Adam Nayman

Adam Nayman
Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:
a 21 year old film critic at Eye Magazine in Toronto, Adam has been writing about movies for as long as he can remember, and just can't believe they're paying him for it.
Favorites:
2001: A Space OdysseyGrand IllusionManos: Hands of Fate400 Blows
Publications: Boxoffice Magazine, Cineaste Magazine, eye WEEKLY, Film Comment Magazine, L.A. Weekly, Sight and Sound, AV Club, Reverse Shot, Little White Lies, The Grid, The Dissolve, The Walrus, The Ringer, Cinema Scope
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
32% Domino (2019) It's hard to imagine any critic-myself included-suggesting we're looking at an all-time great finale. But I did laugh out loud while feeling liberated, guilty and disgusted for doing so. DePalma's still got it. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2019
40% Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) It's one thing for a blockbuster to skillfully mix tones; it's another when nobody involved in the production seems to have been decisive about managing the overall vibe. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted May 31, 2019
57% Brightburn (2019) Its harsh, pitiless violence could earn it a cult, but it's ultimately a workmanlike movie playing at being something more renegade-an unconvincing disguise. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted May 29, 2019
88% Touki Bouki (Journey of the Hyena) (1973) ...a work of potent postcolonial commentary. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
100% My Brother's Wedding (1984) My Brother's Wedding is, above all, representative of a strain of American independent cinema conceived and produced in opposition to (and largely in spite of) the surrounding pop-culture climate. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
No Score Yet Mural Murals (Mur Murs) (1982) Varda travelled to Compton and trained her camera's curious, attentive, appreciative lens on a series of murals whose defiance, beauty, and simple existence demolished dominant narratives about Los Angeles' black and Chicano populations. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
92% La Jetée (The Pier) (1962) Each black-and-white frame is striking, dynamic, surprising, and tragic; they mark you forever. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
88% La Cienaga (2001) An early image of a suntanned chest impaled by the shards of a broken wine glass becomes an emblem of Martel's ability to draw blood from her subject matter. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
96% Kaili Blues (Lu Bian Ye Can) (2016) Bi has a gift gift for bewitching enigmas and virtuoso technique, and he is poised to become one of the most important Chinese filmmakers of the new millennium. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
100% Experiment in Terror (1962) The mix of methodical investigative protocol and aberrant psychology against a twisty San Francisco backdrop (including a climax at Candlestick Park during a Giants game) anticipates Bay City thrillers from Dirty Harry to Zodiac. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
91% The Elephant Man (1980) From deep beneath layers of latex makeup, Hurt inhabits a highly specific physical and behavioral characterization, while also conveying the essential, universal loneliness of the human soul. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
94% Blood Simple (1984) What holds up best about Blood Simple, besides its vice-tight plotting and the rotten charisma of M. Emmet Walsh's evil, manipulative private eye Visser, is the sheer exuberance of the Coens's visual style. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
90% Ace in the Hole (The Big Carnival) (1951) Ace in the Hole is as vicious and irreverent as classic Hollywood ever got, bowing to nobody in its righteous cynicism. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2019
57% Pet Sematary (2019) If the hoots and giggles at my screening were what the filmmakers were going for, it strikes me as an unfortunate betrayal of a novel whose ironies don't come at the expense of empathy. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 5, 2019
93% Diane (2019) If the overall effect of this tender yet unsparing movie is a bit depressive, it's nothing its maker should apologize for. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 27, 2019
96% The Insider (1999) Superbly shot and edited and boasting impeccable recreations of the 60 Minutes broadcast in which Wigand went public, The Insider matches Heat's intensity while raising the stakes. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 26, 2019
51% Summer of Sam (1999) ...a scorching melodrama about childhood friends-played by John Leguizamo and Adrien Brody-whose relationship reaches an emotional boiling point. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 25, 2019
94% Us (2019) Ideally, watching Us, we'd see ourselves, and some viewers may well have those moments of recognition. What I see is a talented guy going for broke and, for better and for worse, getting there. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2019
73% Dragged Across Concrete (2019) The best Dragged Across Concrete can muster is a bitter, cynical chuckle about how crime really does pay. It's the perfect sentiment for a filmmaker who, more than anything, seems pleased to be getting away with something. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 21, 2019
97% Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018) At the same time that Hale County's collage style helps the film avoid becoming a Southern variation on Hoop Dreams, it refuses to lapse into anything resembling hand-wringing melancholy. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 21, 2019
69% Happy Death Day 2U (2019) Happy Death Day 2U finally collapses under the weight of its own ambitions, as well as some unfortunate forays into slapstick. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 15, 2019
92% High Flying Bird (2019) Spence's been-there, seen-that mentality and Erick's naivete are opposite poles around which Ray can orbit, connecting with both while occupying his own rhetorical space... - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 8, 2019
63% Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) If Velvet Buzzsaw had stayed in its lane as a giggly snapshot of art-world power plays-with Morf's mix of aesthetic authority and interpersonal shadiness as its focal point-it might have been a minor, enjoyable farce. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2019
2/5 59% The Front Runner (2018) Move along, nothing to see here. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2019
73% Destroyer (2018) As a piece of film direction, Destroyer has enough heft, momentum, and texture to hopefully earn Kusama more opportunities at this elevated budget level. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2018
70% The Mule (2018) The Mule simply proffers obstinacy as grace. - Reverse Shot EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2018
89% Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro felice) (2018) It's in this same spirit of unchangeability that Lazzaro's goodness endures -not as a foil to the forces of exploitation, but as their instrument. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 13, 2018
96% Zama (2018) If cinema is about being transported to another place, Martel is unrivaled as a guide... - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2018
86% Let the Sunshine In (Un beau soleil intérieur) (2018) For a movie that may ultimately be about the need for compromise, Let the Sunshine In doesn't make any-and that's why it's Denis at her best. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2018
92% Support the Girls (2018) Hall's hugely appealing performance has already been honored by the New York Film Critics Circle, and she fully inhabits a character whose mix of pride, professionalism, and protectiveness makes her a heroine. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2018
93% Sorry to Bother You (2018) This palpably handmade movie doesn't reach out, and nor does it engage in chin stroking: instead, it extends a middle finger. - Sight and Sound EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 6, 2018
69% Insignificance (1985) A true oddity even by the filmmaker's standards, it's a minor masterpiece of American counter-mythology, with the most comically apocalyptic finale since Dr. Strangelove. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2018
50% Bad Timing (1980) ...perched right on the edge of tastelessness and yet finally more emotionally powerful than exploitative. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2018
83% The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) As a meditation on encroaching spiritual emptiness, set in a society hypnotized by materialism and mass media-Roeg's film is so rich and lucid that it could be an essay. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2018
87% Walkabout (1971) ...one of the great art house freak-outs of the 1970s. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2018
85% Performance (1970) Critics hated it, and Warner Bros. barely saw fit to release it, but Performance has endured as a cult favorite. It's also arguably the greatest-ever big-screen showcase for Jagger... - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2018
94% Burning (Beoning) (2018) Burning is as smart as cinema gets. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2018
98% Ash Is Purest White (2019) The two-way relationship between Jia and Zhao is the main attraction... Ash Is Purest White is about what it takes to keep love from burning out but its excellence, as well as its existence, is evidence of a genuinely incandescent artistic partnership. - Reverse Shot EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 11, 2018
95% Transit (2019) In the final revolution of the plot, these polarities reverse, with the oppressed party reasserting her own persona and the auteur realizing the totality of his loss. - Reverse Shot EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 11, 2018
29% Venom (2018) This is a paradox: Venom isn't good-nor so-bad-it's-good-and yet if there had been more of it, and if that more had been a little wilder or gorier, it probably would have been better. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 8, 2018
93% Suspiria (1977) What lingers is not a sense of evil but exhilaration in how far Argento and his fellow filmmakers were willing to go to shock and delight; the movie's sheer exuberance is the cinematic equivalent of a blood transfusion. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2018
95% Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) A decade after the Summer of Love, Invasion of the Body Snatchers essentially weaponized flower power, hinting that the erosion of individual consciousness in favor of groupthink was as natural and ingrained as photosynthesis itself. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 2, 2018
72% Hold the Dark (2018) It would be nice to report that Hold the Dark extends the promise of Blue Ruin and Green Room, but it doesn't, at least not for me. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2018
83% The Big Lebowski (1998) Lebowski's virtuosity serves a sense of modesty. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 20, 2018
18% The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (2018) Xavier Dolan's film is a mess, maybe even a hot one, and I can't say I had a bad time watching it-which is not the same thing as suggesting it works. - Cinema Scope EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 13, 2018
32% The Predator (2018) The Predator is filled with visual and verbal callbacks to McTiernan's movie, but there's no Schwarzenegger and no subtext, and the movie suffers from the lack of both. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 13, 2018
95% If Beale Street Could Talk (2019) Jenkins saves his most sociologically eloquent composition for the finale. It's a tableau that compresses a wealth of cultural, political, and spiritual commentary. I doubt I'll see a better final shot this year. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 12, 2018
91% Widows (2018) Widows' entertainment value is undeniable, and yet it's fascinating mostly as a case study of a supremely talented filmmaker test-driving his sensibility through a new and in some ways more constrained creative habitat. - The Ringer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 12, 2018
100% Rojo (2018) The actual outcome speaks to Naishtat's resourcefulness as a storyteller; that his faux-Columbo fails to emerge as a hero cinches his film's deep and all-too-recognizably realistic cynicism. - Cinema Scope EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2018
83% High Life (2019) As it turns out, Un beau soleil's practical, affirmative motto is also the best way to approach the more daunting object that is High Life: be open. - Cinema Scope EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2018