Chuck Bowen Movie Reviews & Previews

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Chuck Bowen

Agrees with the Tomatometer 77% of the time.

Publications:: House Next Door , Slant Magazine

Total Reviews:: 290

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Showing 1 - 50 of 290

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	87%	Upstream Color (2013)	" No, there aren't any extras to speak of, and it doesn't matter. Shane Carruth's mesmerizing fantasy is still a must-own." — Slant Magazine Posted May 8, 2013
2/4	——	Java Heat (2013)	" A middling genre movie, but it's oddly likable for its conflicted, unresolved tension. " — Slant Magazine Posted May 5, 2013
	92%	Silver Linings Playbook (2012)	" Fans of this oddly unpleasant wish-fulfillment fantasy should be pleased this solid Blu-ray transfer." — Slant Magazine Posted May 1, 2013
2.5/4	60%	The Happy House (2013)	" D.W. Young navigates his varying moods with an ease that's particularly impressive for a director making his feature debut, but he never capitalizes on his ability to coax down our guard." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 29, 2013
	69%	Not Fade Away (2012)	" A gorgeous disc that affords audiences a second chance to catch up with David Chase's moving ode to dreams elapsed." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 27, 2013
3.5/4	83%	Graceland (2013)	" Writer-director Ron Morales conjures an atmosphere of unpredictable live-wire dread throughout, which is an impressive accomplishment in these media-savvy days in which everyone has seemingly seen everything." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 23, 2013
2/4	76%	Kon Tiki (2013)	" It lacks the fire and eccentricity that we want from our stories of adventurers driven by obsessions that could be seen as egotistical or just plain bonkers." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 23, 2013
2/4	40%	Kon-Tiki (1950)	" It lacks the fire and eccentricity that we want from our stories of adventurers driven by obsessions that could be seen as egotistical or just plain bonkers." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 21, 2013
	88%	Django Unchained (2012)	" Django Unchained, arriving on Blu-ray and DVD with a meager collection of extras, is certainly a zesty night at the movies, but underneath the film's mock pretensions is a relatively conventional revenge thriller." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 19, 2013
2.5/4	14%	Oconomowoc (2013)	" Writer-director Andy Gillies's film is extremely self-conscious, but in a fashion that generally serves the material." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 14, 2013
	100%	Jigokumon (Gate of Hell) (1954)	" One of the most beautiful color films ever made, Gate of Hell is a despairing post-war masterpiece ripe for rediscovery." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 9, 2013
2/4	64%	Antiviral (2013)	" A one-joke movie--a good joke, yes, but Brandon Cronenberg's agenda clouds the clarity that's needed to fully deliver the punchline. " — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 7, 2013
	60%	John Dies at the End (2013)	" Fans of filmmaker Don Coscarelli should be reasonably pleased with John Dies at the End, but your time would be better spent with virtually any Stuart Gordon film." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 5, 2013
3.5/4	92%	The Last Detail (1973)	" The film has an engagingly profane, scruffy looseness, a hallmark of Hal Ashby and Robert Towne's careers, that undermines the conventions of the narrative." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 2, 2013
2/4	4%	6 Souls (2013)	" The film belongs to a long tradition of horror films that offensively suggest that all atheists might as well hang a Welcome sign up for the devil." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 1, 2013
1.5/4	55%	Down the Shore (2013)	" Down the Shore suggests what might happen if TBS and Bruce Springsteen were to collaborate on a sitcom set in hell. " — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 1, 2013
	89%	Lincoln (2012)	" The lame extras are disappointing, but Steven Spielberg's quietly subversive political comedy receives an otherwise superlative transfer." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 27, 2013
2/4	——	Code Of The West (2013)	" The filmmaker's failure of empathy for those who strive to outlaw medicinal marijuana turns the protestors into hissable puritanical bad guys." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 26, 2013
	100%	Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped) (1957)	" A prison-escape film as work of transcendental art, A Man Escaped is a great movie as well as an ideal introduction to the work of Robert Bresson." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 24, 2013
2.5/4	80%	Eden (2013)	" The "male gaze" that often despicably and hypocritically surfaces in these kinds of films is pointedly absent throughout." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 17, 2013
1/4	——	Crazy and Thief (2013)	" It's eventually obvious that Cory McAbee mistakenly believes that his characters' resolutely dull adventures speak for themselves." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 14, 2013
	69%	The Blob (1958)	" The extras are slight, but America's favorite man-eating globe of gelatin has never looked better." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 9, 2013
3/4	85%	Electrick Children (2013)	" Rebecca Thomas's debut feature is a sensible and humane exploration of youthful curiosity." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 4, 2013
1/4	65%	Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey (2013)	" Sadly, those looking for any insight into Journey from Ramona Diaz's documentary are going to have to look elsewhere." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 3, 2013
2.5/4	92%	Future Weather (2013)	" The film is ultimately enjoyable despite its faults, at least partially because it represents an earnest, honest attempt to empathize with struggling American working-class women." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 27, 2013
	100%	Sansho the Bailiff (1954)	" This Blu-ray doesn't quite represent the Criterion Collection at its transformative best, but that's admittedly a tall order anyway. There's never any shame in double-dipping on a film as sublime and heart-wrenching as Sansho the Bailiff." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 26, 2013
	86%	The Master (2012)	" Possibly the most misunderstood American movie of last year, Paul Thomas Anderson's most striking and original movie to date ultimately reveals itself to be a great thwarted American love story." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 25, 2013
	75%	In Like Flint (1967)	" Yes, it has an inventive score and a game James Coburn, but In Like Flint is still a lumbering, hypocritical dinosaur." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 21, 2013
1/4	19%	Inescapable (2013)	" The film spins its wheels for almost an hour until collapsing under the weight of exposition that renders the mystery nearly besides the point." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 18, 2013
	100%	On the Waterfront (1954)	" This Criterion Collection presentation of a strange classic is very much a contender." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 17, 2013
1.5/4	64%	Ferlinghetti A Rebirth of Wonder (2013)	" Christopher Felver is too reverent to properly convey the invigoratingly profane, angry messiness of the sense of community that Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his peers too briefly brought to life. " — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 8, 2013
2.5/4	89%	Koch (2013)	" Neil Barsky is aware of how a great and terribly troubling person can reside in the same body, but his occasional eagerness to appoint himself as his subject's latest press agent is dubious." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 30, 2013
	93%	Looper (2012)	" Looper injects the sci-fi actioneer with a much-needed jolt of moral consciousness." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 23, 2013
	95%	Pina (2011)	" Wim Wenders's great fusion of documentary, concert film, and passionate concept-art installation earns its unsurprisingly superlative Criterion treatment." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 21, 2013
1.5/4	83%	Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation (2013)	" Director Laura Archibald's approach is fatally safe, often turning poets into self-congratulatory windbags." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 17, 2013
	87%	Arbitrage (2012)	" Arbitrage is a distinctive, well-acted edition to the subgenre of thriller devoted to the American white-collar scumbag." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 20, 2012
	76%	Premium Rush (2012)	" A spry, inventive antidote to American blockbuster bloat." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 19, 2012
	54%	V/H/S (2012)	" V/H/S is a collection of tales of gender warfare that are scattershot, tasteless, and occasionally quite frightening." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 15, 2012
	89%	Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance (1983)	" An extensive and virtually flawless presentation of one of American cinema's most fascinatingly singular achievements." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 13, 2012
	63%	Powaqqatsi (1988)	" An extensive and virtually flawless presentation of one of American cinema's most fascinatingly singular achievements." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 13, 2012
	48%	Naqoyqatsi (Naqoyqatsi: Life as War) (2002)	" An extensive and virtually flawless presentation of one of American cinema's most fascinatingly singular achievements." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 13, 2012
	79%	Following (1999)	" Christopher Nolan's first film is a polished and disturbing introduction to the work of, for better and worse, one of the most influential contemporary pop filmmakers." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 11, 2012
	86%	Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)	" The most gallingly overrated film of the year, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a comfortable middle-class fantasy of the moral purity of abject poverty." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 5, 2012
1/4	80%	The Sheik and I (2012)	" The film is ultimately more concerned with Caveh Zahedi's attempts to pursue a variety of dull passing fancies than with any larger agenda." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 4, 2012
	67%	Lawless (2012)	" Lawless is a compellingly nutty and uneven gangster film." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 28, 2012
.5/4	29%	Ex-Girlfriends (2012)	" The romantic quest that's meant to drive the film is meaningless because Alexander Poe has extended empathy to no one besides himself" — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 26, 2012
	100%	Rashômon (Rashomon) (In the Woods) (1951)	" Rashomon is still one of the most glorious testaments to the frustrations and exhilarations of chasing a satisfactory and unvarnished, or ultimate, truth." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 15, 2012
	83%	Your Sister's Sister (2012)	" Lynn Shelton's finest film to date is a moving and bracingly romantic refute to the pressures imposed by conventional notions of emotional fulfillment. " — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 3, 2012
1/4	9%	Festival of Lights (2012)	" Shundell Prasad's self-consciousness also has an ugly side that's unusually insidious for films this preachy and relentlessly dull." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 31, 2012

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