Mary F. Pols Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Mary F. Pols

Mary F. Pols

Agrees with the Tomatometer 72% of the time.

Biography:: Film Critic, Contra Costa Times
Publications:: Contra Costa Times , MSN Movies , TIME Magazine
Critics' Group:: San Francisco Film Critics Circle

Total Reviews:: 923

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 923

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	74%	Love Is All You Need (2013)	" Dyrholm has an unusual magnetism, the kind of face that seems open and unguarded, yet you can't figure out just what it is she's thinking - she and Brosnan share an excitingly adult chemistry." — TIME Magazine Posted May 3, 2013
	83%	What Maisie Knew (2013)	" Some moviegoers may opt for an easier cinematic pleasure than this carefully crafted, discomforting look at familial misery in hyper drive, but it is the most provocative movie about parenting I've seen since The Kids Are All Right." — TIME Magazine Posted May 3, 2013
	81%	The Place Beyond The Pines (2013)	" Structured as a triptych, the movie is novelistic, earnest and somewhat exhausting - an ambitious effort that tries to be many things." — TIME Magazine Posted Mar 29, 2013
	94%	Room 237 (2013)	" Maybe they're all right. Or wrong. It can't be settled. What matters is that people are still crazy about the beauty of a beautiful movie about going crazy." — TIME Magazine Posted Mar 28, 2013
	43%	Admission (2013)	" Another formulaic spin on Hollywood's 21st century discovery, the mom-rom-com, with its disagreeable underlying messages about women, careers and motherhood." — TIME Magazine Posted Mar 21, 2013
	38%	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)	" This may be the kind of semi-bad, semi-inspired comedy that could not only stand repeated viewings but perhaps improve with them." — TIME Magazine Posted Mar 15, 2013
	90%	Beyond The Hills (2013)	" Beyond the Hills may be the best movie no one will want to see in 2013." — TIME Magazine Posted Mar 8, 2013
	89%	A Place at the Table (2013)	" It specifically addresses our country's hunger crisis. But it also speaks to larger hungers. Hungers for independence, a dignified life, a better chance for ones children-in short, the American dream. See it and weep." — TIME Magazine Posted Mar 1, 2013
	52%	Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)	" The movie feels so much like a video game that your fingers instinctively itch to do something, though a Jack video game isn't one we'd really want to play." — TIME Magazine Posted Mar 1, 2013
	58%	Snitch (2013)	" Dwayne Johnson tries so hard to be taken seriously in the ponderous and preposterous drama Snitch that it hurts to watch him in much the same way it hurts to watch the weightlifting competition at the summer Olympics." — TIME Magazine Posted Feb 22, 2013
	45%	Beautiful Creatures (2013)	" Beautiful Creatures is good fun and I want to know what happens next for Lena the teenaged witch." — TIME Magazine Posted Feb 14, 2013
	13%	Safe Haven (2013)	" Apologies to Hallstrom, but an adaptation of a Sparks novel always ends up being a Sparks movie." — TIME Magazine Posted Feb 14, 2013
	20%	Identity Thief (2013)	" This often very mean-spirited movie about modern rage plays out with nods to several road-trip classics." — TIME Magazine Posted Feb 7, 2013
	16%	A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2013)	" Sitting through The Mind of Charles Swan III does not lead to a deeper understanding of Charlie Sheen. It does, however, demonstrate his compulsion for poor judgment and bad choices." — TIME Magazine Posted Feb 7, 2013
	80%	Warm Bodies (2013)	" There are so many clever lines and bits of physical comedy worth revisiting that the movie seems like a likely cult classic, but it's more inclusive than that." — TIME Magazine Posted Feb 1, 2013
	37%	Stand Up Guys (2013)	" There is a sense that everyone, this treasure trove of talent included, is waiting for something to happen, some bit of alchemy that will make the story coalesce into a whole and take it beyond the jokes about Viagra, hookers and regrets." — TIME Magazine Posted Jan 31, 2013
—	93%	Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011)	— TIME Magazine Posted Jan 22, 2013
	65%	Mama (2013)	" Mama is clumsily written and choppily edited, but Chastain doesn't have a bad scene in it, and you can see why she chose to be in this supernatural ghost story." — TIME Magazine Posted Jan 17, 2013
	18%	Parental Guidance (2012)	" I can't deny I did feel fonder of my own family afterward, mostly because I know none of them would ever make me sit through Parental Guidance." — TIME Magazine Posted Dec 26, 2012
	79%	Quartet (2013)	" Terribly cloying and cutesy." — TIME Magazine Posted Dec 24, 2012
	52%	This is 40 (2012)	" As the movie goes on, the laughs are fewer and farther between, and for the last 30 minutes, not only did I not laugh, I wanted it to end so I could get back to my own boring but less precious life." — TIME Magazine Posted Dec 20, 2012
	81%	The Impossible (2012)	" I hesitate to use this term, since it is so often equated with hokey, but The Impossible is life-affirming." — TIME Magazine Posted Dec 20, 2012
	38%	The Guilt Trip (2012)	" The Guilt Trip works because we all know and like a Joyce Brewster (or dozens of them)." — TIME Magazine Posted Dec 18, 2012
	44%	Save The Date (2012)	" Save the Date is romantic comedy with aspirations to do something new. That's admirable but it isn't enough." — TIME Magazine Posted Dec 13, 2012
	64%	The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012)	" So little action takes place that really, the setting could just be adjoining couches, with characters shouting affectionate quips and insults at each other." — TIME Magazine Posted Dec 6, 2012
	74%	Rise of the Guardians (2012)	" Like most children's movies, Rise of the Guardians mimics the patterns of adult entertainment. Where is the magic in that?" — TIME Magazine Posted Nov 22, 2012
	13%	Red Dawn (2012)	" It's Friday Night Lights territory, but without good writing or acting." — TIME Magazine Posted Nov 22, 2012
	63%	Hitchcock (2012)	" [A] snappy adaptation of Stephen Rebello's acclaimed nonfiction account Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho." — TIME Magazine Posted Nov 20, 2012
	48%	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)	" While parting involved no sorrow, it was sweeter than expected." — TIME Magazine Posted Nov 15, 2012
	89%	A Royal Affair (2012)	" Anyone eagerly awaiting Anna Karenina and Les Miserables shouldn't miss A Royal Affair." — TIME Magazine Posted Nov 8, 2012
	79%	A Late Quartet (2012)	" A Late Quartet serves as an acting showcase, particularly for Walken and Hoffman, and makes for an interesting study in artistic ego." — TIME Magazine Posted Nov 1, 2012
	86%	Wreck-it Ralph (2012)	" The most inventive and entertaining family movie I've seen this year, packed with wickedly smart humor and joyful animation. " — TIME Magazine Posted Nov 1, 2012
	33%	Chasing Mavericks (2012)	" A sweet ride worth catching." — TIME Magazine Posted Oct 25, 2012
	12%	Alex Cross (2012)	" The movie is ugly in spirit and looks. All Alex Cross spiked was my appreciation for Morgan Freeman, the original cinematic Alex Cross." — TIME Magazine Posted Oct 18, 2012
	63%	Sinister (2012)	" The movie is full of feints, shocks and scenes of particularly perverse violence, but nothing about it is fresh enough to haunt you in the night. It's predictable." — TIME Magazine Posted Oct 11, 2012
	95%	Sister (2012)	" A penetrating study of familial bonds, quietly devastating in parts, beautiful on whole and destined to make you fall in love with a practiced and entirely amoral preteen thief." — TIME Magazine Posted Oct 4, 2012
	32%	The Oranges (2012)	" Light as a feather, the movie is at times a modest pleasure, but inconsequential." — TIME Magazine Posted Oct 4, 2012
	32%	Won't Back Down (2012)	" Teachers unions are by no means perfect, but Won't Back Down turns them into public school enemy number one." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 27, 2012
	43%	Hotel Transylvania (2012)	" A family movie that includes almost entirely lewd jokes for adults." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 27, 2012
	81%	Pitch Perfect (2012)	" You leave it wanting to sing and dance." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 27, 2012
	94%	Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel (2012)	" Demonstrates that an almost hypnotic fabulousness can still emanate from the late great fashion editor, even via fuzzy old videotape viewed 23 years after her death." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 20, 2012
	87%	Arbitrage (2012)	" The main reason to see Arbitrage is Gere, whose steady improvement with age (he just turned 63) is not remarked upon enough." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 13, 2012
	69%	Liberal Arts (2012)	" Liberal Arts calls to mind more the spirit of an alumni magazine, so bathed in nostalgia for academia that you expect autumn leaves to flutter down to the theater floor." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 12, 2012
	22%	The Words (2012)	" As good looking but shallow as its multiple leading men." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 6, 2012
	55%	Bachelorette (2012)	" The best reason to see Bachelorette is Dunst, once a child star with an uncanny ability to project maturity, now an actress with an ever-increasing range." — TIME Magazine Posted Sep 6, 2012
	58%	Sparkle (2012)	" Sparkle, while occasionally silly in a way that made a preview audience titter, is decent entertainment." — TIME Magazine Posted Aug 16, 2012
	75%	Chicken with Plums (2012)	" Chicken with Plums is well-acted across the board, but it is Amalric's movie." — TIME Magazine Posted Aug 16, 2012
	34%	The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)	" It made me want to go on a sugar cleanse." — TIME Magazine Posted Aug 14, 2012
	65%	2 Days in New York (2012)	" At least we'll always have 2 Days in Paris." — TIME Magazine Posted Aug 9, 2012

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