Marsha McCreadie Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Marsha McCreadie

Marsha McCreadie

Agrees with the Tomatometer 79% of the time.

Biography:: Marsha McCreadie has written four books on women and film before becoming pleasantly obsessed with the documentary form and writing Documentary Superstars, interviews with prominent documentary filmmakers. She was the staff film critic at the Arizona Republic for many years, currently reviews for Film Journal International, and her film articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles times, Film Comment, sensesofcienma, and many other Googleable publications. Her interest in film started as a child when her mother, a disappointed actress, took her to Saturday double features as a child in a tiny village in upstate New York, reminding her to always comb her hair before going to the ladies room, because a producer might be in the lobby. It?s been a push-pull between cinematic fantasy and reality ever since.
Publications:: Film Journal International , New York Press

Total Reviews:: 60

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 60

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T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
50%	Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf's (2013)	" This doc, title taken from a remark by a wealthy European shopper and immortalized in a New Yorker cartoon, is fun and frothy, a fan's mash note." — Village Voice Posted Apr 30, 2013
24%	Arthur Newman (2013)	" Fun for a bit, things soon turns silly ..." — Village Voice Posted Apr 23, 2013
40%	Mental (2013)	" Mental skewers the easy-on and -off labels of psychiatry, but some sequences, particularly one of "bad dreams," are sophomoric." — Village Voice Posted Mar 28, 2013
81%	Renoir (2013)	" Wisely, director Gilles Bourdos keeps the pace slow, what with all the tensions beneath the surface: Oedipal conflict, career choices, even class struggle." — Village Voice Posted Mar 26, 2013
27%	Everybody Has a Plan (2013)	" Even Viggo Mortensen's movingly enigmatic performance as identical twins can't help first-time Argentinean director Ana Piterbarg decide whether she is making an existential tone poem or a brutish thriller." — Village Voice Posted Mar 19, 2013
10%	If I Were You (2012)	" A screwball comedy for Canadians-not LOL funny, but as crazy as you might expect Toronto to get." — Village Voice Posted Mar 12, 2013
33%	The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek (2013)	" The imaginary heroes never spring to life." — Village Voice Posted Feb 26, 2013
86%	Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives (2013)	" The old ways are the still best, asserts this documentary, especially if it's a DIY birth with a midwife on hand to help." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 18, 2013
59%	The Last Stand (2013)	" A rollicking riff on "He's back!" kick-starts Arnold Schwarzenegger's first starring vehicle since serving as California governor. You'll be glad." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 18, 2013
89%	Consuming Spirits (2012)	" Consuming Spirits is overlong. A dystopian T.S. Eliot once said, "Humankind cannot bear too much reality," maybe even in a cartoon." — Village Voice Posted Dec 11, 2012
64%	The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012)	" Burns gives a rare picture of another borough, showing the working-class environment he grew up in, and eulogizes: Queens, and even the beaches of Long Island when not in high season." — Film Journal International Posted Dec 5, 2012
67%	Otelo Burning (2012)	" As buoyant as the waves its heroes surf on, Otelo Burning uses water as metaphor for freedom for its black South African teens in 1988." — Film Journal International Posted Nov 30, 2012
98%	Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God (2012)	" The film is one-sided, of course-church officials ignored interview requests, but their version has been around for a couple of millennia anyway." — Village Voice Posted Nov 13, 2012
96%	In the Family (2012)	" Trevor St. John is cute and broody-mouthed as the deceased lover; Wang, the movie's writer-director, is touchingly, disarmingly open; and the kid, Sebastian Banes, is adorable." — Village Voice Posted Nov 13, 2012
17%	Coming Up Roses (2012)	" After a hoot of an entrance by Bernadette Peters showboating a tune from the rafters at a church wedding, Coming Up Roses takes a nosedive into despair and stays there." — Village Voice Posted Nov 7, 2012
65%	All Together (2012)	" Writer-director Stéphane Robelin pictures a unique approach to getting old for a group of French friends, aided by a can-do and very glamorous transplanted American played by Jane Fonda." — Film Journal International Posted Oct 19, 2012
36%	Yogawoman (2012)	" A pleasant and pretty polemic narrated by a serene Annette Bening, Yogawoman presents the ancient practice of yoga as a cure-all for the physical and spiritual ills of today's women." — Film Journal International Posted Oct 18, 2012
70%	Sexy Baby (2012)	" There might be something new to say about sex after all, and it's said in Sexy Baby, a snazzily edited documentary by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus." — Village Voice Posted Oct 16, 2012
50%	Sassy Pants (2012)	" With its positive gay images, and even a perfectly executed two-step line dance, Sassy Pants is a feel-good movie for girls of both sexes." — Village Voice Posted Oct 16, 2012
84%	Smashed (2012)	" Knockout punch of a character study looks at what happens when the main thing a couple has in common is booze and one partner decides to clean up." — Film Journal International Posted Oct 12, 2012
68%	Wuthering Heights (2012)	" British director Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights is a version for our era, with a potent pastiche of naturalism, narcissism, a hint of incest, and a child victim's--Heathcliff's!--point of view." — Film Journal International Posted Oct 4, 2012
0%	Trade of Innocents (2012)	" Not for the first time in films, noble intent is at odds with aesthetics." — Village Voice Posted Oct 2, 2012
17%	Bringing Up Bobby (2012)	" The script, by first-time director Famke Janssen, condescends to the heartland, and minor roles collapse to stereotype." — Village Voice Posted Sep 25, 2012
68%	Step Up To The Plate (2012)	" Lacoste cleverly uses the enhanced sound of Michel slowly, deliberately chewing and crunching, in what is really the film's climax." — Village Voice Posted Sep 14, 2012
78%	The Ambassador (2012)	" Flamboyant Danish journalist-documentarian Mads Brügger takes on a deep, dark and nefarious topic--the harvesting of blood diamonds in the Central African Republic--but within a comic, loopy framework." — Film Journal International Posted Aug 30, 2012
0%	General Education (2012)	" The film is like a new colt tripping over itself, going off every which way ..." — Village Voice Posted Aug 28, 2012
58%	Sparkle (2012)	" Sparkle is like watching a "highlights of" music special strung together by an afterthought-like storyline, albeit one advancing progressive role models." — Film Journal International Posted Aug 16, 2012
65%	2 Days in New York (2012)	" In a roundelay of familiar themes and people, writer-director-star Julie Delpy changes her objects of affection from Paris to New York" — Film Journal International Posted Aug 15, 2012
87%	Robot & Frank (2012)	" The chemistry between the leads of Robot & Frank makes it unique. So what if one lead is a robot (first-billed)? The other is the wonderful Frank Langella." — Film Journal International Posted Aug 15, 2012
——	Sundowning (2012)	" Role reversals, many mirrors, and a lesbian brushstroke indicate someone involved might have recently taken film courses on female melodrama; other thematic red herrings flip-flop, too irritatingly clichéd to recount." — Village Voice Posted Aug 7, 2012
93%	Meet the Fokkens (2012)	" The feminist documentary takes up the battered-wife syndrome, low pay for female workers, forced separation of mothers and children and-finally-a woman-owned business. Gloria Steinem must be happy, though the film centers on 69-year-old twin hookers." — Film Journal International Posted Aug 7, 2012
70%	Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012)	" Rashida Jones' first starring vehicle joins the stack of rom-com movies still working the premise of When Harry Met Sally: Can a man and a woman be friends without (or after) having sex?" — Film Journal International Posted Aug 2, 2012
88%	Ballplayer: Pelotero (2012)	" Ballplayer: Pelotero answers the question on some sports fans' minds-Why is it that 20 percent of American professional baseball players are Dominican?-by tracking the rise (and sometimes fall) of hopeful young players in the Dominican Republic." — Film Journal International Posted Jul 12, 2012
21%	That's My Boy (2012)	" Even the most diehard Adam Sander fans will find it hard to sit through this holiday-tagged product, referencing Father's Day, from the Sandler gag (in every way) machine." — Film Journal International Posted Jun 15, 2012
88%	Pink Ribbons, Inc. (2012)	" When every month has its own disease, and each satin ribbon pinned to your chest is in a different color, it's an eye-opener by a splash of cold water to see this documentary questioning the uses of philanthropy for the fight against breast cancer." — Film Journal International Posted May 31, 2012
71%	Never Stand Still (2012)	" A witty, visual demonstration of the wild muscularity of contemporary dance--and why we no longer giggle at "men in tights."" — Film Journal International Posted May 18, 2012
22%	What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)	" What to Expect is like what they say about childbirth--You'll scarcely remember a thing when it's over, but you won't need that epidural either. " — Film Journal International Posted May 18, 2012
25%	Mansome (2012)	" It's a cute enough, au courant idea, though the Spurlock matrix of interviews plus graphics is wearing a little thin, the probes less probing." — Film Journal International Posted May 15, 2012
74%	Chimpanzee (2012)	" Chimpanzee is Bambi for simians, but-spoiler alert-with a less trauma-inducing mother loss, especially for the audience." — Film Journal International Posted Apr 19, 2012
95%	Marley (2012)	" This documentary about the reggae megastar Bob Marley will be called a benchmark (and it is) and a must-see (it's that too). Yet it still doesn't quite get the man." — Film Journal International Posted Apr 19, 2012
67%	To the Arctic (2012)	" A lovely fable about nature and motherhood in the North Pole. The problem is, it may scare the pants off you. The other problem is, it's all true." — Film Journal International Posted Apr 19, 2012
78%	Jeff Who Lives at Home (2012)	" This film about brothers by brothers (Jay and Mark Duplass) is a gentle yet spunky comedy for anyone looking for a life direction, feeling trapped, or wondering what happened to their youthful idealism. In other words, most of us." — Film Journal International Posted Mar 13, 2012
85%	Chronicle (2012)	" Chronicle turns out to be--surprise!--a morality tale of good versus evil in the guise of a supernatural thriller: a phony faux doc." — Film Journal International Posted Feb 3, 2012
32%	Man on a Ledge (2012)	" Action star Sam Worthington plays a disgraced cop threatening suicide from atop a hotel ledge, but we rapidly lose interest." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 31, 2012
87%	Miss Bala (2012)	" Mexico's official Oscar entry for best foreign-language film presents startling iconography with its star, Stephanie Sigman, emblematic of the country's current problems of drug cartels and weapons trafficking." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 6, 2012
89%	To Be Heard (2011)	" This documentary about self-empowerment through a poetry-writing program in a rough South Bronx high school pulls us into the lives and struggles of three students who see the program as their only way up and out of a dreary life. They may be right." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 6, 2012
95%	Pina (2011)	" With a breakout use of 3D for artistic rather than solely commercial blockbuster purposes, German director Wim Wenders gives extraordinary life to the work of choreographer Pina Bausch." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 6, 2012
14%	Zookeeper (2011)	" A high concept-movie falls almost as flat as star Kevin James doing pratfalls." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 6, 2012
22%	The Sitter (2011)	" Warning! Though The Sitter obliges with all the elements crowd-pleasing filmmakers think they need these days-oral sex, flatulence, drugs, car smash-ups, guns 'n violence, hints of S&M, twisted adolescents-it's a sweet-natured film in disguise." — Film Journal International Posted Jan 6, 2012

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