Cole Smithey Movie Reviews & Previews

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Cole Smithey

Agrees with the Tomatometer 78% of the time.

Favorites:: 1900, Ace in the Hole, Come and See
Publications:: ColeSmithey.com
Critics' Group:: Online Film Critics Society

Total Reviews:: 3721
Total QuickRatings:: 1505

Location:: Manhattan

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 3721

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
A+	98%	Gravity (2013)	" "Gravity" leaves the viewer with indelible memories that traverse between fantasy and nightmare flashbacks like an energizing pattern between positive and negative polarities. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Oct 4, 2013
C-	——	CBGB (2013)	" If you're a punk fan then you're - at best - on the dark side of your '40s. Nonetheless, you will be drawn to see "CBGB" for yourself regardless of how disappointed you will be. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Oct 3, 2013
B+	100%	Boy Meets Girl (1984) (1984)	" "Boy Meets Girl" is a passionate cinematic work that echoes the brilliant dramatic effects Leos Carax has achieved with his other films ("The Night is Young," "The Lovers on the Bridge," "Pola X," and "Holy Motors")." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Oct 1, 2013
A	92%	Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)	" The filmmakers' gift for making the audience feel like welcomed members of an elite club has never seemed more focused." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Oct 1, 2013
A-	88%	Captain Phillips (2013)	" The grueling 2009 kidnapping ordeal suffered by U.S. cargo-ship captain Richard Phillips comes to tangible life in Paul Greengrass's nonstop nail-biter. Nerves will be rattled." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 30, 2013
C+	88%	Rush (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Ron Howard's fast-paced portrait of one of Formula One's fiercest rivalries is a hyper-compartmentalized affair. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 17, 2013
B	80%	Prisoners (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] "Prisoners" demonstrates an uncomfortable connection between criminals and their victims, whose lives take on dark aspects of their suffering. There's nothing morally comfortable. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 17, 2013
A	91%	The Breakfast Club (1985)	" The movie captures teenagers' innate ability to defeat authority figures, and their own misconceptions about themselves." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 16, 2013
A+	95%	Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] "Blue is the Warmest Color" is a monumental cinematic achievement that must be experienced by anyone passionate about film. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 15, 2013
B+	86%	Blue Caprice (2013)	" A haunting work of earned literary license, "Blue Caprice" is a deconstructionist dramatization of the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks that transports the viewer inside the troubled minds of the killers. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 10, 2013
A+	100%	Casque d'Or (1952)	" Draped in the manners of fin de siècle in Paris, writer-director Jacques Becker's 1952 milestone of romantic drama is a snapshot of French social mores at the turn of the 20th century." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 7, 2013
A	90%	Leaving Las Vegas (1995)	" "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995) is a remarkably potent romantic drama that permanently altered the careers of many of the people involved in its creation. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 7, 2013
B	34%	Salinger (2013)	" Shane Salerno's exhaustive documentary about one of America's most enigmatic and reclusive literary figures still manages to leave out essential elements that are only alluded to in the film." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 4, 2013
B+	74%	The Grandmaster (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Part action film, part romance novel, and part political diatribe, the film never forgets its purpose to entertain. The effect is elating." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Sep 2, 2013
B	59%	Afternoon Delight (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] If Jill Soloway's kooky but sexy romantic comedy is any kind of bellwether about the future of mainstream cinema, then expect to see Hollywood actors having real sex on-screen within the next five years. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 29, 2013
B-	46%	Closed Circuit (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Gaping plot holes don't prevent this nearly current espionage thriller from grabbing its audience, and keeping them hooked all the way to its socially volatile ending. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 27, 2013
C	13%	The Lifeguard (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] In spite of its ragged edges, "The Lifeguard" captures an essence of alienation in America whose future resembles a dark abyss, rather than anything bright. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 26, 2013
A-	95%	Rebel Without a Cause (1955)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) is a pivotal film for many reasons - each as important as the next." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 20, 2013
5/5	99%	Short Term 12 (2013)	" Independent dramas don't come any better conceived or executed than this impressive debut outing from writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 20, 2013
B-	89%	The World's End (2013)	" The movie is all about the set-up - something that becomes a crutch disguised as a narrative tic as the story unfolds. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 19, 2013
A	95%	Don't Look Now (1973)	" it was maverick British filmmaker Nicolas Roeg's destiny to transform du Maurier's strange psychological thriller into an emphatically mysterious tale of second sight and looming death in 1973." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 18, 2013
D+	30%	Kick-Ass 2 (2013)	" Exploitation-indoctrination cinema doesn't come any more crass than this unnecessary follow-up to the first "Kick-Ass" (2010) movie. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 14, 2013
C-	55%	I Give It a Year (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] As a premise, a doomed marriage sounds like a no-brainer: you can pile on outrageous episodes of slapstick, physical comedy and biting wit. Unfortunately, "I Give It a Year" is a no-brainer." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 13, 2013
B-	54%	Lovelace (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Linda Boreman's story is an American Mafia story as much as it is a personal tragedy for a woman who was barely able to escape the clutches of a small-time pimp who got lucky, if not rich, on her back." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 13, 2013
B+	80%	The Good Son: The Life of Ray Boom Boom Mancini (2013)	" Don't miss "The Good Son." " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Aug 12, 2013
D+	91%	The Spectacular Now (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] "The Spectacular Now" is the work of inexperienced screenwriters. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 28, 2013
B	78%	Europa Report (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] ...an artistically pure film in the vein of the Dogme '95 tradition. Watching it gives you a sense of being trapped in a spaceship with a crew of astronauts while observing things you have never seen before." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 28, 2013
A+	97%	Drug War (2013)	" Magnificent. Johnnie To's police procedural, involving Tianjin police department sting operation, shares William Friedkin's sense of muscular filming techniques - see "The French Connection." " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 26, 2013
C-	53%	Wasteland (2013)	" Rowan Athale's debut feature is a British crime drama that wears its amateurishness on its sleeve." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 23, 2013
C-	91%	Blue Jasmine (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Allen's busy attempt at putting more drama than comedy on his narrative scales is a depressing affair all around. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 22, 2013
A	92%	The Deer Hunter (1978)	" Michael Cimino is better remembered for bankrupting United Artists Studios with "Heaven's Gate" (1980) than he is for making the highly-praised war picture that put him in a position to do such a thing in the first place." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 17, 2013
A+	98%	Hoop Dreams (1994)	" Steve James's remarkable example of cinéma vérité tells the problematic journey of high school basketball stars William Gates and Arthur Agee, two African-American teenagers growing up in Chicago ghettos." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 16, 2013
A+	97%	The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)	" The underlying satirical nature of William Wyler's post-war paean to American soldiers returning home from World War II lurks throughout this beloved drama." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 16, 2013
C-	72%	Pacific Rim (2013)	" Of its many failings, the biggest drawback to "Pacific Rim" is the sci-fi fantasy's presentation as anything other than children's movie. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 15, 2013
B	86%	The Conjuring (2013)	" "The Conjuring" backs up its creaking floor and slamming door tropes with episodes of all-out terror to send its audience to bed with a worrisome feeling in the pit of their stomachs. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 15, 2013
A+	97%	The Act Of Killing (2013)	" At once the most micro and meta combination of cinéma vérité, documentary, and docudrama filmmaking techniques ever assembled, Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing" is an earth-shattering cinema experience." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 12, 2013
A-	58%	Stuck in Love (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] A well blended cocktail of familial connections, aspirations, and separations, "Stuck in Love" is a complex romantic comedy that keeps on giving even when you think it has run its course. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 8, 2013
B-	94%	Fruitvale Station (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Bookended by footage of the killing, as recorded on cell-phones by innocent bystanders, "Fruitvale Station" is a cautionary reminder of how predictably unpredictable law enforcement officers in America are." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 8, 2013
B	31%	The Lone Ranger (2013)	" Just as important as what Gore Verbinski's gleefully post-modern Western isn't, is what it is. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 7, 2013
C+	75%	Despicable Me 2 (2013)	" Co-directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud return for a shot at turning the unlikely "Despicable Me" premise into an animation franchise." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jul 1, 2013
A+	93%	Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013)	" Whether or not you are familiar with the band or their music, this movie will fill you with a rare kind of musical euphoria. You'll love it." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 28, 2013
D+	50%	White House Down (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Buried in a shallow grave just beneath its veneer of absurdly cheesy Americana platitudes lays mocking subtext, twitching with spastic gestures and pointing awkwardly at a corrupt political system eating itself from the inside out. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 26, 2013
B	85%	The Way Way Back (2013)	" Here is a low-key personalized movie that just might help a few depressed teenagers get through an otherwise less enjoyable summer. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 25, 2013
A	96%	A Band Called Death (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] As much a think piece on America's faded glory as it is a musical history lesson and character study, "A Band Called Death" is yet one more example of the power of documentaries to surpass Hollywood's constant stream of processed movie pap." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 23, 2013
C-	67%	World War Z (2013)	" A bevy of screenwriters pitched in to create a zombie picture that has more in common with "Man of Steel" than it does with "Dawn of the Dead." That is a problem - a big problem. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 21, 2013
A-	91%	Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story (2013)	" "Far Out Isn't Far Enough" is everything a good documentary should be. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 16, 2013
B-	56%	Man of Steel (2013)	" "Man of Steel" takes a fresh approach to the well-worn origin of the Superman narrative (first published as Action Comics #1 in 1938)." — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 10, 2013
B-	84%	This Is the End (2013)	" "This Is the End" is a stunt-comedy filled with trashy throwaway comic bits. It's a shotgun approach that works well enough to induce more laughs than you'd get from a typical Hollywood comedy. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 9, 2013
C-	84%	Much Ado About Nothing (2013)	" [VIDEO ESSAY] Josh Whedon's sophomoric attempt at swimming in Kenneth Brannagh's waters of expertise - namely adapting Shakespeare plays to film - is akin to watching a wet cat lick itself dry. " — ColeSmithey.com Posted Jun 3, 2013

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