Beandrea July
Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:
Beandrea July (@beandreadotcom) is a freelance film critic and entertainment writer based in Los Angeles, who has written for the Hollywood Reporter, Out Magazine, and Women and Hollywood, among other publications.
Publications:
Hollywood Reporter,
New York Times,
Out Magazine,
Vanity Fair,
Hyperallergic,
Women and Hollywood,
Cherry Picks
Movie Reviews Only
T-Meter | Title | Year | Review | |
---|---|---|---|
90% | Kajillionaire (2020) |
A gratifying watch, the oddball family dramedy is fundamentally about what it means to re-parent one's self as an adult. - Hyperallergic
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Nov 17, 2020
|
|
No Score Yet | Definition Please (2020) |
A funny, reflective good time of a debut. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Aug 26, 2020
|
|
100% | Identifying Features (Sin Señas Particulares) (2021) |
Signals an exciting arrival by a much-needed voice. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jul 9, 2020
|
|
94% | John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020) |
The sheer volume of archival footage and black and white stills in John Lewis: Good Trouble, combined with interviews from some of Lewis' past and present colleagues, has a powerful visual effect. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jun 29, 2020
|
|
65% | The Lovebirds (2020) |
Funny and fresh for all the right reasons. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted May 20, 2020
|
|
98% | Time (2020) |
Transcendent yet down-to-earth. - Hyperallergic
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 2, 2020
|
|
73% | Harriet (2019) |
Instead of that soul-crushing feeling I often experience after seeing a "Black struggle film," Harriet sent me out of the theater feeling empowered. - Hyperallergic
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Feb 28, 2020
|
|
95% | The Apollo (2019) |
Drawing on interviews with theater staff and famous musicians alike, the film's history of this one location is also a cultural history of America. - Hyperallergic
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Feb 28, 2020
|
|
100% | The Bronx, USA (2019) |
This isn't exactly the Bronx tale you might hear from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Showtime's Desus and Mero, but it is an earnest multigenerational perspective on New York's most diverse and distinctive borough. - Hyperallergic
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Feb 28, 2020
|
|
64% | All the Bright Places (2020) |
A refreshingly sober spin on YA romance. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Feb 28, 2020
|
|
92% | The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) |
In terms of more mainstream Hollywood bromance films, The Last Black Man in San Francisco signals a major departure. - Hyperallergic
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Feb 25, 2020
|
|
74% | The Photograph (2020) |
Despite the film's middle-of-the-road artistic impact, it represents the growth of something unseen for far too long: true-to-life black love that's not just played for laughs. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Feb 13, 2020
|
|
82% | Charm City Kings (2020) |
Unable to harness the story's potential, the filmmakers instead deliver a mostly canned movie that flatlines 20 minutes before it comes to an end. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 31, 2020
|
|
73% | Run Sweetheart Run (2020) |
If malignant misogyny transformed into a person, it would be the villain in Run Sweetheart Run. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 31, 2020
|
|
91% | Some Kind of Heaven (2021) |
There's a lot of dancing in this movie, and it turns out that watching old people dance in an authentic way is really enjoyable. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 31, 2020
|
|
98% | Disclosure (2020) |
A thoughtfully crafted film that puts underheard voices first. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 31, 2020
|
|
100% | Giving Voice (2020) |
A rousing ode to theater kids. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 29, 2020
|
|
97% | Farewell Amor (2020) |
A moving exploration of the meaning of home. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 28, 2020
|
|
75% | Beast Beast (2021) |
All three young actors who play the leads deliver solid performances that make them effortless tour guides through their intersecting stories. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2020
|
|
75% | Aggie (2020) |
Aggie is an extraordinary figure, and the doc is interesting enough. But don't expect much invention or surprise here. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2020
|
|
98% | The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) |
With a carefully crafted visual language, an inventive Greek Chorus composed of characters who reflect New York's diversity and a funny yet thought-provoking script, the film creates a world that you want to soak up frame by frame. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 26, 2020
|
|
99% | On the Record (2020) |
The overall result is an intimate look at what is at stake when rape victims decide whether or not to tell their stories. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 25, 2020
|
|
99% | The Fight (2020) |
[F]rankly, it's nice to see David beating Goliath on the big screen. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jan 25, 2020
|
|
86% | Angelfish (2019) |
Lee's film plays it disappointingly safe, never deviating from romantic comedy conventions; there are no real surprises that you can't already see coming. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Nov 14, 2019
|
|
52% | Charlie's Angels (2019) |
Banks brings Charlie's Angels into the modern age with flair, all while unapologetically raising a feminist flag, championing female friendships and subtly making a point about the urgency of the ongoing climate crisis. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Nov 12, 2019
|
|
No Score Yet | Liberty: Mother of Exiles (2019) |
What Liberty: Mother of Exiles makes clear is that even if you think you know the whole story, there's a lot more to it than Emma Lazarus' famous poem. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Oct 12, 2019
|
|
65% | Sister Aimee (2019) |
Buck and Schlingmann have ideas, but they just don't add up to something impactful here. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Sep 27, 2019
|
|
94% | Dads (2020) |
An optimistic yet affecting exploration of how fatherhood has evolved over the years and how far it still needs to go. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Sep 16, 2019
|
|
60% | Comets (2019) |
As the movie doesn't cohere at the end, you're left feeling cheated by the fact that it has required so much patience up until then. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Sep 11, 2019
|
|
96% | Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (2019) |
Orner succeeds at evoking a deep sense of empathy for the survivors of Choudhury's abuse, and although that's not the same thing as justice, perhaps it's a place to start. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Sep 10, 2019
|
|
88% | The Obituary of Tunde Johnson (2019) |
An agonizing tale about the weight society hoists upon too many black gay men's weary shoulders, it's the kind of film that lingers in your mind days after you've seen it, as much due to the relevant subject matter as to Tunde's penetrating gaze. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Sep 8, 2019
|
|
87% | Hustlers (2019) |
Scafaria validates her heroines from the start by focusing on them as women whose internal struggles and friendships with each other are far more interesting than their obvious physical allure. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Sep 7, 2019
|
|
76% | Tammy's Always Dying (2019) |
The main reason the film is worth a watch is the strong performances of its two leads. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Sep 6, 2019
|
|
No Score Yet | While I Breathe, I Hope (2019) |
There are few surprising moments in While I Hope, I Breathe, and many familiar platitudes. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Aug 16, 2019
|
|
33% | The Devil Has a Name (2020) |
Olmos balances a grim tale of corporate exploitation, environmental degradation and the plight of the American farmer with delightful buddy-comedy pairings. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Aug 5, 2019
|
|
67% | Almost Love (2020) |
At its core, this is a film about emotional intimacy: the mundane, ecstatic and difficult parts of loving someone over the long-term. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jul 23, 2019
|
|
100% | Queering The Script (2019) |
The film makes a convincing case for why it is powerful when underrepresented audiences see fictional characters that both entertain and inspire. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jul 22, 2019
|
|
82% | Holy Trinity (2019) |
It celebrates living a sex- and kink-positive life and explores how an affirmative spirituality fits into that. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Jul 22, 2019
|
|
90% | Always Be My Maybe (2019) |
Although the script is uneven, there is hardly a moment where we don't believe in these two. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted May 29, 2019
|
|
36% | Poms (2019) |
It lands as voyeuristic condescension and flattens the presumably full lives of women elders into hollow inspiration fodder. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted May 9, 2019
|
|
97% | Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (2019) |
Though clearly made for a wide audience, Greenfield-Sanders doesn't back away from Morrison's candid critiques of racism and misogyny. - Out Magazine
EDIT
Read More
| Posted May 1, 2019
|
|
83% | Someone Great (2019) |
It's very funny and offers up plenty of heartwarming fodder for the sentimental among us. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Apr 18, 2019
|
|
46% | Little (2019) |
What really works about Little easily surpasses what doesn't. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Apr 10, 2019
|
|
No Score Yet | Why Can't I Be Me? Around You (2019) |
Though the film can feel like a ball bouncing in too many directions to keep track of, that's also precisely what's interesting about it: It feels like a direct entrance into Blank's brain... - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 14, 2019
|
|
70% | Olympic Dreams (2020) |
A raw depiction of emotional intimacy between two people who are both slightly neurotic in different ways, but nevertheless want big things out of life. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 13, 2019
|
|
No Score Yet | Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story (2019) |
The film is enormously funny (like her or not, anyone who says Griffin isn't talented is just disingenuous at this point), and the Los Angeles audience in front of whom she taped it eats every bit up. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 12, 2019
|
|
69% | Adopt a Highway (2019) |
In an ensemble cast of small roles where his character is the only one with a film-length arc, Hawke's performance quite literally carries the movie. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
100% | Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World (2018) |
A refreshing portrait of citizen journalism in the digital age. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
68% | Darlin' (2019) |
A film that ultimately feels static and unresolved. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
100% | Vision Portraits (2019) |
If only for the in-depth discussions of the creative process, the film is worth a watch. - Hollywood Reporter
EDIT
Read More
| Posted Mar 11, 2019
|