Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke

Agrees with the Tomatometer 84% of the time.

Publications:
Irish Times
Total Reviews:
163

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 163
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
4/5 92% The Gatekeepers (2013) " Dror Moreh's terrific documentary can stand beside Errol Morris's The Fog of War as a cinematic illustration of how human psyches bend beneath the pressure of terrible actions." — Irish Times
Posted May 5, 2013
1/5 26% 21 And Over (2013) " One of many recent films that could serve as a recruiting advertisement for Al Qaeda." — Irish Times
Posted May 5, 2013
3/5 60% I'm So Excited! (2013) " For all the high intentions, I'm So Excited comes across as minor Almodóvar. There are, of course, far worse things than that." — Irish Times
Posted May 5, 2013
4/5 78% Iron Man 3 (2013) " Shorter and less self-regarding than most Marvel movies, Iron Man 3 is every bit as zippy as we might expect from the creator of Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang ." — Irish Times
Posted Apr 26, 2013
3/5 71% The Look of Love () " This version of the baron isn't even allowed to become anything so interesting as an enigma. It's Steve Coogan - only less so." — Irish Times
Posted Apr 26, 2013
4/5 75% Love Is All You Need (2013) " How cheering it is to see everyone's third-favourite James Bond essay comedy that never strays into camp or self-parody. " — Irish Times
Posted Apr 19, 2013
3/5 30% King Of The Travellers () " There is enough here for us to confirm O'Connor as a talent for the future. Rough stuff." — Irish Times
Posted Apr 19, 2013
3/5 51% Promised Land (2013) " Thee film-makers' sincerity so indisputable, that Promised Land never entirely spins off the rails. It's hard to swallow, but easy to digest." — Irish Times
Posted Apr 19, 2013
3/5 56% Oblivion (2013) " As futurology it stinks. But as anaesthetised fantasy it works very nicely." — Irish Times
Posted Apr 12, 2013
4/5 —— Pilgrim Hill () " Pilgrim Hill offers a quietly devastating portrait of Jimmy Walsh (Joe Mullins), a bachelor farmer eking out his life in a lonely farm on a windy outcrop. " — Irish Times
Posted Apr 12, 2013
2/5 29% All Things To All Men () " Everybody's a supporting player. Nobody finds a trajectory worth following. Everybody is modestly corrupt. Nobody is believably conflicted." — Irish Times
Posted Apr 5, 2013
4/5 100% Michael H. Profession: Director () " The interviews may unveil little fresh information, but the shots of Haneke in action offer up minor revelations." — Irish Times
Posted Apr 5, 2013
4/5 66% Spring Breakers (2013) " Maintaining his queasy dialectic throughout, the director oscillates between disgust and frenzied indulgence. " — Irish Times
Posted Apr 5, 2013
5/5 99% Finding Nemo 3D (2012) " The animation is so sleek and the action so perfectly paced that even the sharpest viewer could be forgiven for overlooking some unimportant lapses in internal logic. " — Irish Times
Posted Mar 29, 2013
3/5 68% Trance (2013) " You are swept along while it lasts and then, following a click of the fingers, you forget everything that just happened. A tolerable distraction." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 29, 2013
1/5 28% G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) " Bigger, louder and, like, way more stupider than its predecessor." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 29, 2013
3/5 51% Post Tenebras Lux (2013) " Post Tenebras Lux does (just about) repay viewers' tolerance with an intermittent succession of cinematic jewels." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 21, 2013
4/5 69% The Croods (2013) " Co-directed by Chris Sanders, brains behind the excellent How to Train Your Dragon , the latest flick from DreamWorks turns out to be moving, funny and highly original." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 21, 2013
2/5 44% The Paperboy (2012) " With Precious and The Paperboy, Daniels has confirmed his status as the most emotionally incontinent director of his generation. " — Irish Times
Posted Mar 15, 2013
3/5 38% The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) " Energised by an impressively savage analysis of contemporary stage magic. Put simply, this film despises David Blaine and all his pseudo-mystical fellow-travellers." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 15, 2013
1/5 40% Parker (2013) " We like you, Jason. You're perfectly acceptable in near-silent, pseudo-Asian action nonsense. But you, sir, are no Lee Marvin." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 9, 2013
3/5 85% Side Effects (2013) " If this puzzling, often very enjoyable medical thriller were directed by almost any film-maker other than Steven Soderbergh, you would be tempted to diagnose it with genre identity disorder." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 9, 2013
4/5 60% Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) " How refreshing it is to enjoy something we never knew we wanted." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 9, 2013
1/5 13% Safe Haven (2013) " To this writer, it suggests one of those evasive US TV commercials for incontinence treatments or rheumatism therapies. " — Irish Times
Posted Mar 1, 2013
4/5 87% Arbitrage (2012) " We are persuaded to root for Miller, even when he is betraying the people he loves best. You'll feel dirty, and well you should after a few hours in this company. " — Irish Times
Posted Mar 1, 2013
3/5 30% Broken City (2013) " Wahlberg and Crowe. Together at last. So overwhelming. Can't breathe for testosterone. Can't even write complete sentences." — Irish Times
Posted Mar 1, 2013
3/5 65% Mama (2013) " If you can swallow the porcelain Chastain as a tattooed bass player in a punk band, then the supernatural hooey will not seem in any way hard to believe." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 26, 2013
3/5 100% Fire In The Blood () " Only an unthinking monster could leave the cinema unmoved and unenlightened." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 26, 2013
4/5 92% Lore (2013) " Shortland composes her shots with great elegance. Adam Arkapaw's damp, saturated photography is gorgeous. Götterdämmerung has rarely been so quietly compelling." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 26, 2013
3/5 73% Unfinished Song (Song for Marion) (2013) " The interactions between Redgrave and Stamp confirm [Williams] has serious dramatic chops. The swerve towards cuddly redemption porn suggests he's starting to panic a little." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 26, 2013
2/5 42% To The Wonder (2013) " At times, the new film plays like a Wayans brothers parody of a late Malick picture: Sleepy Movie, Floaty Movie, Preachy Movie. " — Irish Times
Posted Feb 22, 2013
4/5 79% Everyday () " Utilising fluid shots of the English countryside set to one of Michael Nyman's most dynamic scores, Winterbottom makes something surprisingly lyrical of the non-story" — Irish Times
Posted Feb 17, 2013
2/5 47% Bullet to the Head (2013) " Look, Stallone has a perky daughter. Will she end up tied to a chair in a disused refinery (or something)? You know it. " — Irish Times
Posted Feb 17, 2013
3/5 40% Men at Lunch () " The core image is striking, but it's not quite as "iconic" as claimed. The allusions to 9/11 are unnecessary. But Men at Lunch remains an honourable, worthwhile effort." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 17, 2013
3/5 86% Wreck-it Ralph (2012) " The prospect of inevitable sequels is more than bearable." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 17, 2013
3/5 64% Antiviral (2013) " Like his father before him, Brandon makes a virtue of budgetary restraints: Antiviral's rough textures are, in themselves, somewhat alienating." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 17, 2013
2/5 63% I Give It a Year (2013) " A bafflingly misguided experiment." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 17, 2013
3/5 80% Warm Bodies (2013) " The film has just enough gooey charm to make up for its infelicitous turns." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 17, 2013
2/5 11% Sammy's Adventures 2 (Sammy's avonturen 2) () " It's like watching Life of Pi after a frontal lobotomy." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 15, 2013
2/5 15% A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) " To call the film perfunctory would be to insult properly perfunctory events, such as that visit to your least-favourite uncle." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 15, 2013
1/5 52% This is 40 (2012) " It is, in its quieter way, more pointlessly indulgent than The Matrix Revolutions." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 15, 2013
3/5 79% Flight (2012) " t is hard to think of a film as weirdly paced or as oddly structured as Robert Zemeckis's largely successful return to live-action drama." — Irish Times
Posted Feb 3, 2013
4/5 93% Zero Dark Thirty (2013) " So overwhelming is the momentum that it proves possible to live with the intelligence that the protagonist is complicit in ground-level fascism. " — Irish Times
Posted Jan 25, 2013
4/5 89% Lincoln (2012) " Against the odds, Spielberg makes something genuinely exciting of the backstage wheedling. " — Irish Times
Posted Jan 25, 2013
2/5 —— Man On The Train (2012) " We remain puzzled as to why they bothered. " — Irish Times
Posted Jan 11, 2013
3/5 70% Les Misérables (2012) " Those who get on with tunes will barely notice the hours flying past. Of course, if you hate the show, you'll hate the film. " — Irish Times
Posted Jan 11, 2013
3/5 79% Quartet (2013) " The whole project feels just a little patronising towards the older demographic. Aren't they quaint? Aren't they naughty? Aren't they cheeky? " — Irish Times
Posted Jan 4, 2013
3/5 81% Pitch Perfect (2012) " There are things to whinge about here. But Pitch Perfect proves impossible to resist." — Irish Times
Posted Dec 21, 2012
4/5 88% Life of Pi (2012) " Life of Pi is chiefly to be recommended for the punch of its core story. Never mind the cod-philosophical breadth - feel the impressive emotional depth." — Irish Times
Posted Dec 21, 2012
Showing 1 - 50 of 163
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