Pete Vonder Haar

Pete Vonder Haar

Agrees with the Tomatometer 77% of the time.

Publications:
Film Threat , Houston Press
Critics' Group:
Online Film Critics Society
Total Reviews:
546
Total QuickRatings:
38
Location:
Houston, TX

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 546
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
—— Rushlights (2013) " The endless hidden connections and coincidences eventually become ridiculous." — Village Voice
Posted Jun 18, 2013
4.5/5 56% Man of Steel (2013) " Henry Cavill gives us something we haven't gotten on film in a while: a SUPERman, with all the awesome power the name implies." — Houston Press
Posted Jun 15, 2013
13% The Stroller Strategy (2013) " Personnaz has a nice Gallic Adam Scott thing going, and Thomas's degenerate best friend (check) gets some amusing scenes, but none of lifts The Stroller Strategy out of the well-worn ruts of its genre." — Village Voice
Posted Jun 11, 2013
2/5 34% The Internship (2013) " Google made over $3 billion in profit in just the first quarter of this year, and yet they not only expect you to sit through a two-hour commercial, but pay money to do so." — Houston Press
Posted Jun 8, 2013
73% The Painting (2013) " With striking visuals reminiscent of Matisse and Chagall and a refreshingly (for domestic animation audiences) grown-up storyline, The Painting is almost reminiscent of, well, a work of art." — Village Voice
Posted Jun 7, 2013
2.5/5 62% Epic (2013) " I will now review this movie using the lyrics to the song "Epic" by Faith No More, which I think you'll find are eerily fitting." — Houston Press
Posted Jun 1, 2013
2/5 11% After Earth (2013) " How could species evolve over the course of a mere thousand years to get a serious hate on for human beings, when *no humans have been on the planet that entire time*?" — Houston Press
Posted Jun 1, 2013
17% A Green Story (2013) " Comes across like the result of a not particularly inspired Mad Lib ..." — Village Voice
Posted May 21, 2013
3.5/5 87% Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) " I was comforted to see a warp drive spacecraft could be kickstarted like a 1912 Buick, and we were treated to not one but two desperate uses of the fabled "manual override." " — Houston Press
Posted May 19, 2013
2.5/5 50% The Great Gatsby (2013) " If I hear someone say "Old sport" one more time I will run them over with my giant yellow convertible." — Houston Press
Posted May 19, 2013
18% 1st Night (2013) " It's hard to explain why every character in 1st Night behaves like an adolescent in a sitcom." — Village Voice
Posted Apr 30, 2013
67% Desperate Acts Of Magic (2013) " Desperate Acts of Magic is a pleasant little film." — Village Voice
Posted Apr 30, 2013
3/5 55% Oblivion (2013) " "The dream is always the same."" — Houston Press
Posted Apr 28, 2013
3/5 45% Pain & Gain (2013) " Bay could've paid for Pain & Gain with the spare hundreds he keeps around for cocaine straws." — Houston Press
Posted Apr 28, 2013
3.5/5 68% Trance (2013) " Trance isn't the director's best by a long shot, but it's a perfectly serviceable thriller with all Boyle's trademark flourishes." — Houston Press
Posted Apr 14, 2013
7% Tomorrow You're Gone (2013) " It's almost as if Jacobson and writer Matthew F. Jones changed their minds at the last minute, leaving us all in the lurch." — Village Voice
Posted Apr 3, 2013
2.5/5 28% G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) " If you went back to 1984 and told me there would be a serious production about toys called "Destro" and "Ripcord," I'd have asked you when lobotomies became mandatory." — Houston Press
Posted Mar 30, 2013
2/5 41% The Call (2013) " Shocking, I know, to think the writer of Thir13en Ghosts and Exit Wounds may not have been up to the task of crafting a fully realized narrative. " — Houston Press
Posted Mar 23, 2013
1/5 47% Olympus Has Fallen (2013) " Olympus Has Fallen wants to be "Die Hard in the White House" so much I half-expected Alexander Godunov to pop up at the end." — Houston Press
Posted Mar 23, 2013
56% Hunky Dory (2013) " Surprisingly, it's not bad." — Village Voice
Posted Mar 19, 2013
3.5/5 59% Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) " Oz the Great and Powerful is perfectly adequate for kids and people who don't believe every trip down cinema's memory lane amounts to sodomy of their childhood." — Houston Press
Posted Mar 9, 2013
72% Greedy Lying Bastards (2013) " [It] shines a harsh light on the lengths the energy industry continues to go to in order to head off climate-related legislation-and assure the public there's nothing wrong with continuing to rely on fossil fuels." — Village Voice
Posted Mar 5, 2013
2.5/5 57% Snitch (2013) " The scene where Matthews searches for "cartels" on Wikipedia is as (unintentionally) hilarious as Michael Bolton looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary." — Houston Press
Posted Mar 2, 2013
3/5 52% Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) " Tomlinson wears a suit of armor well, but as long as we're reimagining the classics, why not give the Princess more to do that run away from home and await rescue?" — Houston Press
Posted Mar 2, 2013
46% The Sweeney (2013) " [It] feels a lot like an American-made cop movie circa 1990." — Village Voice
Posted Mar 1, 2013
19% Inescapable (2013) " Inescapable isn't a terrible movie, but absent its ripped-from-the-headlines setting it's unremarkable." — Village Voice
Posted Feb 19, 2013
2/5 15% A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) " Over the course of 25 years and four ensuing movies, we've gone from mild eye-rolling to goggling incredulity." — Houston Press
Posted Feb 16, 2013
2.5/5 46% Beautiful Creatures (2013) " I'd enjoy listening to Emma Thompson even if she was reading me my list of offenses against the Crown while the Royal Buggerer oiled up his Punishment Phallus." — Houston Press
Posted Feb 16, 2013
4/5 80% Warm Bodies (2013) " It kind of reminded me of Twilight, if that movie had an engaging cast, intelligent script, coherent story, and didn't make me want to eat a bullet." — Houston Press
Posted Feb 3, 2013
3/5 14% Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) " I counted at least six occasions when Renner could've led with, "This ... is my BOOM STICK."" — Houston Press
Posted Jan 27, 2013
1.5/5 30% Broken City (2013) " At no point during the film was there a shred of doubt in my mind about where things would end up." — Houston Press
Posted Jan 19, 2013
3/5 60% The Last Stand (2013) " But you can't let yourself get hung up on, you know, *logic* and *facts* and *police procedures* and *why a guy named "Owens" is speaking in a guttural Austrian accent*" — Houston Press
Posted Jan 19, 2013
4.5/5 93% Zero Dark Thirty (2013) " "We always get our man, eventually."" — Houston Press
Posted Jan 12, 2013
2.5/5 69% Not Fade Away (2012) " I don't mean to belittle the memory of an entire decade, except when I do." — Houston Press
Posted Jan 5, 2013
19% Texas Chainsaw (2013) " Try as [Luessenhop] might to honor the original -- flashbulb transitions, a skeevy (yet buff) hitchhiker, metal doors, and meat hooks -- there's little of its mounting dread." — Village Voice
Posted Jan 5, 2013
2/5 52% This is 40 (2012) " "Hey, remember that annoying couple in that Judd Apatow movie about the loser who got the hot chick pregnant? No? Well, we made a movie about them anyway."" — Houston Press
Posted Dec 28, 2012
3.5/5 61% Jack Reacher (2012) " I know I'm not the only one who appreciates a lack of ambiguity when watching a dude get his testicles crushed." — Houston Press
Posted Dec 28, 2012
4/5 69% Les Misérables (2012) " The songs you expect Javert to knock out of the park end up - at best - bloop singles with Crowe's limited range." — Houston Press
Posted Dec 28, 2012
2.5/5 65% The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) " I prefer my movies to be more entertainment than ordeal." — Houston Press
Posted Dec 15, 2012
43% Waiting For Lightning (2012) " Pretty boilerplate doc material." — Village Voice
Posted Dec 4, 2012
50% In Our Nature (2012) " During their "getting to know you" scene, Seth asks Vicky, "Is everybody that predictable?" As far as In Our Nature goes, it would seem so." — Village Voice
Posted Dec 4, 2012
4/5 75% Killing Them Softly (2012) " So this is our fate, it seems: the endless bureaucratization of every aspect of life, even down to the illegal." — Houston Press
Posted Dec 1, 2012
1.5/5 13% Red Dawn (2012) " "When they came for the grunge enthusiasts, I said nothing..."" — Houston Press
Posted Nov 21, 2012
2.5/5 48% The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012) " If you removed the endless soulful gazes, this whole series could've been delivered as a two-night SyFy Channel exclusive and wrapped up before the next airing of Sharktopus." — Houston Press
Posted Nov 17, 2012
3/5 92% Skyfall (2012) " I wanted to like Skyfall more than I did, which is funny because after the opening sequence, I felt sure I would love it." — Houston Press
Posted Nov 11, 2012
3.5/5 89% Lincoln (2012) " I honestly don't know how audiences are going to respond to what is essentially 2.5 hours of speechifying bookended by brief scenes of wartime atrocity." — Houston Press
Posted Nov 11, 2012
2/5 78% Flight (2012) " Alcoholism remains a serious problem, but it's hard to take seriously when Zemeckis and Gatis have drenched their story in such rank sentimentalism." — Houston Press
Posted Nov 3, 2012
3.5/5 67% Cloud Atlas (2012) " This won't come across as a knock to some, but there are times when Cloud Atlas feels like a sci-fi Love, Actually." — Houston Press
Posted Oct 28, 2012
4.5/5 96% Argo (2012) " Anyone who thinks the cheesiness of the proposed Argo's plot and shameless aping of A New Hope is far-fetched has obviously never seen Battle Beyond the Stars." — Houston Press
Posted Oct 14, 2012
Showing 1 - 50 of 546
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