Robert Abele

Robert Abele

Agrees with the Tomatometer 80% of the time.

Biography:
Film Critic, LA Weekly
Publications:
Chicago Tribune , L.A. Weekly , Los Angeles Times
Critics' Group:
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Total Reviews:
409

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 409
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
2.5/5 44% Midnight's Children (2013) " A pretty but staidly linear epic drained of the novel's larkish, metaphorical sweep, and a collection of multi-generational love stories lacking their originally eccentric, fizzy charm." — Los Angeles Times
Posted May 3, 2013
2.5/5 33% Tai Chi Hero (2013) " There's less of the hyperventilated genre-pinging (video games, manga, comic books) from the first film. But there's still a nagging, cartoonish emptiness ..." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 26, 2013
2/5 33% The Numbers Station (2013) " A predictable hodgepodge of uninteresting psychological cat-and-mouse, dimly lighted action filmed by director Kasper Barfoed in standard-operating shaky-cam ..." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 26, 2013
3/5 —— The Crumbles (2013) " The modest rhythms of small-time dreamers work in Boch's favor, when augmented by his elegant framing and affectionate location shooting among the L.A. neighborhood's sloping streets and hill-perched hipster enclaves." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 26, 2013
4/5 —— Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Times of Tim Hetherington (2013) " It's easy to see how inspiring he could be as an artist, and how tragically addictive the insanity of combat becomes when the engagement and desire to understand run that deep." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 12, 2013
3/5 76% It's a Disaster (2013) " The movie elicits knowing smiles more than laughs, even as it reveals a boundless observational awareness about the beefs and slights that, for the small-minded, must feel like everyday Armageddons." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 12, 2013
3/5 67% Fists Of Legend (2013) " Director Kang Woo-Suk spins an epic swirl of masculine psychodrama over his many punishing fight sequences, including flashbacks to the trio's origins as gifted scrappers who take one too many wrong turns." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 11, 2013
5/5 94% Neighbouring Sounds (2012) " One of the strongest feature debuts of the last decade ..." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 5, 2013
2/5 27% The Brass Teapot (2013) " Without a human dimension to ground its construct, "The Brass Teapot" ultimately feels like an interminably stretched-out skit rather than a storybook lesson stained with blood and hurt." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 5, 2013
2/5 4% 6 Souls (2013) " "6 Souls" is regrettably sick with that familiar disease afflicting movies of this ilk: ostentatious, hollow moodiness that spreads like an unwelcome rash." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Apr 5, 2013
3/5 51% Welcome to the Punch (2013) " "Welcome to the Punch" is derivative, dumb fun." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 29, 2013
2/5 59% Detour (2013) " "Nothing to do but wait," Jackson says early on, in the hopes of a quick response from emergency services. That's sitting through "Detour" in a nutshell." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 28, 2013
4/5 80% Eden (2013) " Griffiths lays bare a many-tentacled trafficking system sickening in its reach." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 28, 2013
2/5 48% Olympus Has Fallen (2013) " A typical slab of Hollywood action in which the White House crumbles under attack, the American flag is tattered and tossed aside by baddies, and clichés rise like gods." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 22, 2013
4/5 79% Reality (2013) " [An] astute, dreamlike gut-punch ..." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 21, 2013
3/5 —— Mindless Behavior Lose Your Mind (2013) " A chaotically high-energy burst of performance and behind-the-scenes footage for fans of the slickly produced hip-hop boy band." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 14, 2013
3/5 66% Spring Breakers (2013) " The movie is an arty lark of ambiguous entertainment value, pulsing with melancholy." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 14, 2013
2/5 —— I, Me Aur Main (2013) " It's all slight stuff with a typically oversold Bollywood score, but there are pleasures here and there ..." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Mar 4, 2013
2/5 57% The Power Of Few (2013) " A ham-fisted, timeline-altering variety pack of crime set in New Orleans." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Feb 22, 2013
3.5/5 57% Kai Po Che! (2013) " Its performances are enjoyably boisterous, and director Abhishek Kapoor refuses to linger on clichés for too long ..." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Feb 21, 2013
2.5/5 56% Would You Rather (2013) " Hardly a most dangerous game night at the movies." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Feb 15, 2013
3/5 57% Shanghai Calling (2013) " [A] modest charmer." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Feb 14, 2013
3/5 88% Yossi (2013) " Predictable if measured uplift aside, Fox keeps "Yossi" effortlessly affecting, graced with deadpan humor and a knowingness about lonely lives." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Feb 8, 2013
2.5/5 —— Young Turks (2013) " A snapshot of Los Angeles artists during a cultural pivot point, the documentary "Young Turks" sparks fascination and frustration in equal measure." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Feb 7, 2013
3/5 47% Bullet to the Head (2013) " "Bullet to the Head" is an adrenaline shot to your movie memory if the blunt, gleefully dumb, no-nonsense ways of '80s-style action flicks are your nostalgia drug of choice." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 31, 2013
1.5/5 14% Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) " For all the perspiration in jazzing up an old yarn, there's not a whiff of originality in how Wirkola engages with the perverse pleasures enshrined by the Grimm brothers, two of their era's shrewdest storytellers." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 26, 2013
3.5/5 100% Resolution (2013) " A strangely tense and humorous meta-narrative about two friends experiencing weird goings-on at a remote cabin." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 24, 2013
3/5 60% John Dies at the End (2013) " John lives in a frisky otherworld of willful incoherence all its own." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 24, 2013
79% Battle for Brooklyn (2011) Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 22, 2013
2/5 36% LUV (2013) " What begins as a promising peek into the tragic cycle of waylaid promise that's crippling broken inner-city families is itself dispiritingly pulled sideways in the Baltimore-set indie "LUV."" — Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 17, 2013
3/5 33% Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola (2013) " Judicious editing could have helped consolidate the joyfulness at the expense of occasionally repetitive narrative flab, but for the most part "Matru" is neatly energetic, a mix of screwball whimsy and softball seriousness." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 15, 2013
2/5 —— The Tower (2012) " "The Tower" may be skillfully executed as an effects-laden opus, but its miniature portraits in courage are ultimately too jerry-built to feel like anything but filler between the combustive set pieces." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Jan 10, 2013
2.5/5 67% Talaash (2012) " Ultimately the movie's many strands come together for a final twist, but it's too little too late for this regrettably mediocre Bollywood import." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Dec 2, 2012
3.5/5 84% Dragon (2012) " "Dragon" has enough interesting left turns in style, mood and psychodrama to make it stand out." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Nov 30, 2012
2.5/5 62% Café de Flore (2012) " It's terribly long and repetitive for so delicately dreamy a diptych, and at times the modern-day story feels like little more than a drawn-out apologia for the wandering male gaze." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Nov 16, 2012
3/5 67% Dangerous Liaisons (2012) " Zhang, expertly conveying someone closed off yet silently sensual, even rolls out a tear during a moment of impending intimacy as exquisitely timed as a dancer's move." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Nov 8, 2012
4/5 88% Starlet (2012) " It's a character study about faith in connectedness, with an unforced love for cross-generational companionship that's special indeed." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Nov 8, 2012
4/5 90% Gayby (2012) " What lifts Gayby above its sitcom trappings is its emotional generosity and easy warmth, the sense that characters are defined by -- and made funny through -- their aspirations, not their way with a one-liner." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Nov 8, 2012
3.5/5 80% North Sea Texas (2012) " "North Sea Texas" explores emergent sexuality and first love with a refreshing optimism." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Nov 1, 2012
3.5/5 78% The Zen Of Bennett (2012) " We see an art form bridge generations with a strange mixture of grace, joy and melancholy." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Nov 1, 2012
2.5/5 —— Seeds of Resiliency (2012) " Little more than a strung-together collection of interviews set to piano muzak." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 25, 2012
3/5 100% Lunch (2012) " An agreeable visit with comedy titans who clearly cherish the opportunity to regale their peers with war stories and opinions about the state of comedy today." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 25, 2012
2.5/5 61% Tai Chi Zero (2012) " "Tai Chi Zero" is often more distracting than diverting with its everything-goes aesthetic - there are strains of steampunk, manga and silent film comedy, with video-game touches." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 19, 2012
5/5 100% Wake in Fright (2012) " "Wake in Fright" is true horror." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 19, 2012
2/5 41% 3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom (2012) " A noisy stab at wacky wrongness that starts with reasonably plump possibility as a dispatch from the frontlines of viral video embarrassment hell." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 11, 2012
1/5 14% Excuse Me for Living (2012) " Vaguely misogynistic and defiantly paternalistic, the movie fails at nearly everything - comic tone, sex gags, charm, logic, direction of actors ..." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 11, 2012
1.5/5 15% Special Forces (2012) " It's not only Americans who can make leaden, video game-style exercises in dumb war action." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 11, 2012
2/5 54% V/H/S (2012) " At nearly two hours, the gimmick punctures a hole in itself, causing ambience bleed-out." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 4, 2012
2/5 11% Just 45 Minutes From Broadway (2012) " An investment in theatrical self-indulgence with diminishing returns." — Los Angeles Times
Posted Oct 3, 2012
Showing 1 - 50 of 409
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