Chuck Wilson
Chuck Wilson's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
L.A. Weekly,
Village Voice
| Publications: | City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul, L.A. Weekly, Village Voice |
| Critics' Group: | Los Angeles Film Critics Association |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 91% | A Prayer Before Dawn (2018) |
A Prayer Before Dawn feels scarily authentic, and may be too much for some. But there are moments of grace amid the setting's despair.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 8, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Buddies (1985) |
Thirty-three years after its initial release, the film remains as affecting as ever.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jun 19, 2018
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| 60% | Another Kind of Wedding (2018) |
A comedy that presents Kathleen Turner and Frances Fisher as feuding life partners should be irresistible, but Another Kind of Wedding proves more irritating than charming.‐ L.A. Weekly
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2018
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| 14% | Blumhouse's Truth or Dare (2018) |
Horror fans trust Blumhouse, so why waste the brand on a flick as lame as Truth or Dare?‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 14, 2018
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| 95% | A Quiet Place (2018) |
A Quiet Place is completely gripping, and in a film fully reliant on facial communication, exquisitely acted by those amazing kids, and by Krasinski and Blunt, who've never been better.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 3, 2018
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| 38% | The Strangers: Prey At Night (2018) |
Has a slow and rather grim first half, but then, in the home stretch, takes a welcome turn into the seriously silly.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 13, 2018
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| 95% | Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) |
Recognition (and compensation) proved elusive in Lamarr's lifetime, but in this marvelous documentary, a brilliant woman - "I'm a very simple, complicated person" - finally gets her due.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 21, 2017
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| 89% | Wait for Your Laugh (2017) |
A disappointment.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2017
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| 100% | Diamond Island (2016) |
This kind of narrative inexactitude might drive some viewers crazy, but there's an emotional truth to it, too.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 17, 2017
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| 81% | Tom of Finland (2017) |
Why does Tom of Finland play like an over-cited term paper? The film is jammed with incident and detail but there's little flow to the storytelling ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 17, 2017
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| 90% | Super Dark Times (2017) |
Both a thriller and meditation on the loss of innocence, Super Dark Times is rich with the minutiae of a bygone era ... but Phillips and screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski press hard against the instinct for nostalgia.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 4, 2017
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| 25% | Unlocked (2017) |
Unlocked feels like a 1970s-style conspiracy thriller, which makes it a perfect fit for the 76-year-old Apted, whose wonderfully varied career includes the James Bond flick, The World Is Not Enough.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 30, 2017
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| 49% | Churchill (2017) |
So full of movie clichés and high melodrama that it's sometimes hard not to giggle - and one should never laugh at the prime minister.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted May 31, 2017
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| 62% | Cezanne and I (Cézanne et Moi) (2017) |
[A] beautifully produced but dramatically wobbly epic.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2017
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| 36% | Live Cargo (2017) |
The need to tell a story and the desire not to collide in Live Cargo, the narratively uneven but visually exquisite debut feature from writer-director Logan Sandler.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2017
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| 94% | Midsummer in Newtown (2017) |
Slightly uneven yet deeply affecting ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jan 26, 2017
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| 92% | The Lion in Winter (1968) |
All that's ever mattered about The Lion in Winter are Hepburn and O'Toole, and the pleasure we take from watching two masters inspire each other to greatness. Scenery chewing has rarely been so artful.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2016
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| 14% | Tank 432 (Belly of the Bulldog) (2016) |
A last-minute flurry of action and a final plot twist aren't enough to redeem this busy but tedious thriller.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 23, 2016
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| 91% | Uncle Howard (2016) |
A bit disjointed but also vibrant and loving, much like its subject.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 17, 2016
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| 100% | A Stray (2016) |
Most of the turns of plot feel organic, ours to discover, as long as we're paying attention.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 18, 2016
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| No Score Yet | The David Dance (2016) |
[A] painfully dull film ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2016
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| 65% | The Great Gilly Hopkins (2016) |
Bates is a shameless ham throughout, but when she works her magic on Trotter's end-of-movie speech to Gilly, resistance is futile.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2016
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| 78% | Closet Monster (2016) |
It wouldn't work at all if the filmmaker hadn't lucked into an actor as gifted as Jessup.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2016
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| 71% | The Tenth Man (El rey del Once) (2016) |
In his lovely new film, Argentine director Daniel Burman mixes reality with fiction in inventive ways.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2016
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| 91% | Zero Days (2016) |
Since no terrorist group or nation state has ever claimed credit for Stuxnet, Gibney can only hypothesize about its origins, but he makes an alarmingly lucid (if circumstantial) case for the culpability of the United States and Israel.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jul 8, 2016
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| 86% | Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You (2016) |
The 93-year-old is a legend with a zillion stories - so why is the new documentary about his life so unsatisfying?‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jul 8, 2016
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| 92% | Heaven Can Wait (1943) |
Heaven Can Wait may be 73 years old, but it's vibrant and alive, and teaching us anew the central language of film.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2016
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| 20% | Who's Driving Doug (2016) |
The road-trip drama Who's Driving Doug is earnest but not overly sweet - a blessing for a film with built-in sentimentality traps.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2016
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| 7% | Misconduct (2016) |
Shimosawa's debut feature boasts an elegant visual style and a mystery plot with so many absurd twists that the film becomes enjoyable high melodrama.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2016
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| 6% | Martyrs (2016) |
Proves only that what is repellent in French is equally so in English.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jan 19, 2016
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| 65% | Krampus (2015) |
The movie sends mixed messages. It's hard, but gooey, too. Trick 'r Treat showed that Dougherty has a mean streak (with wit), but with Krampus, he's clearly been charged with delivering a wide-appeal PG-13 film.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 4, 2015
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| 62% | MI-5 (Spooks: The Greater Good) (2015) |
Led by the honorably dour Firth and the charisma-free Harington, MI-5 is convoluted and dull ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2015
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| 100% | Top Spin (2015) |
These "kids" turn out to be wiser than their years - wiser than most of us, probably - as they both win and lose with an enviable grace.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2015
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| 71% | The Looking Glass (2015) |
An overlong but deeply felt film about a dying woman trying to connect with her granddaughter.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2015
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| 96% | The Russian Woodpecker (2015) |
The Russian Woodpecker is very much like Fedor himself -- eccentric as hell, smart as a whip, and, at the end of the day, a heartbreaker.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2015
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| 100% | Movement And Location (2015) |
Movement and Location is an original and intelligent immigrant drama with a title so academic (and uncommercial) that you might want to give the filmmakers a firm talking-to.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 17, 2015
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| 25% | Hellions (2015) |
Hellions is unsettling, but in all the wrong ways.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 15, 2015
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| 83% | Uncle John (2015) |
Thanks to Ashton's brilliant, career-defining performance, we're made to see that the only thing worse than doing evil deeds is being nice enough to feel guilty about them.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 15, 2015
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| 38% | Contracted: Phase II (2015) |
The filmmakers don't appear fully committed to the idea of a zombie apocalypse, so no sense of dread (or suspense) ever takes hold.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 1, 2015
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| 86% | Paulette (2013) |
It's all pure hokum, perfect for a Shirley MacLaine remake, but it's lovely to see Lafont carrying a film so effortlessly.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 11, 2015
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| 97% | It Follows (2015) |
If the kids think this is the scariest thing ever, then so be it.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 10, 2015
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| No Score Yet | We Are Kings (2014) |
We Are Kings is that rare thing: a film about musicians where you actually look forward to the next song. ‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 9, 2015
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| 41% | Comet (2014) |
Esmail frames his lovers against landscapes that are richly textured and swooningly romantic, but they prove unworthy of the fuss.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 2, 2014
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| 100% | Flamenco, Flamenco (2010) |
A viewer may not connect, emotionally, with every number, and may even dislike a few, but that, too, the film suggests, is the nature of flamenco. We bring to it whoever we are in the given moment.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 18, 2014
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| 97% | Housebound (2014) |
Hard to categorize -- horror-comedy? mystery-thriller? -- but lots of fun to watch.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2014
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| 73% | Algorithms (2014) |
Three visually impaired teenage boys from India who play chess at the championship level are the subject of this slow-moving yet soulful documentary.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2014
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| 50% | The Houses October Built (2014) |
The scary Halloween house at your local amusement park is child's play compared to the "extreme haunts" that fill this uneven but intriguing found-footage horror flick.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 7, 2014
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| 90% | For Those In Peril (2014) |
The film's finale is wild and daring and so perfectly executed that it marks Wright as one of the film year's most audacious new voices.‐ L.A. Weekly
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2014
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| 80% | The Little Bedroom (2014) |
Decades apart in age, Caille and Bouquet both exemplify artful restraint - deciphering their tiniest gesture is a deeply rewarding experience.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 23, 2014
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| 89% | The Drop (2014) |
Its heart lies in the noirish past of both movies and literature.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 9, 2014
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