Keith Phipps
Keith Phipps's reviews (from any publication) always count toward the Tomatometer
because this critic is a 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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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| 99% | 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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| 78% | 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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| 78% | 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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| 92% | 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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| 90% | 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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| 46% | 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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| 70% | 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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| 67% | 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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| 89% | 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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| 89% | 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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| 86% | 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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| 98% | 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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| 79% | 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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| 84% | 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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| 99% | 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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| 72% | 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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| 7% | Rings (2017) |
Mostly Rings offers the warmed-up leftovers of a style that hasn't felt fresh since the first George W. Bush administration. It's an unkind rewind.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Feb 3, 2017
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| 96% | The Salesman (Forushande) (2017) |
It's impossible to undersell the craftsmanship Farhadi and his actors -- both Hosseini and Alidoosti are extraordinary here -- put into the film.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jan 26, 2017
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| 94% | The Red Turtle (La tortue rouge) (2017) |
Dudok de Wit makes every scene gripping. It also doubles as an example of the universal power of visual storytelling.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jan 19, 2017
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| 24% | The Bye Bye Man (2017) |
Never less than diverting, especially in these long weeks when a solid PG-13 horror movie offers the best thrills around, The Bye Bye Man's most inspired moments make great use of its creepy location.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jan 12, 2017
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| 100% | Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (2017) |
Both women shine so brightly here - apart but especially together - that it drives home the enormity of their absence.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jan 6, 2017
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| 82% | Julieta (2016) |
Suárez and Ugarte both do remarkable work in the midst of another complex, unblinking character study told in the language of classic movies and playing out in the sort of striking colors usually found only in dreams.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Dec 23, 2016
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| 75% | Miss Sloane (2016) |
Miss Sloane's heroine is driven by her craftiness, but the film has all the subtlety of a hammer repeatedly hitting an anvil.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2016
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| 56% | Rules Don't Apply (2016) |
The film struggles figuring out what it's trying to say but it does so with a lot of craftsmanship and panache. Call it pleasantly unsatisfying.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Nov 23, 2016
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| 95% | The Edge of Seventeen (2016) |
Edge of Seventeen captures and elevates the voices of people who care about each other deeply but also how to hurt each other with laser-like accuracy.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2016
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| 95% | The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi) (2016) |
The film runs nearly two-and-a-half-hours, but that's just the right amount of time for Park to turn up the heat a few degrees at a time.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Oct 21, 2016
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| 89% | Christine (2016) |
It treats Christine's tragedy as a question without an answer, letting it play out and leaving us to wonder what it all means, and contemplate how over 40 years later we're no closer to finding an answer.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2016
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| 99% | Under The Shadow (2016) |
Its slowly intensifying approach, use of shadows and suggestion, unsettling soundtrack, and well-deployed special effects allow it to stand nicely next to a recent horror classic, Jennifer Kent's The Babadook.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2016
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| 93% | Queen of Katwe (2016) |
Here director Mira Nair, working from a script by William Wheeler, brings a lot of thoughtful shading to a tale of triumph over adversity, resulting in a film that's at once rousing and moving.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2016
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| 77% | Bridget Jones's Baby (2016) |
Like most reunions, it's at once awkward, comforting, and ends up feeling like it belongs to another time.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Sep 15, 2016
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| 71% | White Girl (2016) |
It's the story of a white girl, but also about how being a white girl shapes how the rest of the world sees her, and the ways it creates buffers that slow her descent as she makes one bad decision after another.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Sep 2, 2016
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| 40% | Morgan (2016) |
Morgan devolves quickly into a glossy but familiar horror film content to bloody one member of its remarkable cast to a pulp after another.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 30, 2016
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| 94% | Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) |
Any of its ten chapters could probably have sustained features of their own. But an overarching vision emerges anyway, even if it's one Herzog never states explicitly.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 19, 2016
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| 88% | Morris from America (2016) |
It's a fundamentally sweet film, but one that understands that no matter how hard parents work to make their kids feel safe they're not always a match for a world seemingly determined to make them feel lost.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 19, 2016
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| 97% | Hell or High Water (2016) |
The unhurried approach both ratchets up the tension and allows more time to get to know the players, who often talk around what they want to say in barbed, witty, Elmore Leonard-inspired dialogue.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 17, 2016
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| 97% | Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) |
The film moves beautifully, but it's also beautifully moving. ‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 17, 2016
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| 89% | Miss Sharon Jones! (2016) |
Miss Sharon Jones! benefits from Jones' willingness to let Kopple keep filming no matter what.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2016
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| 59% | Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016) |
Catching up with Patsy and Edina provides a weirdly comforting sense of permanence. The world keeps turning, and they keep on running in a desperate attempt to catch up.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2016
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| 76% | Lights Out (2016) |
As a scare machine, however, Lights Out works like gangbusters, especially once all the main characters are gathered under one roof.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jul 21, 2016
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| 90% | Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2016) |
The brisk but rich Raiders! doubles as a story of how creative partnerships, even those of many years, can fall apart and how childhood dreams can linger deep into adulthood.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2016
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| 69% | Central Intelligence (2016) |
It commits to its silliness but, following Johnson's lead, it takes its characters, silliness and all, seriously.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 16, 2016
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| 98% | The Fits (2016) |
Just like its heroine, The Fits never gets swallowed up by the darkness that surrounds it.‐ Uproxx
Read More | Posted Jun 3, 2016
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| 66% | The Pillow Book (1997) |
A surprisingly humane, satisfying film.‐ AV Club
Read More | Posted May 2, 2016
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