
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jun 17, 2010
|
|
A-
|
94%
|
Winter's Bone (2010) |
"
Strikingly unsentimental. Winter's Bone has no time for backstory, moral lessons, or other cute stuff."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jun 16, 2010
|
|
B+
|
74%
|
Splice (2010) |
"
When Splice is in full flower, there's something magnificent about it."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jun 6, 2010
|
|
A-
|
96%
|
Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010) |
"
A treatise on Bad Art and a screed against tone-deaf patterns of consumption that drive trends in the art world."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted May 3, 2010
|
|
A-
|
92%
|
Vincere (2010) |
"
Evokes the historical weight of Europe's Fascist tragedy on a small, resolutely humane, scale."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Mar 19, 2010
|
|
C+
|
30%
|
Survival of the Dead (2010) |
"
This one's really for fans only."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Mar 5, 2010
|
|
B-
|
53%
|
Green Zone (2010) |
"
This is a kind of experiment, and it's only partly successful. But, set against the most expansive, otherworldly backdrop this side of James Cameron's Pandora, it's an appropriately spooky experience."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Mar 5, 2010
|
|
B
|
83%
|
The Ghost Writer (2010) |
"
Too many scenes here are a bit perfunctory, but they're balanced out well enough by the occasional directorial flourish or long moment of nicely sustained tension."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Feb 23, 2010
|
|
B
|
74%
|
Banlieue 13 - Ultimatum (District 13: Ultimatum) (2009) |
"
When D13: Ultimatum is firing on all cylinders, it's a bad-ass action movie. When it functions as a delivery mechanism for a social message, it's corny as all hell, but still pleasant enough."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Feb 4, 2010
|
|
B+
|
90%
|
Fish Tank (2010) |
"
Fish Tank walks well-trod ground, but it's still riveting from start to finish."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 14, 2010
|
|
C+
|
42%
|
Jennifer's Body (2009) |
"
Jennifer's Body is full of ideas, but it doesn't have much in the way of tonal control."
—
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
Posted Jan 7, 2010
|
75%
22%
67%
85%
46%
40%
