Peter Brunette

Agrees with the Tomatometer 76% of the time.

Biography:
Besides being a weekly film critic and contributing editor at Film.com, Peter Brunette was Professor of English and Film Studies at George Mason University. He wrote or edited six books on film, including Roberto Rossellini, the definitive study in English of this director's films (Oxford University Press, 1987; republished University of California Press, 1996); Screen/Play: Derrida and Film Theory (Princeton University Press, 1990; co-authored with David Wills); a co-edited book (with David Wills) on visual theory published by Cambridge University Press in 1994, entitled Deconstruction and the Visual Arts: Art, Media, Architecture; and a book on Francois Truffaut's film "Shoot the Piano Player" (Rutgers, 1993). Cambridge University Press published his book The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni in 1998 and, in 1999, his edited book, Martin Scorsese: Interviews, was published by the University of Mississippi Press. He was also general editor of the Mississippi interview series; some seven books have already been published in this series, and twenty more are contracted for. He was also general editor of a film book series at Indiana University Press; two titles have been published in the last two years. At the time of his death in June of 2010, he was working on books on Luchino Visconti and Wong Kar-Wai. During the past several years, he served on panels at the Palm Springs Film Festival in California, the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, and at the Rotterdam Film Festival in Holland. He was director of the Film and Media Studies program at George Mason University and was also active in the GMU Cultural Studies program. He was one of the first two internet critics to be elected to membership in the National Society of Film Critics. Brunette has also written for film periodicals like Film Quarterly and Sight & Sound, and was the U.S. correspondent for the Italian journal Filmcritica. He also wrote regularly for The New York Times Arts & Leisure section and The Boston Globe. He was artistic director of the Key Sunday Cinema Club, which has branches in six cities.
Publications:
Film.com , Hollywood Reporter , Screen International , Screendaily
Total Reviews:
112
Total QuickRatings:
112
Location:
Washington D.C.

Movie Reviews Only

Showing 1 - 50 of 112
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
86% Sound of Noise (2012) " The basic premise of this delightful comedy from Sweden is one of the most imaginative you'll ever see." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Feb 17, 2012
75% Putty Hill (2011) " Points must be awarded for nerve, but virtually every aspect of this misbegotten film misfires." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Aug 8, 2011
75% The Names of Love (2011) " [A] delightful, sexy, and often audacious crowd-pleaser." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Jun 22, 2011
57% Film socialisme (2011) " Like most of Jean-Luc Godard's other essay films, is all over the place and (purposely) impossible to follow." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Jun 3, 2011
78% Red Hill (2010) " The suspense that director Patrick Hughes manages to mount remains low-grade throughout and the plot never becomes entirely plausible." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Nov 5, 2010
55% Mao's Last Dancer (2010) " Feel-good movie about a Chinese dancer presses all the right buttons." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Sep 10, 2010
79% I Killed My Mother (2013) " Uneven but funny and audacious adolescent comedy from a talented beginner." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Jul 6, 2010
89% A Screaming Man (2011) " Quietly powerful." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Jul 6, 2010
72% Enter the Void (Soudain le vide) (2010) " Utterly silly excuse for maximum debauchery from a once-talented director." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Jul 6, 2010
82% Panique au village (A Town Called Panic) (2009) " There's really very little to say about this film beyond that it's absolutely brilliant." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Mar 26, 2010
80% The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada) (2010) " The film is gorgeously shot and contains a plethora of haunting images..." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Feb 2, 2010
—— The Korean Wedding Chest (Die koreanische Hochzeitstruhe) (2009) " Tenderly observed personal documentary on Korean wedding customs." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Oct 12, 2009
80% Max Manus: Man of War (2010) " Solid and convincing, if pedestrian, World War II story that has its moments." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Sep 17, 2009
84% Whip It (2009) " Some old material given a delightful new grrrl-power twist." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Sep 15, 2009
56% The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009) " A shocking yet stately and powerful plea for women's rights." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Jun 26, 2009
85% The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band) (2009) " It's clear that this portrait of a sick society is meant to explain, at least partially, the horrendous war that breaks out at the very end of the film, and the fascism that quickly followed in its wake." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted May 22, 2009
90% Army of Crime (L'Armée du Crime) (2010) " Though it drags here and there and is a bit flat in places, the film is solidly made and for the most part quite involving." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted May 18, 2009
48% Antichrist (2009) " Visually gorgeous to a fault and teeming with grandiose if often fascinating ideas that overwhelm the modest story that serves as their vehicle, this may be the least artistically successful film von Trier has ever made." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted May 18, 2009
97% A Prophet (Un prophete) (2010) " French master Jacques Audiard has challenged the thus-far mostly middling Cannes competition with a powerful prison drama that's an old-fashioned Bildungsroman in in-your-face, intensely realistic disguise." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted May 16, 2009
33% Ne Te Retourne Pas (Don't Look Back) (2009) " "Don't Look Back" begins promisingly. Seemingly obsessed with surfaces, the camera restlessly searches for hints and clues among the fragments we see, even before we know there's a mystery." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted May 15, 2009
46% Management (2009) " The plot doesn't always make sense, and when it does it's often pretty predictable, but when all is said and done, this romantic comedy starring the ultracute Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston ultimately delivers the goods." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted May 12, 2009
77% Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys) (2008) " Patience will be required to appreciate this brilliant, gorgeously visual film." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Nov 4, 2008
62% Faubourg 36 (Paris 36) (2009) " Many stale plot devices are recycled." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Oct 18, 2008
39% The Stone Angel (2007) " A perfectly respectable, solidly-made film which, beyond the expert performance by the always reliable Ellen Burstyn, has unfortunately little to recommend it." — Screen International
Posted Oct 18, 2008
27% The Pleasure of Being Robbed (2008) " Less pleasurable after the first fifteen minutes." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Oct 18, 2008
86% Lorna's Silence (2008) " A worthwhile, if less powerful offering from the Belgian masters of slice-of-life filmmaking." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Oct 18, 2008
92% Il Divo (2009) " At long last in this year's Cannes Competition, a film on a serious subject that nevertheless consistently entertains and often makes you laugh out loud." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Oct 18, 2008
85% The Take (2007) " Things never quite come together and the central plot focus of the family drama is never plausible enough to make for compelling cinema." — Screen International
Posted Oct 15, 2008
15% The Other Man (2008) " Seldom has such great star power been marshaled in the service of a sillier movie than The Other Man." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Oct 3, 2008
65% Plus Tard (One Day You'll Understand) (Later) (2008) " Once again, veteran Israeli director Amos Gitai has made a subtle yet powerful and moving film on an aspect of Jewish experience." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Oct 3, 2008
65% What Doesn't Kill You (2008) " We've all seen this film before -- two hoodlum friends from the tough, violent streets of South Boston trying to cope with the lure of easy money and the offsetting threat of jail time -- but we've never seen it this well done." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Sep 15, 2008
94% Slumdog Millionaire (2008) " A solidly entertaining and energizing film." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted Sep 11, 2008
66% Che: Part One (The Argentine) (2009) " All in all, it's a highly worthwhile, professionally accomplished project, but in its obsessive devotion to precise documentation, the film forgets to inspire." — Hollywood Reporter
Posted May 29, 2008
55% Married Life (2008) " The film is hampered by a plodding and unimaginative script whose situations are pedestrian and whose dialogue is much less sparkling than the filmmakers appear to think it is." — Screen International
Posted Sep 22, 2007
86% El Orfanato (The Orphanage) (2007) " This first feature from Juan Antonio Bayona is an excellent exercise in the Spanish-language subdivision of the horror-ghost genre that Del Toro more or less single-handedly invented. " — Screen International
Posted May 29, 2007
89% Auf der Anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven) (On the Other Side) (2007) " Fatih Akin's new film, once it comes together at the end and finally defeats the shagginess of his script, is a solid if uneven piece of work." — Screen International
Posted May 24, 2007
83% Import/Export (2006) " It's the very unremitting nature of the vision that forces us to confront an unpalatable truth and in that, many willing to go along may find a strange sort of comfort." — Screen International
Posted May 23, 2007
93% Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004) " Even if the script had been more accessible, it's doubtful whether its ultra-high concept will connect with general audiences." — Screendaily
Posted Mar 15, 2004
76% Moulin Rouge! (2001) " Consistently witty and entertaining." — Film.com
Posted May 17, 2001
90% Eureka (Yûreka) (2001) " It's more an experience than anything else, and if you're looking for a transformative, redemptive one yourself, at the moment you can't do any better than go to see this film." — Film.com
Posted May 3, 2001
96% With A Friend Like Harry (2001) " A quiet delight." — Film.com
Posted Apr 19, 2001
58% The Luzhin Defence (2001) " Gorris's recreation of the period setting is scrupulous and fresh." — Film.com
Posted Apr 19, 2001
93% The Circle (Dayereh) (2001) " One of the most courageous, hard-hitting films I've seen in a long time." — Film.com
Posted Apr 12, 2001
92% The Gleaners and I (2001) " A superb example of the genre of the self-expressive documentary." — Film.com
Posted Apr 4, 2001
92% Amores Perros (2001) " Amores Perros (Love's a Bitch) is a great new film from Mexico that proves that somebody, somewhere, is still making upsetting, enthralling movies." — Film.com
Posted Mar 29, 2001
92% Memento (2000) " Probably the most devilishly fascinating movie I've seen in months, if not years." — Film.com
Posted Mar 15, 2001
75% Me You Them (2001) " A quiet film, certainly, but it's filled with small touches that manage to get deeply under your skin by the time the final credits roll." — Film.com
Posted Mar 9, 2001
88% Fa Yeung Nin Wa (In the Mood for Love) (2001) " A sublime tone poem that shows what cinema is capable of when it tries to do more than just tell a story." — Film.com
Posted Feb 1, 2001
86% Faithless (2001) " It makes us realize, suddenly, and with immense regret, what the rest of contemporary cinema so sorely lacks." — Film.com
Posted Jan 25, 2001
73% Before Night Falls (2001) " One of the best films I've seen all year." — Film.com
Posted Dec 21, 2000
Showing 1 - 50 of 112
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