F.X. Feeney

F.X. Feeney
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications: L.A. Weekly, Mr. Showbiz, Variety, Village Voice, Movieline
Critics' Group: Los Angeles Film Critics Association

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
62% Out of Africa (1985) Surprise! A movie I thought I'd hate has turned out to be one of the smartest, most enjoyable big-screen romances in years. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 12, 2021
97% Chicken Run (2000) What gives this movie its oddly strong grip on a viewer's heart is a physical tenderness inseparable from the nature of claymation. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 24, 2014
96% The Iron Giant (1999) The Iron Giant's theme of fear of the unknown is craftily balanced against the power of innocent imagination. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 12, 2014
94% The Trouble with the Truth (2012) There isn't a false note in either the dialogue or the performances. - Village Voice EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2012
98% The Godfather (1972) Traces the arc of this doomed idealism with a beauty that is still fresh. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2011
61% Centurion (2010) [A] highly enjoyable action-adventure. - Village Voice EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 24, 2010
6.5/10 69% The Girl Who Played with Fire (Flickan som lekte med elden) (2010) Because the movie is long, colorless, uncompromising and, well, Swedish, it's got to be better than any future American version, right? - Movieline EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 8, 2010
82% Casino Jack And The United States Of Money (2010) Casino Jack and the United States of Money is indispensable viewing. - Village Voice EDIT
Read More | Posted May 4, 2010
No Score Yet Punctured Hope: A Story About Trokosi and the Young Girls' Slavery in Today's West Africa (2009) Despite near-fatal drawbacks, Punctured Hope fulfills the stated ambitions of Pischiutta and producer Daria Trifu to teach and inspire discussion. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 17, 2009
No Score Yet Under the Eightball (2009) Angry passion and visual energy define this extraordinary muckraking documentary. - Village Voice EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 16, 2009
No Score Yet Mr. Sadman (2009) The film is impeccably cast; it's shot and cut well. Unfortunately, the secret of comedy is that it's the highest form of suspense, and Mr. Sadman is just too bleakly episodic. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 19, 2009
No Score Yet Victory Day (2009) Nearly ever word out of the characters' mouths is either an arch piece of exposition or a clanging, nail-on-the-head expulsion of emotion. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 5, 2009
No Score Yet From Mexico with Love (2009) Whatever its surface predictabilities, From Mexico With Love has the virtue of coaxing you to care about its people. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 22, 2009
No Score Yet Janky Promoters (2009) Everything builds to a fairly careless climax. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 22, 2009
35% Adam Resurrected (2008) One cannot recommend this film strongly enough. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 18, 2008
72% Eden (2008) This portrait of an imploding marriage is remarkable for every reason that counts in a good film. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2008
80% Captain Abu Raed (2007) Such a subtle yet global view of human struggle -- the whole world viewed through the prism of a single poor neighborhood -- is a mark of extraordinary promise from this remarkable new filmmaker. - Village Voice EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 6, 2008
29% Vice (2008) Writer-director Raul Sanchez Inglis tries to do several ambitious, honorable things with Vice, but for much of the action, they cancel each other out. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted May 8, 2008
69% Last Stop for Paul (2006) Mandt directs and acts with great zest and contagious, unpretentious good cheer. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 6, 2008
44% Full Grown Men (2008) Lyrical and funny, Full Grown Men is a tough-minded film about the need to grow up. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 7, 2007
36% Park (2006) [Makes] the most of thrifty means to highly entertaining effect. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2007
43% Berkeley (2007) Roth's gift for unlocking the best in each of his actors does bring those long-ago times to life. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 11, 2007
50% G.I. Jesús (2007) ... Colpaert has so vividly seized the contemporary moment, and explored it with his own eyes and conscience. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 25, 2007
2% Baby Geniuses (1999) There are ticklish moments, but no real laughs. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2007
95% Commune (2006) It's good to hear people talking about openheartedness without irony. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 9, 2006
40% Color of the Cross (2006) A too-specific tale of historic injustice rather than one of divinely benevolent sacrifice on everybody's behalf. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 9, 2006
73% The Great New Wonderful (2006) Writer Sam Catlin and director Danny Leiner have fashioned an alert, shrewdly observed portrait of a moment in time. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 20, 2006
No Score Yet A feel-good movie about failure. - Variety EDIT
Read More | Posted May 19, 2006
52% Down in the Valley (2006) Jacobson has an excitingly clear-eyed, unsentimental feel for the intensity of adolescent passion. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted May 11, 2006
85% The Proposition (2005) The Proposition is a very hard and harsh movie, but it also has a hypnotic, lyrical velocity. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted May 4, 2006
31% The Promise (Master of Crimson Armor) (Wu ji) (2005) The story it tells, measured strictly in terms of emotional power and overall fun, is as moving and pleasurable as any matinee item by Ford, Hawks or Raoul Walsh. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2006
77% Little Manhattan (2005) [It's] as if the filmmakers (maybe without even realizing it) are mocking his emotions, implying that kids are just kids, and only think they feel what they're feeling. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2005
90% New York Doll (2005) Whitely, to his great credit, unfolds this tale simply, just as it was lived. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 27, 2005
72% Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes) (2005) A howl of grief and outrage that all middle paths were torched in this tragic war. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2005
6% A Sound of Thunder (2005) The barometer of the film's undoing is Burns's super low-key performance, which starts out as a poker-faced spoof on heroic cool, but takes a misstep more fatal than mere time-travel can undo. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2005
88% Touch The Sound (2004) We're led to experience her life as she does -- as an adventure in which setbacks are not challenges, but illuminations of untracked paths. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2005
3.5/5 31% November (2005) A one-woman Rashomon that plays and replays the same traumatic incident, with shifts in nuance. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 21, 2005
71% Crónicas (2005) Leguizamo's strengths and limitations fit snug with the reporter's own -- the comedic sizzle the actor brings to his best work translates smoothly into hardhearted aggression. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 7, 2005
80% The Unwanted Woman (2005) The film does disintegrate into big speeches as it rounds to its climax - but through these characters, Milani hauntingly maps the souls of men and women at odds in a theocracy. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 24, 2005
21% The Deal (2005) A riveting thriller full of good scares and learned, muckraking insight into the global labyrinth of oil and politics. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 16, 2005
65% We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004) Originally written in the 1970s. That figures, in the best sense: It is worthy of comparison to the lifelike, character-rich films we cherish from that era, and is certainly one of the finest films to come out this year. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 12, 2004
60% The Dreamers (2004) A wise, high-energy conjuring of 1968. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 5, 2004
91% Dinner Rush (2001) Fiery energy, swift, character-driven chitchat and a tough, upbeat sense of how the world works. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 20, 2003
81% Innocence (2001) Cox's own directorial style is innocent, in the sense of being original without ever straining for effect. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 9, 2002
86% Faithless (2001) Bergman has reached for a woman's insight his whole career. Ullmann completes this for him. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 21, 2002
93% Amadeus (1984) This dark, exuberant epic is nearly 18 years old, yet remains the most popularly successful film ever to render the inner life of an artist. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2002
87% Aberdeen (2001) Moland ... has a fine eye for landscapes, but an even surer touch with actors. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 1, 2002
89% 101 Reykjavik (2001) Kormakur ... balances tones with a smooth, mature confidence. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 30, 2002
52% Scarlet Diva (2000) This is such a dazzlingly self-assured directorial debut that it's hard to know what to praise first. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 19, 2002
95% Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001) It works its magic with such exuberance and passion that the film's length becomes a part of its fun. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 19, 2002