Nora Lee Mandel Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Nora Lee Mandel

Nora Lee Mandel

Agrees with the Tomatometer 82% of the time.

Publications:: Film-Forward.com
Critics' Group:: New York Film Critics Online

Total Reviews:: 364

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Showing 1 - 50 of 364

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
9/10	81%	Renoir (2013)	" Accompanying the spirited muse of two Renoirs, a gorgeous immersion into nature, family, love, and art in the Côte d'Azur during the summer of 1915." — Film-Forward.com Posted Apr 6, 2013
8/10	79%	Ginger & Rosa (2013)	" Fanning heartbreakingly expresses hurt with seemingly with every fiber of her being. Her family implodes as much as the world seems about to during those 13 days in October." — Film-Forward.com Posted Apr 6, 2013
9/10	76%	No Place On Earth (2013)	" Curious mystery unfolds with enthralling suspense amidst harrowing details and astonishes in this unique story that's an insightful tribute to the power and spirit of family." — Film-Forward.com Posted Apr 5, 2013
7/10	93%	The Sapphires (2013)	" Irresistibly feel good, sound good movie, wears hearts and social relevance on its sparkly sleeve. . .Fun and racial tolerance amidst war [with] sterling aborigine talent." — Film-Forward.com Posted Mar 27, 2013
7/10	80%	Eden (2013)	" The intimate scenes between marginalized individuals feeling out complicated relationships. . .gives unusually poignant insight into those caught up in sex trafficking." — Film-Forward.com Posted Mar 22, 2013
7/10	65%	Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey (2013)	" A heartfelt verité portrait of American pop rock as a global product, reaching into the slums of Manila, and filling stadiums around the world with happy, smiling people." — Film-Forward.com Posted Mar 18, 2013
7/10	66%	The We and the I (2013)	" Exuberantly finds the universality of adolescence. . . [in] a running theme of. . .peers vs. individual--how 1 plus 1 equals 3, when in groups, they become like someone else." — Film-Forward.com Posted Mar 18, 2013
7/10	96%	War Witch (2013)	" [Despite] so many fictional elements. . . the point of view poignantly emphasizes the special travails of girls within violent societies engaged in constant war." — Film-Forward.com Posted Mar 7, 2013
6/10	88%	Hava Nagila: The Movie (2013)	" Entertainingly traces the origins of the ubiquitous song and how it became worldwide kitsch [but] gets wearyingly redundant like a party that has gone on too long." — Film-Forward.com Posted Mar 2, 2013
5/10	89%	A Place at the Table (2013)	" As moving as the real lives are, for a film clearly intending to be a call for action, hunger cries out for more journalism and not just depressing stories and statistics." — Film-Forward.com Posted Mar 2, 2013
8/10	33%	The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek (2013)	" Picture- and letter-perfect send-up of such serious treatments of history as . . . Ken Burns' Civil War. . . The most chuckles over a history lesson since Mel Brooks." — Film-Forward.com Posted Feb 25, 2013
6/10	27%	Saving Lincoln (2013)	" The innovative look. . .of thrusting actors directly into archival photographs, . .the primary reason to see the film, is particularly striking. . .as visual authenticity." — Film-Forward.com Posted Feb 25, 2013
8/10	92%	Lore (2013)	" In the chaos of 3rd Reich's end. . .contemporizes the look and feel of overwhelmed, exhausted teens sifting through continuing lies and denials of the truths by everyone." — Film-Forward.com Posted Feb 8, 2013
6/10	89%	Koch (2013)	" An enjoyable but not very revelatory tribute that has also become a visual obituary." — Film-Forward.com Posted Feb 1, 2013
7/10	92%	The Gatekeepers (2013)	" [T]houghtfully examines the difficulties of protecting a democracy from internal enemies. . .with realpolitik towards peace [and] repeated criticism of government leaders." — Film-Forward.com Posted Feb 1, 2013
6/10	86%	Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives (2013)	" Lengthy documentation of births. . .are fascinating to watch. . .but ends up reinforcing every stereotype. . . of midwifery as more appropriate to hippie lifestyle or Amish." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jan 30, 2013
7/10	95%	West of Memphis (2012)	" Extols the efforts of celebrities to win the release of three innocent men [and is] suspenseful when it's straightforward-the best CSI investigation that money can buy." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jan 25, 2013
8/10	85%	The Pirogue (2013)	" A key to the realism is tribal and linguistic diversity so often ignored in films about Africans. . memorably captures the staggering determination it takes to go to Europe." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jan 23, 2013
7/10	59%	La Rafle (2012)	" Realistically brings to the screen. . .as visceral, powerful, and ever more awful scenes. . . but the larger historical context comes across as stiff educational recreations." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jan 16, 2013
7/10	93%	Barbara (2012)	" Feels like total immersion into the sights, stresses, and the subtle solidarity among middle-class professionals living in the workers' paradise that Petzold's parents fled." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jan 16, 2013
9/10	98%	56 Up (2013)	" The granddaddy of longitudinal documentaries impressively reaches grandparenthood. . . continuing to reveal as much about the heard (but not seen) Apted as his interviewees." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jan 16, 2013
7/10	69%	Not Fade Away (2012)	" Beautifully captures the impact of the British rock 'n' roll invasion on young teens in the suburbs (I was there). . .But even with accurate details, the film loses its way. " — Film-Forward.com Posted Jan 16, 2013
5/10	38%	Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)	" Modern day follow-up to Sunrise At Campobello. . .awkwardly grafted on follow-up to King's Speech [that] seems exaggerated. . .with winking FDR [and] insular view of Eleanor." — Film-Forward.com Posted Dec 18, 2012
8/10	97%	Beware Of Mr. Baker (2012)	" Lots of surprises and unusual brio. . . in sorting out decades of stories and confusing points of view [with] visual documentation. Very entertaining." — Film-Forward.com Posted Dec 17, 2012
7/10	64%	Anna Karenina (2012)	" A dazzling looking, amazingly adaptable theater transforms into. . . a busy eyeful of sturm und drang, where the gentler love story of Kitty and Levin outshines the tragedy." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 25, 2012
6/10	98%	Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God (2012)	" Deaf victims passionately sign about years of anguish and pleas [but film] rambles. . .around the world [and] confusingly tries to pierce hierarchy to what pope knew when." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 25, 2012
8/10	86%	The Law In These Parts (2012)	" Punctuated with pungent visual and narrative footnotes, comes close to being the Pentagon Papers of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories' legal framework." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 25, 2012
7/10	88%	Starlet (2012)	" Hemingway gives her naïf substance and Johnson turns her crone into a caring mother-figure. . .in surprising ways so their winning poignancy makes up for the fanciful [end]." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 10, 2012
8/10	95%	Chasing Ice (2012)	" Glaciers melt alarmingly fast in exciting story of obsessed pied piper with a camera traveling by boat, copter, and dogsled into the Arctic to download astonishing footage." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 9, 2012
7/10	68%	This Must Be The Place (2012)	" The old country comes to the New World in a magical tale with ancient roots of a prodigal son returning for revenge . . .like a cinematic DeToqueville. . . kooky and lovely." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 9, 2012
6/10	79%	The Other Son (2012)	" How the sons begin to share each other's lives is sensitively portrayed, and the film's more original than the usual Romeo and Juliet personalization of the regional divide." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 1, 2012
7/10	95%	Sister (2012)	" [A]voids bathos. . .reveals unexpected depth in a heartbreaking bond. . . Different classes conflict [in] adjacent spaces . . .in spare, realistic Dardennes' style." — Film-Forward.com Posted Nov 1, 2012
5/10	25%	The Black Tulip (2012)	" Brave, well-meaning effort. . .with a mostly local crew in a high-risk locale. . . Best scenes in too-simplistic film are glimpses of cultural traditions, especially music." — Film-Forward.com Posted Oct 27, 2012
7/10	90%	Six Million and One (2012)	" Adds to documentary canon of the Holocaust as it grapples with repercussions and impact decades later on the next generation. . .though [family] arguments are hard to follow." — Film-Forward.com Posted Oct 26, 2012
9/10	84%	The Flat (2012)	" Who lied or who hid the truth?. . .The more and more public facts and private revelations Goldfinger uncovers are tantalizingly confounding and irresistibly fascinating." — Film-Forward.com Posted Oct 26, 2012
6/10	100%	Radio Unnameable (2012)	" Beautifully sets up the feel and the times. . .with archival photographs and footage [but] distracts from. . .the intimate aural relationship between Fass and his audience." — Film-Forward.com Posted Sep 21, 2012
5/10	87%	Arbitrage (2012)	" Competent, glossy thriller gussies up the familiar and articulately updates to the new Gilded Age. . . but with uncomfortable sympathy for the man at the pinnacle of the 1%." — Film-Forward.com Posted Sep 15, 2012
5/10	59%	10 Years (2012)	" The Most Charming is Oscar Isaac. . who finally gets to be a romantic live wire in the movies. . . Too bad too much of the rest of the reunion and the film is so familiar." — Film-Forward.com Posted Sep 15, 2012
6/10	87%	Somewhere Between (2012)	" Chinese girls in white American households navigate adolescence. . .in middle-class families [not] in diverse, urban settings to take complicated turns to their birth country" — Film-Forward.com Posted Aug 24, 2012
5/10	87%	The Matchmaker (2012)	" Though aided by beautiful views of Haifa, some amusing entertainment, and flashes of poignancy, the appeal is mostly heavily laden, cross-generational nostalgia." — Film-Forward.com Posted Aug 22, 2012
8/10	83%	El Edificio De Los Chilenos ()	" A heartfelt tribute. . . participants thoughtfully and personally debate their choice. . .to protect their children in a utopia where they could grow up safe and socialist." — Film-Forward.com Posted Aug 16, 2012
7/10	77%	Here (2012)	" Majestic landscape. . .dominates two searching souls. As magnetic as their attraction. . .trajectory of their relationship is through intense, mostly nonverbal performances." — Film-Forward.com Posted Aug 9, 2012
7/10	96%	Searching for Sugar Man (2012)	" Through interviews and animations, this entertaining musical mystery tour. . .traces. . .an engaging story so full of colorful characters . . .that I was leery of a hoax." — Film-Forward.com Posted Aug 2, 2012
6/10	52%	Grassroots (2012)	" A call to citizen participation [through a] portrait of shoe leather political organizing pre-social media is lively, but seems more enjoyably quaint than inspiring." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jul 13, 2012
6/10	63%	Union Square (2012)	" Just when it seems to be going [for] an amusing family Thanksgiving comedy, it zings sharply (and awkwardly) into exposing raw emotions from painful wounds sisters share." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jul 13, 2012
8/10	93%	Last Ride (2012)	" The remarkable landscape of Australia's outback [and] Weaving's paternal to scary on a dime performance makes [it] much more than a depressing story about an abusive father." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jul 6, 2012
6/10	80%	China Heavyweight (2012)	" Portrait[s] of the individual determination and nationalistic fervor that seems to driv[e] China to the top in so many fields surmounts the sameness of this universal story." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jul 6, 2012
6/10	91%	Gypsy (2012)	" [A]uthenticity of the local cast and the rare images of a shantytown Roma ghetto in mountainous Slovakia outweigh stereotypes and the imposition of a Hamlet-like story." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jun 27, 2012
7/10	100%	The Invisible War (2012)	" [P]owerful rage against system carried by victims who detail sexism, harassment, stalking, rape, reprisals, and rebuffed complaints [whose] attackers haven't been punished." — Film-Forward.com Posted Jun 23, 2012

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