Corey Hall

Corey Hall

Agrees with the Tomatometer 80% of the time.

Publications:
Metro Times (Detroit, MI) , Orlando Weekly
Total Reviews:
195

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 51 - 100 of 195
Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
B 84% My Week with Marilyn (2011) " Michelle Williams steps so deeply into the famous shadow that she almost vanishes, though we are left to wonder what was there to begin with." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 22, 2011
D 3% Jack and Jill (2011) " Katie Holmes, on a rare furlough outside the Scientology Celebrity Center, mostly stands around and looks confused - maybe she caught a peek at the script?" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 13, 2011
B- 84% Puss in Boots (2011) " Puss in Boots never slows down enough to concern itself with pacing or plotting, and like any good cat burglar; it always lands on its feet." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 28, 2011
B 50% The Rum Diary (2011) " ...a sporadically brilliant mess, caked with dust from sitting on the shelf for three years - fitting since the half-finished source novel moldered in a desk drawer for decades." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 27, 2011
C 36% In Time (2011) " Stiff acting and storytelling shortcuts undermine a clever concept. After an intriguing first half, you'll probably be checking your watch." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 27, 2011
B- 68% Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) " ..silly, yet wildly entertaining amusement, as satisfying and regrettable as wolfing down an elephant ear before hopping on the Tilt-a-Whirl." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 21, 2011
A 100% Thunder Soul (2011) " ...the unstoppable power of the music is an undeniable, stone groove" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 16, 2011
C+ 60% Real Steel (2011) " Handcrafted for the 8-year-old video game junkie inside us all, Real Steel is an overloaded, underthought empowerment fantasy with a bright shiny chassis and a lemon under the hood. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 7, 2011
D 71% Footloose (2011) " Is there any thing lamer than rebelling exactly the same way that your parents did? ... This is not to elevate the original Footloose beyond its modest, corny self, but the remake feels pointedly useless. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 7, 2011
B+ 83% Warrior (2011) " As compelling and savage as the fight scenes are, it's the brutal personal dynamics that keep us interested." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 22, 2011
B- 85% Contagion (2011) " This is sophisticated, 21st century filmmaking, with a probing techno score - yet there is an unmistakable '70s disaster flick feel about it. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 22, 2011
D 11% Creature (2011) " The script (if one was ever finished), was seemingly passed through a paper shredder, tossed in the air then randomly taped back together. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 22, 2011
C 17% I Don't Know How She Does It (2011) " Sarah Jessica Parker's career no longer seems to involve acting so much as nurturing brand identity." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 22, 2011
B- 81% Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2011) " ...feels like a return to the thrilling salad days of HK action - but with a contemporary spin." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 22, 2011
B- 76% The Debt (2011) " ...an ass-kicking Helen Mirren helps cover many sins." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 3, 2011
C- 36% One Day (2011) " Tastelessly tasteful, the movie dwells in some fevered upper-middle-class fantasia where problems of the idly rich are all that matter in the world." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 19, 2011
C 24% Conan the Barbarian (2011) " The whole affair buries the needle on the stupid-meter, with a droning score and the most ear-shattering sound effects in recent memory, plus pointless 3-D and a visual style about as subtle as the side of one of those old air-brushed conversion vans." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 19, 2011
C+ 60% Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (2011) " No one involved seems the least bit worried that a show about social outcasts has become an engine for conformity and consumption." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 13, 2011
C- 82% Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) " ..cannibalizes famous images and lines from all the "Apes" flicks, which is cute until the evident lack of new ideas becomes tiresome. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 5, 2011
B+ 79% Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) " After a decade of Dark Knights and doom and gloom predominating the spandex set, it's a relief to see a noble, essentially uncomplicated funny book character, even if the good captain is square as a brick. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 2, 2011
C- 21% Snow Flower And The Secret Fan (2011) " There's a noble tale of sacrifice and love to be found somewhere here, but it's buried beneath endless shots of billowing silk, and long takes of the leads gazing soulfully as the same four bars of weepy music drone over and over..." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 2, 2011
B 78% Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) " Here, for the most part, are fully realized people, with understandably complicated emotions, even though they are occasionally crammed into bumper cars of farcical complications and told to have at it. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 2, 2011
D 23% The Smurfs (2011) " Helmer Raja Gosnell has shown a mighty knack for soul-crushing drivel, including the Scooby-Doo movies and Big Momma's House, and he delivers the spastic, hollow and color-soaked experience you expected." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 2, 2011
B 82% American: The Bill Hicks Story (2011) " American plays less like a primer than a devotional, a dangerous thing for a satirist committed to "evolving ideas."" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jul 1, 2011
A- 89% The Trip (2011) " ...the feature is almost entirely improvised, yet displays some of the sharpest, funniest dialogue in recent memory." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jul 1, 2011
C 67% Hobo With a Shotgun (2011) " Limbs are severed, heads roll, a school bus is incinerated, and a dude gets burnt by sticking his hockey skate into a plugged in toaster. Some is clever, but much of it's wearying and a bit lame..." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jul 1, 2011
D+ 38% Monte Carlo (2011) " ...directed with benign indifference by Thomas Bezucha, whose main achievement seems to be taking the lens cap off before takes." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jul 1, 2011
A- 80% Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011) " Is there another talk show host who can earn belly laughs with off-the-cuff references to Bess Truman and painter David Hockney? Maybe, but few of them could do it with the speed and mental acuity on display here." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jun 24, 2011
C+ 44% Bad Teacher (2011) " When it hits, like a hysterically raunchy dry humping scene, Bad Teacher is a funny overachiever, though with a bit more effort it could've have won gold stars." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jun 24, 2011
D+ 38% Cars 2 (2011) " Not since Hee Haw has the South been so successfully slandered; Larry the Cable Guy's live action films are beyond abysmal, and his hayseed, grinning rube act is no less offensive or cynical when transposed into cartoon form. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jun 24, 2011
B- 26% Green Lantern (2011) " ...fun but terminally unwieldy adaptation of the venerable DC comics franchise pinballs between above-it-all camp and gravely serious sci-fi shenanigans..." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jun 17, 2011
C- 34% The Hangover Part II (2011) " ...director Todd Phillips wrongly seems to think he can solve any problem with more mayhem. How about better jokes instead?" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 27, 2011
B- 59% Yves Saint Laurent - L'amour fou (2011) " L'Amour Fou is somehow intimate without being terribly revealing. It suffers from an overdose of elegance, and a desire to preserve a bit of the great man's dignity, ...but, like his work, it's only a beautiful drapery." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 26, 2011
B 59% The First Grader (2011) " ...this heart warming, well-intentioned film is engaging and evocative, despite some clumsy and ham-fisted direction" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 26, 2011
B+ 73% POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011) " ...where else are you going to see Donald Trump, Noam Chomsky and Brett Ratner interviewed in the same film? " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 20, 2011
A- 86% Meek's Cutoff (2011) " returns to the craft of the deconstructionist western, ...stripped bare of the mythmaking, shiny spurs and hero worship, leaving a reality so stark it makes the Coen brothers' harsh take on True Grit seem like an episode of Gunsmoke." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 20, 2011
C 59% Forks Over Knives (2011) " ...a compelling argument housed in a deathly dull package; the kind of flavorless cooking that makes some folks run screaming in terror from a plate of steamed broccoli." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 20, 2011
B 90% Bridesmaids (2011) " ...strives to prove that gals can be as nasty as dudes, and when it comes to raunchy yuks, they are, until those darned realistic human emotions get in the way." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 13, 2011
B 54% Hesher (2011) " ...darkly funny and refreshingly blunt, giving a big middle finger to conventionality, and offering a rebel yell that's hard to ignore." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 13, 2011
D 15% Something Borrowed (2011) " ...chances are your real friends are smarter, and more interesting and they almost certainly say funnier things." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted May 6, 2011
B 68% Joueuse (Queen to Play) (2011) " Kevin Kline's talent often makes acting look easy, and this time, just to show off, he does it in French. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Apr 20, 2011
B- 83% Potiche (2011) " French screen icons don't come much bigger than Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu, and in Depardieu's case quite literally..." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Apr 20, 2011
C+ 48% Meet Monica Velour (2011) " I could have lived a thousand life times blissfully unaware of what Brian Dennehy's flabby ass cheeks look like, but these are the occupational risks. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Apr 15, 2011
B- 55% The Conspirator (2011) " Redford has never let a good story get in the way of a moral, and this handsomely made, stoutly acted and dramatically inert film is both fascinating and achingly dull." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Apr 15, 2011
C- 26% Arthur (2011) " Not even the great Helen Mirren can calibrate with Brand's clowning. ...This is drab hackwork. And it's not just because Charlie Sheen dwarfs Arthur's childish antics" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Apr 8, 2011
B- 26% Your Highness (2011) " Your Highness never met a problem it couldn't blast with an F-Bomb, and pushes the one-note gag of mixing pauncy medieval language with locker-room dirty talk about as far as humanly possible. Enjoyment hinges on your weakness for juvenilia." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Apr 8, 2011
C 26% Hop (2011) " Most gags are as disposable as last week's colored eggs, but there's likable geniality that keeps Hop tolerable, hinging on your tolerance of Brand's cheeky style." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Apr 1, 2011
B+ 70% Limitless (2011) " ...all flash and sizzle, but still delivers; it's equal parts superhero wish fulfillment and cautionary yuppie satire, and it's also a hell of a fun ride." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Mar 18, 2011
B+ 83% The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) " ...the fun is watching McConaughey slip the traps and outmaneuver the judge, the prosecution and his own client." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Mar 18, 2011
C+ 72% Paul (2011) " ...drowns in geek butter; every scene is stuffed with winks, nods and Easter eggs, a cavalcade of inside jokes, including a honky-tonk band playing Mos Eisley cantina music with fiddles. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Mar 18, 2011
D 29% Take Me Home Tonight (2011) " ...it's an even more plastic, hollow and underwhelming experience than actually living through 1988." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Mar 4, 2011
D+ 45% Drive Angry (2011) " Due to dippy writing and sluggish line readings, Drive Angry is never as cool as it thinks it is..." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Feb 26, 2011
D 19% Just Go with It (2011) " Adam Sandler no longer really makes movies so much as he takes expensive, studio-subsidized vacations." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Feb 11, 2011
C- 20% The Rite (2011) " Light on gore, The Rite's a snore, consisting largely of ponderous conversations that seminary students might have over a big bowl of pea soup." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Feb 1, 2011
B 62% Howl (2010) " ...through the sheer force of his talent, Franco holds together a film that can be as captivating, intriguing, vague and irritating as its complex hero." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 27, 2011
C 49% No Strings Attached (2011) " Former king of rude comedy Ivan Reitman doesn't get his money's worth for the R rating... ...it's about a fifth of the raunch the Judd Apatow crew gets away with." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 21, 2011
B- 44% The Green Hornet (2011) " ...rowdy, discordant, subversive and thoroughly modern, exactly what you'd expect when a stoner and a visual genius team up..." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 14, 2011
A- 88% Blue Valentine (2010) " Derek Cianfrance zooms the camera way in, almost inside the souls of his doomed lovers, and seldom comes up for air." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 11, 2011
C- 71% Somewhere (2010) " Wow, so showbiz is a drag, and you need the grounding of real relationships to stay sane? Imagine that. And is there anyone really still troubled about the alienation of the wealthy and famous...?" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 11, 2011
C+ 22% Country Strong (2011) " The actors all grit teeth, chew mouthfuls of mushy cornpone and attempt to make something of this, despite a cheese-ball script and pretty perfunctory direction, both by Shana Feste." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 7, 2011
B 80% Made in Dagenham (2010) " It is intriguing to ponder what a bolder director, such as Michael Winterbottom or Ken Loach, might have made of the material, rather than the steady, unspectacular hand of Nigel Cole, who steered the cheeky Calendar Girls to gentle waters." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 5, 2011
B+ 72% I Love You Phillip Morris (2010) " Jim Carrey gives one of the nerviest, boldest performances of his sporadically brilliant career." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Jan 5, 2011
C 10% Little Fockers (2010) " ..like an unloved, re-gifted fruitcake, it keeps on returning to multiplexes." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Dec 22, 2010
B- 88% White Material (2010) " ...the film is as mesmerizing to watch as it is hopeless to draw deeper meaning from. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Dec 17, 2010
D+ 13% Yogi Bear (2010) " ...to damn the whole endeavor with the faintest of praise, it at least has the decency to keep the fart jokes to a minimum" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Dec 17, 2010
C+ 32% How Do You Know (2010) " ...intermittently enjoyable, but like its characters too neurotic and uptight to get out of its own way." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Dec 17, 2010
C- 20% The Tourist (2010) " There's not enough oxygen in any room for these two giant egos to share... ...they're about as cuddly together as alien intelligences from different galaxies making first contact." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Dec 14, 2010
F 36% Burlesque (2010) " It's camp alright: prison camp." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 30, 2010
C 48% Love and Other Drugs (2010) " Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal spend an inordinate amount of time rolling around in the buff, when not flirting, fighting or racing through overwritten dialogue intended to be ironic and cutting, but really about as sharp as a Q-Tip." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 26, 2010
A- 79% Fair Game (2010) " Fair Game bristles with the outrage of that still-raw nerve, and at times feels a bit like an act of revenge, but also a confessional of a marriage pushed to the brink." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 19, 2010
C+ 52% The Next Three Days (2010) " Crisply acted, smartly directed and patently absurd, The Next Three Days is a high-tension thriller wound so tight it seems ready to snap like a stressed guitar string at any minute. " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 18, 2010
B- 81% Today's Special (2010) " ..the sort of small, quirky pleasure that invites hokey puns..." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 17, 2010
C 72% Monsters (2010) " First-time director Gareth Edwards is exceptionally skilled at creating mood, but sort of useless when it comes to creating a meaningful narrative." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 16, 2010
C+ 55% Morning Glory (2010) " Maybe substance is more than we can hope for in a rom com, and we should be satisfied with a few laughs and smiles" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 11, 2010
D 32% For Colored Girls (2010) " Tyler Perry is the most influential African-American director since Spike Lee, and certainly the most financially successful ever, none of which can disguise that he's a terrible filmmaker." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 6, 2010
C+ 39% Due Date (2010) " Most comedy threads the needle between humor and discomfort, but the noisy and curiously bleak Due Date jabs that needle right in your eye. Repeatedly." — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Nov 6, 2010
C- 51% Stone (2010) " A 'serious' intent and an ill-fitting hilljack argot reduce Stone to a pebble of a fil" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 28, 2010
C+ 71% Never Let Me Go (2010) " Occasionally moments of heartbreaking emotionally honesty bring this science fiction clone film to life" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
B 81% Catfish (2010) " Dire cyber-age consequences of making up your life as you go along" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
B- 68% Conviction (2010) " Hilary Swank shows more grit and pluck than a KFC in the Sahara" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
D 34% I Spit On Your Grave (2010) " Was there really any reason to remake this?" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
B- 64% Secretariat (2010) " Secretariat is as sturdy and dependable as the stud it's named after. Plus, the ever-lovely Diane Lane!" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
B 58% It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010) " The title kind of says it all" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
B+ 67% Jack Goes Boating (2010) " A fine cast salvages an indie-drama boilerplate" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
B 36% Hatchet II (2010) " Not even a gnarly beheading can rescue this chop job" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
C 42% GhettoPhysics: Will the Real Pimps and Hos Please Stand Up! (2010) " The argument: All human power dynamics come down to the basic street hustle" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
A- 78% Behind The Burly Q (2010) " Revealing doc tells all about the sassy gals of the vaudeville stage" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Oct 22, 2010
B- 85% Easy A (2010) " Rising superstar Emma Stone plays a smarty hottie for the 'A'" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 20, 2010
B- 29% The Virginity Hit (2010) " Every generation deserves silly smut of its own" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Sep 20, 2010
B- 53% Agora (2010) " Despite noble intentions and bloody nods to religious intolerance, this historic epic can feel like a drippy toga party" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 26, 2010
C 37% Eat Pray Love (2010) " A drive-through take on mid-life spirituality - with lots of food and travel porn" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 26, 2010
A 81% Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) " Precisely drawn hipster farce whose rich characters all have inner lives, motivations and tortuous backstories " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 26, 2010
B- 51% The Switch (2010) " A Bateman-Aniston farce based on a Jeffrey Eugenides short story - and it works, mostly" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 26, 2010
C 35% Lottery Ticket (2010) " Droll but tepid urban-kid-hits-lotto comedy" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 26, 2010
B 91% Vengeance (Fuk sau) (2010) " Johnny Hallyday and Johnnie To's glorious throwback to bitter bullets and bloody revenge" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 26, 2010
D+ 46% Step Up 3-D (2010) " Unless you're a Happy Meal-wielding tween, you should probably step off" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 12, 2010
A 93% My Life to Live (It's My Life) (Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux) (1962) " Godard's ode to a hooker remains a bleak, sexy and heartbreaking work of art" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 12, 2010
B- 43% Dinner for Schmucks (2010) " Paul Rudd plays Abbott to Steve Carell's too-spastic Costello " — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 2, 2010
C+ 52% Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2010) " A gloriously shot but elegantly empty chamber piece" — Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Posted Aug 2, 2010
Showing 51 - 100 of 195
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