Critics » Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh

Maitland McDonagh

Agrees with the Tomatometer 75% of the time.

Biography:
Maitland McDonagh is TV Guide Online's Senior Movie Editor, and has been writing about movies for more than 15 years. She is the author of three books on film: Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento, Filmmaking on the Fringe: The Good, the Bad and the Deviant Directors and The 50 Most Erotic Films of All Time, and has written for publications ranging from The New York Times to Paper and Time Out New York.
Publications:
AMCtv.com , Boxoffice Magazine , Film Journal International , Hollywood Reporter , Horror Hacker , Miss FlickChick , Time Out , Time Out New York , TV Guide's Movie Guide
Critics' Group:
New York Film Critics Online, Online Film Critics Society
Total Reviews:
2490
Location:
New York, USA

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 2490
Previous | Next
Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
14% The Colony (2013) " Formulaic post-apocalyptic thriller...when you don't especially care who lives and who dies, all the skull-crunching action doesn't amount to a hill of beans. " — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 20, 2013
35% Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) " Horror buffs looking for an old-fashioned scare will find one or two here, but filmmakers Leigh Whannell and James Wan are spreading their brand thin." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 12, 2013
0% Mission Park (2013) " Four young men from a rough neighborhood are bound together by an ugly secret that continues to haunt them long after they've taken different paths to adulthood... Feel free to stop us if you've heard this story, oh, about a hundred times before." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 6, 2013
44% Bounty Killer (2013) " Imagine a cross between The Road Warrior and Death Race 2000 and you'll have an idea what this sometimes clever and always action-packed post-apocalyptic romp is up to." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 6, 2013
50% Drew: The Man Behind The Poster (2013) " This star-studded documentary about poster artist Drew Struzan would never play as fiction: His rags-to-riches journey from poverty to Hollywood acclaim is straight out a '30s movie." — Film Journal International
Posted Aug 16, 2013
—— Abandoned Mine (2013) " ...it delivers a handful of creepy moments and the opening-credits montage of old newspaper accounts of the Jarvis family's fate is genuinely disturbing. " — Film Journal International
Posted Aug 15, 2013
25% Absence (2013) " The lives of a small-town couple eagerly anticipating the birth of their first child are shattered when they lose the baby under suspicious circumstances in this creepy psychological thriller that plays out very differently than its early scenes suggest." — Film Journal International
Posted Jul 3, 2013
22% Rushlights (2013) " A lackluster neo-noir thriller set deep in the dark heart of Texas, Rushlights delivers plot twists galore. If only the protagonists, a pair of hard-luck L.A. teens, were interesting enough to make audiences care what becomes of them." — Film Journal International
Posted Jun 21, 2013
83% Berberian Sound Studio (2013) " As IFC clearly realizes, Berberian Sound Studio is a niche item, but a niche item whose target audience should embrace it with a hearty Ciao, bella! " — Film Journal International
Posted Jun 17, 2013
57% American Mary (2013) " American Mary is the newest addition to a long list of horror films about disturbed and disturbing doctors,and it's a worthy one." — Film Journal International
Posted May 31, 2013
85% Sightseers (2013) " Director Ben Wheatley is capable of simultaneously embracing both the awkward comedy and creeping horror of Chris and Tina's voyage into darkness." — Film Journal International
Posted May 10, 2013
76% Dead Man's Burden (2013) " Oddly lifeless, despite the clearly devoted efforts of the cast and crew: It's admirable without being particularly engaging, so respectful of its cinematic predecessors that its own voice is strangled." — Film Journal International
Posted May 3, 2013
1.5/4 31% Hugo Pool (1997) " A series of strenuously oddball vignettes masquerading as a movie." — TV Guide's Movie Guide
Posted May 1, 2013
47% The Lords of Salem (2013) " Shock rocker turned filmmaker Rob Zombie pits an emotionally fragile radio personality against a coven of undead witches in his fifth feature. The result is genuinely creepy if not jump-out-of-your-seat scary." — Film Journal International
Posted Apr 19, 2013
56% Eddie The Sleepwalking Cannibal (2013) " A dark comedy driven by spot-on digs at academia, cutthroat art-world competition and the quest for inspiration." — Film Journal International
Posted Apr 5, 2013
9% The Host (2013) " Even by the standard of paranormal teen romances, The Host is ridiculous stuff, and derivative too." — Film Journal International
Posted Apr 1, 2013
38% The ABCs of Death (2013) " Short, sharp shockers about death in all its infinite variety, one for each letter of the alphabet. " — Film Journal International
Posted Mar 8, 2013
69% Stoker (2013) " A dreamy, claustrophobic thriller about family secrets and lies, alternates between genuine creepiness and a disconcerting goofiness that undermines its atmospheric chills." — Film Journal International
Posted Mar 1, 2013
89% Our School (2013) " This documentary unfolds in Romania, but its depiction of multi-generational poverty perpetuated in part by substandard schooling could as easily have been set in dozens of other countries." — Film Journal International
Posted Jan 18, 2013
3/4 67% Kurt & Courtney (1998) " UK shockumentarian Nick Broomfield's investigation into the death of rock idol Kurt Cobain exudes a near-irresistible freak-show fascination." — TV Guide's Movie Guide
Posted Jan 14, 2013
8% A Dark Truth (2013) " There are many roads to hell, and A Dark Truth travels the one paved with well-intentioned efforts to wrap complicated social/political issues in genre movie clichés." — Film Journal International
Posted Jan 10, 2013
18% Allegiance (2012) " Allegiance's commitment to shades of gray translates into excellent opportunities for its cast, and they take full advantage." — Film Journal International
Posted Dec 31, 2012
44% Bad Kids Go to Hell (2012) " A cute cast enlivens this body-count picture set in a snooty high school, but once you get past the formulaic clichés, there's nothing there but more clichés." — Film Journal International
Posted Dec 14, 2012
19% Lay the Favorite (2012) " This shaggy-dog story based on the improbable real-life adventures of exotic dancer-turned-bookie-turned-journalist Beth Raymer is never quite as amusing as it thinks it is, despite a charming performance by Rebecca Hall." — Film Journal International
Posted Dec 7, 2012
75% Killing Them Softly (2012) " A black comedy at its most stygian, a parade of sad-sacks, no-hopers, sellouts, screw-ups and basket cases: " — Film Journal International
Posted Nov 29, 2012
12% Red Dawn (2012) " The new Red Dawn is polished to a high Hollywood gloss and stripped of nuance and moral ambiguity, while flamboyant man's-man Milius' version dares to accord the invaders a measure of humanity." — Film Journal International
Posted Nov 20, 2012
—— Happy New Year (2012) " Dark, funny, and deeply affecting" — Film Journal International
Posted Nov 16, 2012
77% The Bay (2012) " The micro-budget horror movie pulls off the harder-than-it-looks feat of tucking food for thought inside a very scary wrapper." — Film Journal International
Posted Nov 5, 2012
66% Cloud Atlas (2012) " Cloud Atlas is consistently entertaining and surprisingly effective, as well as the shortest three hours most moviegoers will ever spend in a theatre...and that's no small recommendation. " — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 23, 2012
56% Citadel (2012) " This taut thriller wrings maximum suspense from all-too ordinary, real-life terrors while gradually edging into full-blown horror territory." — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 19, 2012
0% Trade of Innocents (2012) " A message movie whose only subtlety is found in the portrayal of Adderly, a sexual predator who actually believes in some twisted way that he loves the children whose childhoods he's destroys." — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 12, 2012
63% Sinister (2012) " Genuinely creepy horror movie, which suggests more than it shows but shows enough to make non-genre fans watch from between closed fingers." — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 12, 2012
15% Special Forces (2012) " Imagine Saving Private Ryan relocated to Afghanistan and Pakistan and you have the gist of first-time feature filmmaker Stéphane Rybojad's actioner about the rescue of a French journalist marked for death by the Taliban." — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 12, 2012
100% A Whisper To A Roar (2012) " Ben Moses' documentary argues that even thwarted and deeply flawed elections are empowering because they engage ordinary citizens in the political process and challenge the self-defeating apathy engendered by opting out of the process." — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 12, 2012
100% Wake in Fright (2012) " Unlike many "lost" treasures, Wake in Fright lives up to its nightmarish reputation." — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 4, 2012
55% V/H/S (2012) " Reports of the found-footage movie's death have been greatly exaggerated, if this sly and often very creepy horror anthology about four lowlifes who agree to steal a mysterious videocassette is anything by which to judge." — Film Journal International
Posted Oct 4, 2012
78% Dredd (2012) " A dystopian sci-fi action thriller shot in 3D and 50 shades of gray, this adaptation of the bleakly satirical comic-book series plays its story of future justice at gunpoint straight and dull." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 24, 2012
11% House at the End of the Street (2012) " Clearly designed as a downbeat, character-driven psychological thriller, not a shock machine...but it never really pays off, in part because it relies too often on the very clichés it aspires to avoid." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 24, 2012
85% End of Watch (2012) " A series of snapshots from the working life of two hot-dogging but fundamentally decent L.A. police officers... lifts it above cop-movie clichés." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 24, 2012
—— Raaz 3: The Third Dimension 3D (2012) " Raaz 3 delivers some effective gore (including the grisly fate of Sanjana's maid and a ripped-off head) as well as lots of steamy make-out scenes." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 14, 2012
68% Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) " Paranormal Activity 3 delivers, and does it without gore or "look at me!" special effects." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 11, 2012
39% [REC] 3 Genesis (2012) " Something of a disappointment, but serious genre fans and anyone who thrills to the idea of seeing cannibal zombies ruin a perfectly lovely wedding will check it out anyway" — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 7, 2012
—— Desperate Endeavors (2012) " Earnest drama about an Indian immigrant who learns the hard way that the streets of 1973 New York aren't paved with gold has some effective moments despite its reliance on clichés and stereotypes." — Film Journal International
Posted Sep 6, 2012
56% The Revenant (2012) " Already a genre festival favorite, this dark comedy, in which a soldier killed in Iraq comes back from the grave a blood-drinking zombie, will appeal to horror fans looking for something a little different, but may have trouble crossing over." — Film Journal International
Posted Aug 23, 2012
83% Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012) " An epic feast for fans of Chinese fairy-tale movies, from the stunning visuals to the surprisingly complex relationships." — Film Journal International
Posted Aug 20, 2012
60% Ek Tha Tiger (2012) " In this action romance, two spies--one Indian, the other Pakistani--fall in love and stir up a whole lot of trouble when their respective bosses find out about their extreme fraternizing." — Film Journal International
Posted Aug 20, 2012
30% Total Recall (2012) " Reimaging of the 1990 movie "inspired by" a Philip K. Dick short story should please fans of nonstop action sequences punctuated by the occasional scrap of narrative exposition, rather than lovers of PKD's dense, allusive brand of speculative writing." — Film Journal International
Posted Aug 2, 2012
42% Step Up Revolution (2012) " This third sequel features the most frequent, energetically choreographed and performed dance numbers of the series to date. And that's really all you need to know, aside from the fact that the multicultural cast is uniformly fit, pretty and limber." — Film Journal International
Posted Jul 26, 2012
88% The Dark Knight Rises (2012) " The third Dark Knight movie once again pits Bruce Wayne/Batman against demons both within and without, raising the emotional stakes without shortchanging viewers who expect spectacular action sequences and creepy villains." — Film Journal International
Posted Jul 18, 2012
Showing 1 - 50 of 2490
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)

Best to Worst Sampling

Best Reviewed

More...

Worst Reviewed

More...

Fresh Links

Halloween Movies For Wimps
Halloween Movies For Wimps External Link
 Scary movies too scary for you? Here are some alternatives for October 31st.
10 Best Superhero TV Shows
10 Best Superhero TV Shows External Link
 HitFix combs through TV history to compile a superpowered list.
Ridiculous Movie Mistakes
Ridiculous Movie Mistakes External Link
 RollingStone proves even the best movies miss a details here and there.
Deadly Movie Kids
Deadly Movie Kids External Link
 Moviefone lists 11 Movie Kids Who Could Kick Our Asses.
50 States, 50 Movies
50 States, 50 Movies External Link
 For July 4th, TimeOut has compiled 50 state-specific movie choices.
Follow RT on Twitter!
Follow RT on Twitter! External Link
 Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
Help | About | Jobs | Critics Submission | Press | API | Licensing | Mobile
Copyright © Flixster, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright Policy | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Ad Choices