Harvey S. Karten Movie Reviews & Previews

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Harvey S. Karten

"If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am for myself only, what am I? - Hillel"

Agrees with the Tomatometer 69% of the time.

Biography:: After teaching high school for quite a while, I took an M.A. in Film and Theater from Hunter College in New York and a Ph.D. in Theater from the City University Graduate Center, also in the Big Apple. Having sat through one innocuous Broadway show after another and a great deal of talky off-Broadway productions as a so-called second-night critic, I realized that you don't always get what you pay for. Broadway shows may be $75 a ticket and movies just $9.50 (in New York), but you're more likely to have fun AND take away something of substance from the big screen. The switch from reviewing theater to reviewing movies was an easy one to make.When my application for membership in the New York Film Critics Circle was circular-filed (print media only, sorry), I founded the Online Film Critics Society in January 1997 and three years later, NYFCO (New York Film Critics Online).
Favorites:: Favorite films: Amadeus, Schindler's List, Lassie Come HomeBest of 2006: Thank You for Smoking
Publications:: Arizona Reporter , Compuserve , Film Journal International , Modamag.com , Shockya.com , The Cinema Source
Critics' Group:: New York Film Critics Online

Total Reviews:: 3368

Location:: Brooklyn, New York

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 3368

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
B+	83%	What Maisie Knew (2013)	" Onata Aprile - A star is born." — Compuserve Posted Apr 23, 2013
C+	43%	Midnight's Children (2013)	" Overproduced." — Compuserve Posted Apr 23, 2013
B+	56%	At Any Price (2013)	" Quaid and Efron play off well against each other." — Compuserve Posted Apr 23, 2013
B+	100%	The Kings of Summer (2013)	" The Kings of Summer features some snazzy effects and an alt-rock soundtrack including some not overused slow-motion photography to illustrate Joe's murderous dream and several neat montages." — Shockya.com Posted Apr 22, 2013
B	74%	Love Is All You Need (2013)	" A conventional romance is saved by some first-rate performances and photography on Italy's beautiful Amalfi coast." — Compuserve Posted Apr 9, 2013
B+	87%	In the House (2013)	" A poignant and funny comedy of manners that follows the interaction of a frustrated high school French teacher and his prize student." — Compuserve Posted Apr 2, 2013
C	0%	Lotus Eaters (2013)	" A lazily directed, flabby look at a group of young, too-rich Londoners whose lives are so miserable you'll be tempted to give up your money and move to an ashram or monastery." — Compuserve Posted Mar 27, 2013
B+	96%	Blancanieves (2013)	" A bold re-imagining of the Grimm Brothers' Snow White legend transmitted in exquisite black and white with upbeat paso dobles and flamenco rhythms" — Compuserve Posted Mar 26, 2013
A-	68%	Trance (2013)	" A hallucinatory trip about art thieves that will mess with your mind. I say that as a deeply felt compliment." — Compuserve Posted Mar 25, 2013
B+	81%	Renoir (2013)	" Overly conventional film-making is compensated for by gorgeous photography on the sun-drenched Cote d'azur and by spirited performances from the ensemble." — Compuserve Posted Mar 21, 2013
B	74%	Simon Killer (2013)	" A solid psychological thriller that could remind viewers of Ted Bundy, a cold, calculating psychopath who knew how to succeed with women." — Compuserve Posted Mar 20, 2013
B+	43%	Admission (2013)	" Tina Fey bridges the gap from comedy to drama with aplomb in a movie that could serve as a product placement for Princeton University." — Compuserve Posted Mar 19, 2013
B-	70%	Wrong (2013)	" "Wrong" makes the point that people cannot communicate, not an original idea or more than a mildly amusing pic, but Jack Plotnick turns in solid deadpan performance." — Compuserve Posted Mar 18, 2013
B	65%	Starbuck (2013)	" Sporadically funny with an overtone of healthy sentiment." — Compuserve Posted Mar 13, 2013
B+	38%	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)	" A consistently funny, even oddly sentimental magic show." — Compuserve Posted Mar 12, 2013
B-	87%	Upstream Color (2013)	" A baffling experimental movie that shuns interpretation as a narrative but makes sense as a work of artistic merit." — Compuserve Posted Mar 11, 2013
B+	79%	Reality (2013)	" Effective as both satire and drama about a man who is so convinced he is about to become a celeb that he loses touch with reality." — Compuserve Posted Mar 7, 2013
B	54%	The Company You Keep (2013)	" Though a political thriller, there is less melodrama and more psychological tension as a man wanted for murder 30 years earlier as part of a radical organization faces prison for the rest of his life." — Compuserve Posted Mar 6, 2013
B	56%	Come Out And Play (2013)	" Though virtually without plot, the horror elements are effective given the graphic views of mass murder." — Compuserve Posted Mar 5, 2013
A-	79%	Ginger & Rosa (2013)	" Elle Fanning is so good that she is on her way to becoming the next Tilda Swinton--the title character of Sally Potter's great film 'Orlando.'" — Compuserve Posted Feb 28, 2013
C	4%	6 Souls (2013)	" A psychological thriller/cum horror tale about a dangerous fellow with three personalities, a movie that proves Robert Louis Stevenson right: two are fine, more's a crowd." — Compuserve Posted Feb 27, 2013
B	31%	Emperor (2013)	" Effectively combines romance with historical fiction about the question of what to do with Emperor Hirohito after the Japanese surrender in 1945." — Compuserve Posted Feb 26, 2013
B	76%	No Place On Earth (2013)	" The incredible but true story of a Jewish family that hid from the Nazis in a cave for 511 days, done as a hybrid of documentary and narrative." — Compuserve Posted Feb 22, 2013
B	90%	Beyond The Hills (2013)	" Overlong and bleak while featuring superb ensemble acting, this Romanian Oscar entry employs careful attention to detail to depict life in a remote chapel as perhaps a stand-in for the greater society." — Compuserve Posted Feb 20, 2013
B+	71%	Greedy Lying Bastards (2013)	" A serious, hard-hitting doc that eviscerates the know-nothings who claim that global warming, if it exists at all, has little to do with the activities of big corporations." — Compuserve Posted Feb 19, 2013
B+	80%	Augustine (2013)	" A costume drama with a keen sense of place and time that will appeal particularly to those interested in psychology" — Compuserve Posted Feb 15, 2013
C	75%	Leviathan (2013)	" Painterly with a bold soundtrack but ultimately pointless look at men at sea who bring in our Friday dinners." — Compuserve Posted Feb 13, 2013
B+	45%	Beautiful Creatures (2013)	" Don't look for logic here, but who says that romantic love is logical?" — Compuserve Posted Feb 13, 2013
A-	100%	You Will Be My Son (2013)	" A compelling story of family dysfunction on a French vineyard is buoyed by an Oscar-worthy performance from Niels Arestrup." — Compuserve Posted Feb 12, 2013
B	89%	A Place at the Table (2013)	" Not much knew if you've been following the news on a regular basis, but the doc punctuates the serious problem, finding hunger in the midst of plenty." — Compuserve Posted Feb 7, 2013
B+	85%	Side Effects (2013)	" Even if you're a young guy with no interest in the prescription drug scene, you'll be attentive to the melodramatic aspects of this psychological thriller." — Compuserve Posted Feb 4, 2013
C	19%	Inescapable (2013)	" A thriller based in Syria with grainy photography, absurd coincidences, one that is stiffly acted with stilted dialogue." — Compuserve Posted Jan 31, 2013
B+	90%	Caesar Must Die (2013)	" Italy's Oscar entry for best foreign pic of 2012 is a bold choice, one featuring hardened criminals who deliver a shattering performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar." — Compuserve Posted Jan 29, 2013
B	82%	Like Someone in Love (2013)	" The conversation between the elderly professor and the call girl is amusing and mysterious in equal parts." — Compuserve Posted Jan 28, 2013
B+	92%	No (2013)	" Neatly combines political conflict with marketing satire to form a vivid look at the 1988 plebiscite that overthrew Chile's dictator Augusto Pinochet" — Compuserve Posted Jan 25, 2013
—	93%	Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011)	— Compuserve Posted Jan 22, 2013
B+	88%	Yossi (2013)	" A tender but happily unsentimental tale of a closeted gay doctor in Israel who finds at least a measure of happiness with a young soldier." — Compuserve Posted Jan 8, 2013
B	92%	The Gatekeepers (2013)	" Retired members of Israel's Shin Bet security people are surprisingly honest about their country's policies toward Palestinians." — Compuserve Posted Jan 1, 2013
B	60%	John Dies at the End (2013)	" A loopy satire of "Alien" and similar horror tales with more laughs than scares and an incredible array of visual effects." — Compuserve Posted Dec 20, 2012
B+	61%	Jack Reacher (2012)	" Despite its adaptation from an airport bookstore novel, the movie rivets, the 130 minutes flying by like the inevitable crime-story police chopper." — Compuserve Posted Dec 19, 2012
B+	94%	Room 237 (2013)	" Tells us more about 'The Shining" than we ever thought possible, though not a single interpretation voiced in this doc could be accurate." — Compuserve Posted Dec 18, 2012
C	38%	The Guilt Trip (2012)	" Where is Judd Apatow when we need him?" — Compuserve Posted Dec 13, 2012
B+	77%	Any Day Now (2012)	" A heartfelt performance by Alan Cumming as a gay man seeking to adopt a boy with Down Syndrome." — Compuserve Posted Dec 11, 2012
C+	70%	Les Misérables (2012)	" Broadway longevity notwithstanding, 'Les Misérables' is not a great musical. But the current screen version could have been so much better if real singers were used instead of box office draws like Jackman and Crowe." — Compuserve Posted Dec 6, 2012
B+	51%	Promised Land (2013)	" The definitive answer to the existential question, 'What the frack?'" — Compuserve Posted Dec 5, 2012
B	93%	Barbara (2012)	" A subtle work acted with restraint illustrating a woman's conflict between duty and desire." — Compuserve Posted Dec 4, 2012
B+	93%	Zero Dark Thirty (2013)	" Behind some assassinations is the obsession of a woman." — Shockya.com Posted Dec 4, 2012
B+	93%	Amour (2012)	" Severely tests the marriage vow "...in sickness and in health..."" — Compuserve Posted Nov 29, 2012
B+	80%	Wagner & Me (2012)	" Picturesque exploration of a Jewish guy's love for the anti-Semitic, Hitler-favorite composer, Richard Wagner." — Compuserve Posted Nov 29, 2012

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