Lisa Kennedy Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Lisa Kennedy

Lisa Kennedy

Agrees with the Tomatometer 76% of the time.

Publications:: Denver Post , L.A. Weekly

Total Reviews:: 1063

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Showing 51 - 100 of 1063

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
3.5/4	86%	The Master (2012)	" The Master is as confounding as it is magnificent." — Denver Post Posted Sep 21, 2012
2.5/4	87%	Arbitrage (2012)	" Gere's very good at making Robert's compromises seem more human than horrid. He portrays the philanthropic, philandering patriarch with his customary twinkle." — Denver Post Posted Sep 14, 2012
2.5/4	74%	Hope Springs (2012)	" It's all a little depressing." — Denver Post Posted Aug 10, 2012
3.5/4	56%	The Bourne Legacy (2012)	" Renner and Weisz work well together as two hunted souls who initially need each other for utilitarian reasons." — Denver Post Posted Aug 10, 2012
3/4	67%	Trishna (2012)	" Trishna engages the potent collisions of the rural and the urban, the poor and the rich, and considers how these interactions unfold in a romance and how they might also destroy it." — Denver Post Posted Aug 3, 2012
2/4	31%	Total Recall (2012)	" Whatever tug Total Recall has on the imagination comes from the vague sense we've seen it all before. And seen it better: from Christopher Nolan's Inception to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner." — Denver Post Posted Aug 3, 2012
3.5/4	87%	The Dark Knight Rises (2012)	" The director and cowriter/brother Jonathan Nolan pay heed to Wayne's wounded emotional arc. And the film is a feat of painstakingly crafted closure." — Denver Post Posted Jul 19, 2012
4/4	86%	Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)	" Beasts is film as natural mystery museum." — Denver Post Posted Jul 13, 2012
2.5/4	51%	Savages (2012)	" Savages points to a problem with gifted directors, which Stone is, like him or not: They can make a movie that aggravates, infuriates, falters even, but they can really make a movie." — Denver Post Posted Jul 6, 2012
3/4	69%	Ted (2012)	" It's a goofy premise pursued with crass -- as well as sentimental -- relish." — Denver Post Posted Jun 29, 2012
2.5/4	56%	People Like Us (2012)	" It's encouraging to see a wielder of studio heft test his mettle with the all-too-human. In a season of superheroes and their nemeses, Kurtzman takes on characters hurting, hoping, trying to rise to the occasion of family." — Denver Post Posted Jun 29, 2012
2.5/4	42%	Hide Away (A Year in Mooring) (2012)	" A tactile, emotion-laden world of beauty, loss, recovery." — Denver Post Posted Jun 22, 2012
3.5/4	55%	Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)	" This is an exceedingly promising directorial debut for Scafaria, who adapted the winning romance Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist." — Denver Post Posted Jun 22, 2012
3/4	78%	Brave (2012)	" Saying that Brave is entertaining but not astonishing is pretty much admitting your straight-A student got a B." — Denver Post Posted Jun 22, 2012
3.5/4	41%	Rock of Ages (2012)	" Pour some sugar on it, indeed." — Denver Post Posted Jun 15, 2012
3/4	74%	Prometheus (2012)	" Much like Rutger Hauer's turn as a replicant in Scott's Blade Runner, Fassbender's performance may launch Prometheus into the cult stratosphere." — Denver Post Posted Jun 8, 2012
3.5/4	79%	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)	" From time to time the improbable occurs: A sequel outdoes its original." — Denver Post Posted Jun 8, 2012
2/4	48%	Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)	" Only Bob Hoskins as the blind seer Muir comes close to making us care. We can almost glean Snow White's heroic possibilities through his clouded eyes. As much as we'd like to, we certainly can't from Stewart's efforts." — Denver Post Posted Jun 1, 2012
2.5/4	70%	Men in Black III (2012)	" The Smith-Jones duo's return as the titularly clad operatives, while not exactly essential, comes with the charms of reprised, well-liked characters and a "didn't-see-that-coming" conclusion that makes up for the first hour's sequelitis." — Denver Post Posted May 25, 2012
	90%	Bernie (2012)	" Bernie has chuckles, but it's hardly riotous. And this is a good thing." — Denver Post Posted May 18, 2012
2.5/4	38%	Dark Shadows (2012)	" Mostly Dark Shadows is silly when we're trained to expect slightly richer fun from Burton and Depp." — Denver Post Posted May 11, 2012
3/4	75%	Sound of My Voice (2012)	" Behold the trials and tribulations of going undercover. It doesn't matter if it's cop or journalist, a muddying of purpose takes hold once a mole plunges deeper into the darkness." — Denver Post Posted May 11, 2012
3/4	64%	Hit So Hard (2012)	" Patty Schemel "lived through this." Once you witness what that "this" was, feel free to follow that up with a "wow."" — Denver Post Posted May 4, 2012
3.5/4	93%	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	" It's two-plus hours of visual brawn, unexpected heartbeats and welcome humor." — Denver Post Posted May 3, 2012
3.5/4	67%	To the Arctic (2012)	" Yes, it's a classy affair, but the 40-minute doc's at-times-nerve-wracking power comes from the subjects who put a furry face on the ongoing and daunting issue of climate change." — Denver Post Posted Apr 20, 2012
3/4	74%	Chimpanzee (2012)	" Those hungering for rare footage of our cousins playing and foraging, fighting or fleeing are in for a number of treats." — Denver Post Posted Apr 20, 2012
3.5/4	87%	Bully (2012)	" Bully" is smart and compassionate about the pain of its wounded subjects and the frustration felt by their parents, seemingly abandoned by the system. What the powerful film lacks is insight into bullying." — Denver Post Posted Apr 13, 2012
3/4	92%	The Cabin in the Woods (2012)	" And you thought you were just headed for a weekend getaway." — Denver Post Posted Apr 13, 2012
3.5/4	90%	Footnote (2012)	" Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar's tale of two Talmudic scholars set in present-day Jerusalem, while not exactly side-splitting, is quietly riotous. And, yes, the guffaws are bittersweet." — Denver Post Posted Apr 6, 2012
3/4	86%	The Forgiveness of Blood (2012)	" The leads -- both non-actors -- hit sharp, natural notes." — Denver Post Posted Mar 23, 2012
3.5/4	85%	The Hunger Games (2012)	" Ross moves between action and human drama with nimble awareness of the weight of the issues coursing through the story of fascism, propaganda, and, yes, adolescence under the weight of the world." — Denver Post Posted Mar 22, 2012
3.5/4	96%	Undefeated (2012)	" [A] winning documentary." — Denver Post Posted Mar 16, 2012
3/4	41%	Silent House (2012)	" It's Olsen's performance that makes Sarah's plight matter. And the actress proves that her mesmerizing turn in last fall's Martha Marcy May Marlene -- about a woman on the lam from a cult -- wasn't a fluke." — Denver Post Posted Mar 9, 2012
2.5/4	67%	Friends With Kids (2012)	" Sitcom-amusing, in that middle-of-the-road way." — Denver Post Posted Mar 9, 2012
2.5/4	13%	W.E. (2012)	" The film is stylishly shot. And, in weaving the stories of Wally and Wallis, Madonna trusts viewers to move from mood to mood, era to era without overexplanation, the way music-video editing long ago trained us to." — Denver Post Posted Mar 2, 2012
3.5/4	89%	In Darkness (2012)	" The chiseled Furmann gives Mundek a savvy, even moral, brawn. As Paulina, Maria Schrader makes an argument for gentle yet pragmatic maternalism." — Denver Post Posted Mar 2, 2012
3.5/4	99%	A Separation (2011)	" Very few movies capture as convincingly as A Separation does the ways in which seemingly honorable decisions can lead to interpersonal conflict -- even disaster." — Denver Post Posted Feb 10, 2012
3.5/4	95%	Pina (2011)	" Pina is a tribute of an artist by an artist, a friend to a friend. But its great genius comes from the mournful, as well as celebratory, reckoning of the performers Bausch pushed, collaborated with and inspired." — Denver Post Posted Feb 3, 2012
3.5/4	46%	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012)	" If imagining a city where people open their doors (or don't) to a boy with a key and a ton of questions is sentimental ... then it is vitally, beautifully so." — Denver Post Posted Jan 20, 2012
2.5/4	52%	The Iron Lady (2012)	" Often "The Iron Lady" relies on montages to get to - and plow through - historic high points." — Denver Post Posted Jan 13, 2012
2.5/4	34%	Joyful Noise (2012)	" Much worse things could happen to a movie than to have these two full-figured gals hold forth. Parton's willing and able to despense the Southernisms. Latifah's fierce when she needs to be." — Denver Post Posted Jan 13, 2012
3/4	78%	A Dangerous Method (2011)	" A Dangerous Method is well cast with Michael Fassbender as a pent-up Jung and Viggo Mortensen as Freud. Keira Knightley inhabits the fits and fury of Spielrein." — Denver Post Posted Jan 6, 2012
3.5/4	98%	The Artist (2011)	" A silent movie shot in sumptuous black-and-white, no less. A silent flick made with not a jot of distancing winking, but instead born of a heady affection for a bygone, very bygone, era of filmmaking." — Denver Post Posted Dec 23, 2011
3.5/4	77%	War Horse (2011)	" Robustly entertaining." — Denver Post Posted Dec 23, 2011
3/4	67%	We Bought a Zoo (2011)	" Consider it a fine sign of emotional discipline that the movie doesn't overplay Kelly and Ben's romantic possibilites." — Denver Post Posted Dec 23, 2011
3.5/4	86%	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)	" Mara's Lisbeth can be brashly young and impossibly smart. It's a performance that should well serve the upcoming sequels." — Denver Post Posted Dec 20, 2011
3/4	80%	Young Adult (2011)	" There's little about Mavis that makes for feel-good revelry. That's an understatement, perhaps. Yet, Theron's work feels true to Mavis' malaise -- and often, just as sad." — Denver Post Posted Dec 16, 2011
3/4	60%	Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)	" Downey and Law remain this presumptive franchise's draw." — Denver Post Posted Dec 16, 2011
2/4	7%	New Year's Eve (2011)	" The only thing that can inspire more cynicism than a holiday's coerced emotions may be a film that both exploits and celebrates said emotions." — Denver Post Posted Dec 9, 2011
3/4	22%	The Sitter (2011)	" A weirdly charming comedy that puts an irresponsible guy in charge of three unhappy kids. Who'll crumble first?" — Denver Post Posted Dec 9, 2011
3/4	77%	The Swell Season (2011)	" For Once lovers who needed a "what happened next?" epilogue, this one moves even as it chastises." — Denver Post Posted Dec 2, 2011
3.5/4	99%	Le Havre (2011)	" 'Tis the season, so the saying goes. And when it comes to Aki Kaurismäki, it holds true. The Finnish writer-director arrives bearing a gift wrapped in a contemporary immigration fable." — Denver Post Posted Dec 2, 2011
3/4	84%	My Week with Marilyn (2011)	" After My Week, Monroe remains an enigma. And that isn't a failing of Williams' performance but an expression of its nuance." — Denver Post Posted Nov 23, 2011
3/4	94%	Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey (2011)	" The film also provides an inspiring reminder for the young and the rest of us that there is a vital relationship between the best kind of work and passionate play." — Denver Post Posted Nov 18, 2011
3.5/4	45%	Happy Feet Two (2011)	" Much like its Oscar-winning predecessor, the story focuses on lads and dads, though there are strong mama figures and daughters, too." — Denver Post Posted Nov 18, 2011
3.5/4	89%	The Descendants (2011)	" [Clooney] is a movie star who can't shake (and doesn't want to, one suspects) the baggage of that good fortune, yet consistently works to blend into the ensemble for the sake of story. The Descendants gives us his most emotional work to date." — Denver Post Posted Nov 18, 2011
3/4	91%	The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)	" Broken into nine chapters -- one for each year -- the documentary isn't a rigorous work but a felt piece of vital, if flawed, art." — Denver Post Posted Nov 4, 2011
3/4	81%	The Skin I Live In (2011)	" These are questions one is left with -- and that's not an entirely satisfying feeling. Yet it's hard not to be drawn into the story, and even more, into the gorgeous storytelling." — Denver Post Posted Nov 4, 2011
3.5/4	90%	Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)	" Durkin depicts a horror that some among us actually live, where the search for family leads to something familiar and dangerous." — Denver Post Posted Nov 4, 2011
3/4	47%	Anonymous (2011)	" Audiences may chuckle. Stratfordians, prepare for conniptions." — Denver Post Posted Oct 28, 2011
3/4	84%	Puss in Boots (2011)	" It would overstate matters to say Puss in Boots leaves its cat holding the bag (we had to get that in). But it also leaves its hero awaiting a richer fable, one befitting his charms and his portrayer's talents." — Denver Post Posted Oct 28, 2011
3/4	62%	Gun Hill Road (2011)	" Gun Hill Road is shot through with performances at once intense and relaxed." — Denver Post Posted Oct 21, 2011
3.5/4	93%	Take Shelter (2011)	" A work of hushed and persuasive emotional veracity." — Denver Post Posted Oct 21, 2011
3.5/4	88%	Margin Call (2011)	" Writer-director J.C. Chandor then plunges us into a dark night of quietly nasty reckoning as it becomes clear to the firm's honchos that the calamitous risk assessments one of their own was working on might well be true." — Denver Post Posted Oct 21, 2011
2.5/4	40%	The Big Year (2011)	" The Big Year has charms: Not a jawdropping flock of them, but a number of sweet insights and warm laughs just the same." — Denver Post Posted Oct 14, 2011
2.5/4	60%	Real Steel (2011)	" Aas the plot proceeds from boy-meets-dad verbal sparring to an uneasy peace to the underdog-vs.- champion title bout, it becomes increasingly easy to forgive its many nicks." — Denver Post Posted Oct 7, 2011
3/4	85%	The Ides of March (2011)	" As for Clooney, when he steps from behind the camera, his candidate exudes an easy, judicious authority." — Denver Post Posted Oct 7, 2011
2.5/4	93%	50/50 (2011)	" Still, it's Gordon-Levitt's choices that continue to impress. Sure, he owned one of the most jaw-dropping sequences in last summer's blockbuster Inception. But the actor remains drawn to profoundly human-scale hurts and quiet triumphs." — Denver Post Posted Sep 30, 2011
3/4	86%	Circumstance (2011)	" [The] film is too much a wounded love story to slide into polemic." — Denver Post Posted Sep 30, 2011
	23%	What's Your Number? (2011)	" This desperately seeking-laughs comedy stars Anna Faris, a comedian with a lot of quirk appeal, though little of it is on display." — Denver Post Posted Sep 30, 2011
2.5/4	82%	Dolphin Tale (2011)	" Plenty of ambition. But the dialogue can be tin-eared, and the comedy has a cater- to-kids quality that sells youngsters short." — Denver Post Posted Sep 23, 2011
3.5/4	95%	Moneyball (2011)	" Pitt, who has a producing credit, is not the sole reason this tremendous -- yet intimate -- sports tale soars over the fences. The bench is deep. And the script has a powerful but finessed swing." — Denver Post Posted Sep 23, 2011
2/4	17%	I Don't Know How She Does It (2011)	" How nice it would have been had McKenna penned a couple of those audience-addressing interludes for Richard or Jack. What would these modern, succesful men tell us of themselves?" — Denver Post Posted Sep 16, 2011
3.5/4	93%	Drive (2011)	" In reworking genres without quoting shamelessly, Refn proves himself his own man and a guy quite capable of taking us places we didn't even know we wanted to go." — Denver Post Posted Sep 16, 2011
2/4	85%	Contagion (2011)	" Steven Soderbergh's viral "who brung it" is a mostly style-over-substance affair." — Denver Post Posted Sep 9, 2011
3/4	73%	Bellflower (2011)	" Bellflower is weirdly gorgeous. Its intentional post-romanticism is mirrored in evocative chapter headings and ace cinematographer Joel Hodge's images (using a camera of the director's tweaking)." — Denver Post Posted Sep 2, 2011
3.5/4	100%	The Interrupters (2011)	" Tense, moving, and, at times brain-draining." — Denver Post Posted Aug 26, 2011
3/4	90%	Attack the Block (2011)	" An energetic genre ride with social ambitions about race and class." — Denver Post Posted Aug 26, 2011
2.5/4	92%	Senna (2011)	" A psychologically intriguing if at times too hagiographic portrait of a man who often held pole position in his profession and felt nearer to God because of it." — Denver Post Posted Aug 26, 2011
3/4	72%	The Future (2011)	" What a strange, trippy, touching movie The Future is." — Denver Post Posted Aug 19, 2011
3.5/4	95%	The Guard (2011)	" McDonagh's script is agile, darting between the ridiculous, the sage and the surprisingly sentimental. His love of language and the absurd has hints of the wisecracking Quentin Tarantino. But the story is decidedly more rooted in Ireland's loamy turf." — Denver Post Posted Aug 19, 2011
2/4	45%	30 Minutes or Less (2011)	" This is disappointing news, given that the director of this sputter-rev-sputter ride is Ruben Fleischer and that nattering Jesse Eisenberg stars." — Denver Post Posted Aug 12, 2011
3/4	60%	Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (2011)	" The movie makes a strong argument for the tender paradox of pop-culture adoration. It's an affection that feels wholly personal, but is shared with millions." — Denver Post Posted Aug 12, 2011
2.5/4	76%	The Help (2011)	" Thanks to a talented cast -- starting with leads Emma Stone, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer -- the movie is often entertaining. But The Help should have been challenging too." — Denver Post Posted Aug 11, 2011
3.5/4	89%	Crime After Crime (2011)	" Though rife with talking-head interviews and straightforwardly shot, the movie is quietly riveting and cumulatively galling." — Denver Post Posted Aug 5, 2011
3.5/4	73%	Sarah's Key (2011)	" Thomas' performance is one of brilliant restraint and believable naturalism." — Denver Post Posted Aug 5, 2011
3/4	82%	Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)	" Tthe movie has some plot-point missteps. But it seldom puts the brakes on a story that moves toward a furious ape-human rumble, not in a jungle, but atop the Golden Gate Bridge." — Denver Post Posted Aug 5, 2011
2.5/4	86%	Terri (2011)	" Jacobs and talented cinematographer Tobias Datum once again do a deft job conveying the texture of a home, this time the unkempt, jammed warren Terri shares with his Uncle James." — Denver Post Posted Jul 22, 2011
3.5/4	71%	Friends With Benefits (2011)	" Directed with quick-witted ease by Will Gluck, the [film is a] frank, frisky, even touching romantic comedy." — Denver Post Posted Jul 22, 2011
3.5/4	90%	Winnie the Pooh (2011)	" One would have to have a heart of cold temperament to find much -- if anything -- wrong with the animated adventure Winnie the Pooh." — Denver Post Posted Jul 15, 2011
3.5/4	96%	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)	" In the 10 years since Harry's first big- screen close-up, the spell has never been broken. And we Muggles have been made better for the magic." — Denver Post Posted Jul 15, 2011
3/4	14%	Zookeeper (2011)	" Did we mention that things just go better with Kevin James? Well-trodden comedy hooks become strangely more amusing. Goofball physical shtick elicits broader smiles. The bumblingly stupid is made endearing." — Denver Post Posted Jul 8, 2011
3/4	70%	Horrible Bosses (2011)	" As they say, the best laid plans go oft awry. So what transpires in a comedy about the worst-laid schemes? These guys don't seem built for premeditated murder but are perfectly capable of mayhem." — Denver Post Posted Jul 8, 2011
2/4	35%	Larry Crowne (2011)	" Larry Crowne doesn't come close to providing the rom-com satisfactions of films attached to the names Hanks and Roberts, or writer Nia Vardalos for that matter." — Denver Post Posted Jul 1, 2011
2.5/4	36%	Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)	" One can argue that summer is built for spectacle. Now if only it could be truly spectacular, too." — Denver Post Posted Jun 29, 2011
2/4	80%	Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011)	" Meta-irony can get a guy who's still grinding an ax only so far." — Denver Post Posted Jun 24, 2011
2.5/4	38%	Cars 2 (2011)	" Larry the Cable Guy has helped make Mater one of Pixar's sweetest creations. He just happens to reside in the studio's least-magical franchise." — Denver Post Posted Jun 24, 2011
3.5/4	89%	The Trip (2011)	" It's rife with observations about men of a certain age, actors of a certain career -- and for a bonus, restaurants of a certain moment." — Denver Post Posted Jun 17, 2011
3/4	71%	The People vs. George Lucas (2011)	" Eentertaining if mildly worrisome." — Denver Post Posted Jun 17, 2011

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