Donald J. Levit Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Donald J. Levit

Send Email
Official Websites:
reeltalkreviews.com

Donald J. Levit

Agrees with the Tomatometer 68% of the time.

Biography:: Donald J. Levit is a free-lance writer with a B.A. from Duke and a Ph. D. from Chicago. Although born in Nashville and raised there and in Brooklyn, he has lived in many other places in the U.S. He also resided for a time in the Caribbean and, for twenty-two years, in Spain. Dr. Levit now calls New York City his home.
Publications:: Film Threat , ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Critics' Group:: Online Film Critics Society

Total Reviews:: 807

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 807

Previous | Next

T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
97%	20 Feet From Stardom (2013)	" Sundance-premièred '20 Feet from Stardom' showcases those fantastic backing voices which come from largely unknown uncredited throats." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Jun 13, 2013
83%	You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet! (2013)	" The prodigious talent on display is in itself a treat. The vision becomes added pleasure for those willing to enter into the spirit of exquisite pain and happiness alike. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Jun 6, 2013
96%	Hannah Arendt (2013)	" The film's point is made in the contrast of staunch stick-to-her-guns individual Hannah Arendt as against the personality-less bureaucratic Nazi official." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted May 27, 2013
100%	Khyi rgan (Old Dog) ()	" To the eye of the Occidental moviegoer, nothing much goes on. Underneath, however, roils a "cultural genocide" of generational, cultural, social and political upheaval. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted May 23, 2013
98%	Before Midnight (2013)	" Jesse and Celine's path of self- and mutual-discovery strikes true and lovely in this third go-round. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted May 23, 2013
67%	State 194 (2013)	" It is nigh impossible to clarify through summarizing the situation in the area and its ramifications for the world arena, much less in ninety-eight screen minutes." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted May 17, 2013
76%	Venus And Serena (2013)	" Through it all, there remains, not sibling rivalry, but a rare closeness, unselfish mutual boosterism and enviable love. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted May 9, 2013
63%	Kiss Of The Damned (2013)	" 'Kiss of the Damned' does not advance confidently enough in the direction of its nightmares to rise above the fanged pack. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted May 2, 2013
52%	Post Tenebras Lux (2013)	" Creates so many possibilities that it may be likened to a rough draft awaiting editing. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Apr 29, 2013
71%	The Life of Emile Zola (1937)	" Stacks up well against many a film biography of the subsequent three-quarters of a century. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Apr 21, 2013
——	Toussaint Louverture ()	" Far from the worst of the overpopulated-biopic genre, a decent if long uneven watch when translated to the big screen." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Apr 16, 2013
73%	Primer (2004)	" Shot for a begged and borrowed $7,000, 'Primer' looks it: grainy-ish, fuzzy on details and effects, acting running the gamut from A to B, and clipped incomprehensible technobabble for dialogue. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Apr 13, 2013
——	Borom Sarret (1963)	" Stark, satiric 'Borom Sarret' was the first-ever indigenous black African film." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Apr 12, 2013
88%	Upstream Color (2013)	" So soft-focus is Shane Carruth's praised anticipated 'Upstream Color' that any adjectives might be applied except 'coherent' and 'bearable.' " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Apr 4, 2013
77%	No Place On Earth (2013)	" At first a mystery unraveled by its discoverer and narrator Chris Nicola, 'No Place on Earth' manages to convey suspense in a tale whose outcome is already a given." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Apr 4, 2013
73%	Violeta Went to Heaven (2013)	" The great draw here is theater, television and film actress Francisca Gavilán's performance as the conflicted, lonely multi-talent. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Mar 28, 2013
——	Kibô no kuni (The Land of Hope) (2012)	" The subject is one for indignation and urgency. But despite straightforward no-frills treatment in 'The Land of Hope,' nothing rises above the predictable ordinary." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Mar 16, 2013
——	Yellow Line (Osen Chitai) ()	" 'Yellow Line/Osen-Chitai' goes beyond stock stick figures into deeper character ambiguousness. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Mar 16, 2013
86%	Maya Lin - A Strong Clear Vision (1995)	" Processes are illuminated, dedicatory ceremonies shown, honorary degrees conferred, but the carefully un-political woman does not emerge as a personality beyond a wall of concentration. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Mar 12, 2013
30%	Emperor (2013)	" A major thread and a weak one, the proclaimed 'love story' is not fleshed out." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Mar 8, 2013
90%	Beyond The Hills (2013)	" A powerful consideration of what are among man's basic needs and fears, 'Beyond the Hills' offers a subtle beauty that many viewers might not notice." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Mar 7, 2013
75%	Leviathan (2013)	" A very little of 'Leviathan' goes a long way, one gets the point, and essentially what are repetitions go overboard and for too many frames." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Mar 2, 2013
25%	Phantom (2013)	" This story does not in the end sink or swim on warfare or anyone's U-boats but on the men who man them and the choices that must be made." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Feb 28, 2013
95%	5 Broken Cameras (2012)	" More than or in addition to being a non-fiction, the film is a piece of life told from a personal perspective. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Feb 23, 2013
19%	Inescapable (2013)	" Ruba Nadda's 2012 Toronto International Film Festival Gala Presentation is an okay actioner of the political mystery intrigue type. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Feb 20, 2013
83%	Like Someone in Love (2013)	" Kiarostami's output is arresting, unsettling and nonjudgmental in refusing to provide clear end 'answers.' " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Feb 13, 2013
13%	Love And Honor (2013)	" 'Love and Honor' does not descend to the infantile humor and language of many films about this age group and class. It is better than one would expect. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Feb 11, 2013
100%	Tarnished Angels (1958)	" Given limited budget and technology, the airplane races are well staged over a short oval course around the striped pylons. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Feb 4, 2013
91%	Caesar Must Die (2013)	" As much in the corridors, cells and courtyards as on the virtually prop-less stage, these nearly entirely non-professionals give moving performances." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Feb 4, 2013
87%	Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2013)	" Too quietly uneventful for the big screen and burdened narrationally with Western-civilization pomposity on the purity of unencumbered subsistence life and the sacrosanctity of Nature." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Jan 28, 2013
94%	Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) (1957)	" Several actors who were to form the director's virtual stock company are here, but it is Sjöström who is heart and soul of the film. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Jan 25, 2013
88%	Django Unchained (2012)	" Whereas there was savage beauty and irony in the '60-'70s violence of Penn, Peckinpah, and Leone, the coda of 'Django Unchained' is mere benumbing splatter. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Jan 21, 2013
95%	The Imposter (2012)	" The film looks like many a television crime series, and is as manipulative. With no disclaimer or separation, its method screams that this is full honest fact." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Jan 18, 2013
93%	The House I Live In (2012)	" It is the insiders, the prisoners themselves who are most cinema-eloquent, along with a surprising Iowa U.S District Court judge and an Oklahoma corrections center security chief." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Jan 7, 2013
——	Wutai jiemei (Stage Sisters) ()	" Blatant revolutionary platitudes take over the ending, but otherwise the 'sisters'' paths shed light on little known but crucial aspects of this period in the emergence of modern China. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Dec 29, 2012
57%	Here and There (2013)	" 'Here and There/Aquí y allá' does not consider politics, border polemics, cartels or global recession but, rather, is an unshrill rumination on family, love and hope. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Dec 17, 2012
——	Daybreak (Tianming) ()	" Had 'Daybreak" been made in the West, it would be valued as a minor but telling classic. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Nov 29, 2012
100%	Gimme Shelter (1970)	" 'Gimme Shelter' is not a concert film but a statement of a sea change, of the group way back when and of an end to its and the public's innocence and to the counterculture that once flourished. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Nov 23, 2012
63%	Hitchcock (2012)	" 'Hitchcock' would apply an indefensible happy ending-spin to allegations of ruining careers and harassment of his blondes." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Nov 22, 2012
93%	The Central Park Five (2012)	" Sparks intense feelings and re-arouses others suppressed for two decades about racism, official irresponsibility, and the principle of presumed innocence as against presumed guilt. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Nov 15, 2012
78%	Flight (2012)	" For all the in-flight fright, the end is a comedown to Hollywood earth. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Oct 26, 2012
70%	The Loneliest Planet (2012)	" Visuals and emotional core are too separate and too long to sustain the movie. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Oct 25, 2012
90%	Holy Motors (2012)	" So many genres, moods, shifts, skits and bits make up 'Holy Motors' that inevitably some misfire, though most sparkle." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Oct 17, 2012
80%	Ginger & Rosa (2013)	" Ginger is the audience's entry into this period of adjustment and adaptation for once-imperial nations, for threatened humankind, and for girls emerging into adulthood. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Oct 12, 2012
44%	The Paperboy (2012)	" Secrets come out, characters reveal who and what they are. But they are caricatures, too one-sided to be surprising, and too obvious to be interesting." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Oct 7, 2012
88%	Life of Pi (2012)	" Conceived from the start as the director's first 3D venture, 'Pi' is among the rare ones that integrate the expensive process instead of simply showing off or scaring. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Oct 7, 2012
68%	Wuthering Heights (2012)	" This brave take is an interesting look at a classic for the few but may be too 'inner' concentrated for the many. " — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Oct 4, 2012
——	Native Son (1994)	" Limited budget, black and white melodramatic pacing and scripting, awkward direction and inferior acting are what contribute to its shortcomings as pure film." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Sep 30, 2012
——	Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out ()	" The eighty-eight-minute watch of this individual case has limited appeal. Of greater general interest are issues raised about justice, politics, finance and fame." — ReelTalk Movie Reviews Posted Sep 27, 2012

Showing 1 - 50 of 807

Previous | Next

Sort by Rating:

Sort results by this critic's rating. This option is only available for critics with a rating system (4 star, letter grade, 1-10, etc.)
Sort by T-meter:

Sort results by the Tomatometer (percentage of critics recommending a certain movie)