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

Movies

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
	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	70%	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
	79%	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
	39%	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
	33%	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
	71%	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
	No Score Yet	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
	66%	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
	44%	Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)	Khouri manages, with terrific flair, to keep the extremes of screwball farce and blood-curdling family intensity on one continuum. - L.A. Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 10, 2002