Philip French

Philip French

Agrees with the Tomatometer 77% of the time.

Publications:
Guardian [UK] , Observer [UK]
Total Reviews:
1599

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 1599
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
95% Suspiria (1977) " From stormy start to fiery finish, it's a stylish, compelling, phantasmagoric movie." — Observer [UK]
Posted Oct 6, 2013
—— Emil und die Detektive (Emil and the Detectives) (1931) " It's a lively, funny, exciting tale of a country mouse collaborating with streetwise city kids, and it creates a splendid picture of bustling life in the capital of Weimar Germany." — Observer [UK]
Posted Sep 9, 2013
30% Hammer Of The Gods (2013) " A nasty, brutal and relatively short entertainment, aimed at middle-of-the-woad Conanists." — Observer [UK]
Posted Sep 2, 2013
64% One Direction: This Is Us (2013) " This is the rock revolution reduced to the level of the Eurovision Song Contest." — Observer [UK]
Posted Sep 2, 2013
85% Upstream Color (2013) " Upstream Colour has the makings of a cult movie, though it's not a cult I feel inclined to join." — Observer [UK]
Posted Sep 2, 2013
75% You're Next (2013) " It has some truly creepy moments early on, as well as an authentic ruthlessness and some black humour." — Observer [UK]
Posted Sep 2, 2013
63% Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain (2013) " I'd rather attend a Norman Wisdom tribute concert in downtown Tirana than see this film again." — Observer [UK]
Posted Sep 2, 2013
85% The Way Way Back (2013) " Not a subtle film, but honest, intelligent and very funny." — Observer [UK]
Posted Sep 2, 2013
76% The Kings of Summer (2013) " Quirky, funny, occasionally too whimsical and at times implausible, it's rather like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn meeting the cast of Rebel Without a Cause." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 25, 2013
47% We're The Millers (2013) " Often funny but not extravagantly or consistently so." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 25, 2013
93% Jurassic Park (1993) " I loved every fascinating, suspenseful, frightening, skilfully calibrated minute of it." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 25, 2013
50% Devil's Pass (2013) " If you know nothing of this incident you'll be intrigued, as I was. But the explanation, which involves another curious tale from the 1940s that continues to fascinate conspiracy theorists, is difficult to swallow." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 25, 2013
54% Lovelace (2013) " [A] dubious, dislikable film ..." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 25, 2013
68% Elysium (2013) " Depressingly predictable in its ideas and tedious in its boneheaded brutality." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 25, 2013
88% What Maisie Knew (2013) " This accomplished film is closer to Kramer vs Kramer or middle-period Woody Allen than it is to James. But that is no bad place to be." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 25, 2013
63% 2 Guns (2013) " America's public agencies come very badly out of this slick thriller." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 18, 2013
27% Planes (2013) " A forgettable, though not dislikable, affair." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 18, 2013
80% Call Girl () " It's overlong and spends too much time on the careers of troubled teenagers recruited from state juvenile institutions before getting to the political nitty-gritty." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 18, 2013
30% Kick-Ass 2 (2013) " A movie that resembles Bugsy Malone with real weapons." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 18, 2013
93% Kuma () " The plot is a dramatic, or melodramatic, way of revealing the turbulent passions and prejudices beneath the surface of homophobia, patriarchy, matriarchy and resistance to change." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 18, 2013
89% Mahanagar (The Big City) (The Great City) (1967) " Ray's Calcutta is a bustling Dickensian city of disappointment and hope, of new possibilities and old temptations, of entrepreneurs seizing opportunities in a changing society ..." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 18, 2013
84% Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa () " Colm Meaney commands our sympathy; Coogan gets the guilty laughs. It's all very English in its recognition of the mean smallness of so much of British life." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 12, 2013
79% Foxfire () " The acting is often frighteningly good, and a little coda set some years later is fascinating." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 12, 2013
50% Looking for Hortense (Cherchez Hortense) () " It's like a Haneke plot turned into a comforting boulevard play, but it's subtly observed and extremely well acted ..." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 12, 2013
38% Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) " A smart, derivative load of Bulfinch, its director Thor Freudenthal has a name perfectly suited to link the mythical and the psychoanalytical." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 12, 2013
90% Silence () " An uneasy mixture of fact and fiction ..." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 12, 2013
83% From Up On Poppy Hill (2013) " It's a lively, touching story, full of sadness and optimism, drawn with an unaffected simplicity." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
87% The Conjuring (2013) " It's scare-to-medium stuff with the usual ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
93% Paradies: Hoffnung (Paradise: Hope) () " It's a revealing, often bitterly funny study in embarrassment and disillusion." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
65% The Heat (2013) " As poorly scripted as Beverly Hills Cop and not as funny." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
61% My Father and the Man in Black (2013) " This film is rather like BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, but with altogether too many scenes re-enacted by lookalikes." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
56% Heaven's Gate (1980) " I will leave others to pick nits off this epic panorama." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
42% Red 2 (2013) " [A] tiresome sequel ..." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
40% Only God Forgives (2013) " The story unfolds in a series of carefully composed tableaux accompanied by a mixture of western and oriental music, and what is enacted is a dreamlike fable of revenge and retribution." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 4, 2013
96% Unforgiven (1992) " There is unlikely to be a better movie from the States or anywhere else this year." — Observer [UK]
Posted Aug 2, 2013
58% Viramundo () " It's a heartwarming experience, a little reminiscent of Wim Wenders's Buena Vista Social Club, and the music is attractive and authentic." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 28, 2013
88% Dial M for Murder (1954) " Rather than let someone else mess with a play that has a formal perfection, Hitchcock did the adaptation himself, his only such credit while in Hollywood." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 28, 2013
69% The Wolverine (2013) " It's loud, spectacular, dull, humourless and predictable." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 28, 2013
98% Blackfish (2013) " [An] impressive, often gripping documentary ..." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 28, 2013
69% Days Of Grace (Dias De Gracia) (2011) " This is all very impressive in its scope and moral reach, and the movie, with its extensive use of handheld cameras, sweaty close-ups and violent encounters, is visually striking." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 28, 2013
93% Frances Ha (2013) " There's little doubt that many people will find her insufferable, and almost everyone will experience moments of acute discomfort. But this is a wonderful performance that never becomes ingratiating." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 28, 2013
86% Easy Money (2012) " With pounding synthesised music on the soundtrack, Easy Money moves like a razor-edged Frisbee that could cut off a player's hand or sever his jugular if he doesn't see what's coming." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
89% The World's End (2013) " A little too long, perhaps, but highly amusing, and handsomely photographed (Bill Pope) and designed (Marcus Rowland)." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
98% Wadjda (2013) " The story is an admirable necklace on which to string facts, anecdotes and insights that illuminate in a good-natured way the lives of women in an unthinking, patriarchal, totalitarian society." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
73% Breathe In () " This is the kind of movie conceived as a tasteful attraction for people who consider themselves superior to the similar but vulgar Richard Dreyfuss vehicle Mr Holland's Opus. Give me Mr Holland any day." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
82% Eden (2013) " It's chilling, convincing, matter-of-fact realism." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
98% Roman Holiday (1953) " Only the big screen can do justice to its scintillating monochrome images." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
14% Suspension Of Disbelief () " [A] convoluted noir thriller that interweaves a variety of narratives." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
57% The Frozen Ground (2013) " [An] efficient police procedural ..." — Observer [UK]
Posted Jul 21, 2013
Showing 1 - 50 of 1599
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