Keith Phipps
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Publications: | Slate, AV Club, Reverse Shot, Time Out Chicago, The Dissolve, Uproxx |
| Critics' Group: | Chicago Film Critics Association |
| Official Websites: | theonionavclub.com |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 59% | Deep Blue Sea (1999) |
Deep Blue Sea, a sort of cross between Aliens (without the thrills) and The Poseidon Adventure (without the camp compensations), doesn't deliver the killer-shark-versus-A-list-character-actor thrills you crave.‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted Jan 11, 2019
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| 34% | Gummo (1997) |
Take away the shock value, and there isn't much there: just a stylistically promising student film peddling bargain-basement surreal nihilism that, stretched over 90 minutes, grows awfully tedious.‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted Jan 7, 2019
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| 66% | The Mule (2018) |
A spry, funny, moving film that never heads in the direction in which it looks like it's about to head, kind of like its protagonist.‐ Slate
Read More | Posted Dec 13, 2018
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| 86% | Sisters (1973) |
An expertly paced, technically audacious thriller that's too knowing to be easily dismissed as a mere exercise.‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2018
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| B+ | 69% | Race with the Devil (1975) |
Race With The Devil has problems getting over the flat, TV-style direction by Cleopatra Jones director Jack Starrett, but it gets by on engaging drive-in goofiness, even if it's tough to swallow the idea that mid-'70s Texas swarmed with Satanists. ‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted Sep 27, 2018
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| 61% | The Wild Angels (1966) |
In many ways, The Wild Angels was a bellwether of where the decade was headed.‐ The Verge
Read More | Posted Sep 7, 2018
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| 96% | Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (2018) |
If Come Inside could benefit from a little more candor and invention, Williams himself prevents it from becoming predictable.‐ Rolling Stone
Read More | Posted Jul 13, 2018
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| B+ | 84% | Downhill Racer (1969) |
Downhill Racer doesn't always work... As a look at how [Robert] Redford's character and those orbiting him spend their time between runs, however, it's superb.‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted May 30, 2018
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| 79% | Unsane (2018) |
Watching Stephen Soderbergh's Unsane is like being locked in a circus cage with a tiger. ‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Mar 21, 2018
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| 40% | The Strangers: Prey At Night (2018) |
From the first notes of Adrian Johnston's John Carpenter-inspired score to the retro font used for the title card, Prey At Night sets itself up as an homage to classic slasher films, and mostly does right by its inspirations.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
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| 87% | Thoroughbreds (2018) |
It plays at times like a new take on Strangers on a Train in which both parties commit to unspeakable acts without any reservations.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Mar 6, 2018
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| 24% | The 15:17 to Paris (2018) |
Whatever he's done in the past, Eastwood here seems most interested in paying tribute to some men who deserve the commendation - nothing more, and nothing less‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Feb 8, 2018
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| 94% | A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) (2018) |
Ultimately ...it doesn't shy away from depicting Marina's vulnerabilities, this is a film more about perseverance than victimhood. ‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
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| 88% | Mary and The Witch's Flower (2018) |
The setting and premise allow Studio Ponoc to show what it can do.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2018
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| 76% | In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts) (2017) |
With [Kruger] ... In the Fade has dark, magnetic center, holding together the story of a woman trying to make sense of the impossible in a world where mere toughness sometimes isn't enough to fight back the cruelty of others.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Dec 27, 2017
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| 91% | Phantom Thread (2018) |
Anderson has made a strange, entrancing, often darkly funny film that's at once like nothing he's ever made and one no one else could make...‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2017
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| 88% | The Post (2018) |
We need this movie now.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Dec 6, 2017
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| 94% | 3-4x juugatsu (Boiling Point) (1990) |
It's a stranger and better film than Violent Cop, as well as an indication of even better things to come.‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2017
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| A | 100% | Fort Apache (1948) |
[Balances] a respect for classic American frontier virtues with a less generous assessment of how those virtues were applied. ‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2017
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| 79% | Sweet Virginia (2017) |
Bernthal and DeWitt generate a nice chemistry as lovers who've found each other after abandoning the romantic notions of their youth.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Nov 14, 2017
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| 85% | Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no jûnin) (2017) |
Beneath scars and a weary expression, Kimura's quite convincing in the lead, with each new confrontation seeming to confirm his darkest view of humanity. ‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 84% | The Square (2017) |
It's a satire keeps the camera rolling after the punchline to allow time for the full, uncomfortable implication of the joke to settle.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2017
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| 65% | The Foreigner (2017) |
... given the leads - it's James Bond meeting Supercop, after all - it's hard not to wish for a little more.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2017
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| 90% | Gerald's Game (2017) |
[Mike] Flanagan has a command of how to make the most of a single location, and Gerald's Game often captures a sense of mounting tension and fear through small touches.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Sep 29, 2017
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| 97% | Lucky (2017) |
[Harry Dean Stanton] gets a last starring role in a bittersweet sunset of a movie crafted as a tribute to everything that made him irreplaceable. It's well-earned and beautifully played.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
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| 88% | Super Dark Times (2017) |
It's a film that remembers how awful it can be to grow up, and that even those who survive it usually don't get out without taking a few scars.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
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| 86% | American Made (2017) |
American Made delivers so much as rambunctious entertainment that it's easy to miss the film's withering assessment of American foreign policy during the Reagan years.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
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| 98% | The Killer (1989) |
The work of a filmmaker operating at the highest level of his abilities.‐ The Dissolve
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2017
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| 98% | Whose Streets? (2017) |
[Whose Streets?] is a memorable snapshot of what protest looks like now, in a moment of escalating tension and an era of social media immediacy with little patience for incremental change.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2017
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| 96% | The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography (2017) |
[Elsa] Dorfman's a fascinating character whose sunny demeanor, much like her generally cheerful photos, contains hidden depths.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2017
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| 97% | Columbus (2017) |
In its best moments, Columbus doubles as a reminder that films speak in a language all their own, and that language often cuts deeper than words.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2017
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| 83% | Patti Cake$ (2017) |
Once Patti Cake$ gets going it seems determined to sand away the texture that made in intriguing in the first place.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2017
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| 75% | Killing Ground (2017) |
Power also brings a remarkable degree of technical skill to the film, cutting between his two chronologies at telling moments and turning the idyllic surroundings into a place where danger and horror seems to rest behind each bend in the trail.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 1, 2017
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| 79% | The Beguiled (2017) |
It's Dunst who gives the standout performance, transforming Edwina from a buttoned-up vision of repression to a woman driven by a volatile mix of desire and desperation.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 21, 2017
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| 100% | Dawson City: Frozen Time (2017) |
The film moves at a stately pace, but that just makes it cumulative effect all the more powerful. Time had its way with Dawson City as it has its way with the rest of the world, but there's much to learn, and beauty to see, in what's been left behind.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2017
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| 94% | Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2017) |
The film works at once as a compelling, tangled legal story, a depiction of Chinatown's world within a world, and a portrait of those who live there and shape it as they try to bridge the gap between one world and the other.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2017
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| 87% | Paint It Black (2017) |
It's as remarkable a depiction of how grief can subsume us and bend reality to its needs as you'll ever see, directed by a talent with a bright future behind the camera.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2017
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| 44% | Rough Night (2017) |
It's all over the place, but it's always willing to take chances. The movie goes for it.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2017
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| 77% | The Hero (2017) |
It's rare that a character actor gets this kind of showcase, and Elliott confirms that he's more than capable of handling center stage.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 9, 2017
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| 66% | Alien: Covenant (2017) |
Fassbender embraces the surface traits of both these human simulacrums then allows the emotional complications to slowly, subtly emerge as their interactions become more and more discordant.‐ Reverse Shot
Read More | Posted May 18, 2017
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| 65% | The Wall (2017) |
Whatever its shortcomings as a movie - and it gets long and dry and dull for a good long stretch - The Wall stays true to its own narrow, hellish vision of war.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted May 12, 2017
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| 88% | Hounds of Love (2017) |
It's a rough film, but an insightful one that offers a glimpse into the abyss not soon forgotten.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted May 12, 2017
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| 87% | It Comes At Night (2017) |
The film, like its director, offers no answers, nor does it need to. It's an unnerving, masterful piece of horror filmmaking.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted May 4, 2017
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| 85% | The Transfiguration (2017) |
It's a horror film without much in the way of real scares, but its matter-of-factness just makes it scarier.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Apr 11, 2017
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| 97% | Your Name. (Kimi No Na Wa.) (2017) |
By the time Your Name reaches its moving finale, the Next Big Thing tag doesn't seem quite enough for Shinkai. He's arrived already.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Apr 11, 2017
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| 80% | T2 Trainspotting (2017) |
T2 never quite captures the spark of its predecessor, but in some ways that's part of the point.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Mar 16, 2017
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| 54% | The Belko Experiment (2017) |
If the film never gets beyond a sophomore dorm-level probing of human nature, it's still darkly compelling on its own terms. And it winds its way toward some truly shocking twists.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Mar 16, 2017
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| 86% | The Girl With All the Gifts (2017) |
It's really the big picture of the film that sets it apart.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Feb 24, 2017
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| 98% | Get Out (2017) |
It's a horror movie in which virtually every element works, starting with Kaluuya's subtle performance.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2017
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| 71% | XX (2017) |
As horror anthologies go, a .500 batting average isn't bad and it would be nice to see XX, like similar projects, inspire sequels that shine a spotlight on even more female directors.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Feb 16, 2017
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