Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Washington Post
Orlando Weekly
Slant Magazine
NPR.org
NPR
Publications:
Washington Post,
Orlando Weekly,
Slant Magazine,
NPR.org,
NPR
Movie Reviews Only
T-Meter | Title | Year | Review | |
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3/4 | 77% | Blizzard of Souls (The Rifleman) (Dveselu putenis) (2019) |
The filmmakers are unafraid of the picturesque, lighting scenes so they resemble old-master canvases. - Slant Magazine
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| Posted Jan 3, 2021
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3/4 | 100% | This Is Not a Movie (2020) |
The documentary adroitly demonstrates that Fisk is still motivated by the boyish curiosity that drew him to journalism. - Slant Magazine
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| Posted Oct 17, 2020
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2.5/4 | 89% | Unpregnant (2020) |
Its few nutty ideas demonstrate how little distance Unpregnant manages to put between itself and a standard high-school comedy. - Slant Magazine
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| Posted Sep 8, 2020
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2/4 | 66% | Fisherman's Friends (2020) |
The script doesn't contain many lines that ring true, and a few clang wildly off-key. - Slant Magazine
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| Posted Jul 18, 2020
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3/4 | 96% | John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020) |
The film is well-outfitted with telling, thematically rich shards of historical information. - Slant Magazine
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| Posted Jun 29, 2020
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2.5/4 | 94% | A Regular Woman (Nur Eine Frau) (2020) |
Where When We Leave built to simple outage, this one concludes with a rush of complex, conflicting emotions. - Slant Magazine
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| Posted Jun 21, 2020
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97% | Why Don't You Just Die! (Papa, sdokhni) (2020) |
As reminiscent of Japan's Sion Sono as of Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino, Why Don't You Just Die! drips almost as much style as plasma. - NPR
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| Posted Apr 9, 2020
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2/4 | 51% | I Still Believe (2020) |
A sort of "Me, God and the Dying Girl," the movie is well-made (if slow) and features an attractive cast and a lot of amiable (if bland) religious pop-rock. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 15, 2020
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87% | Sorry We Missed You (2020) |
A lacerating social drama that proceeds to demolish the current corporate line on "gig work." - NPR
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| Posted Mar 5, 2020
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82% | The Whistlers (2020) |
If the film goes faster and farther than its predecessors, it does so at the expense of depth. That's intentional, though. - NPR
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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2/4 | 88% | Onward (2020) |
While Onward begins as a story of bereavement, it soon turns to celebrating the payoffs of positive thinking. - Slant Magazine
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| Posted Feb 21, 2020
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36% | The Night Clerk (2020) |
The film may intend to be a Rear Window for the mini-cam era, but it lacks Hitchockian perplexity and perversity. - NPR
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| Posted Feb 20, 2020
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79% | Buffaloed (2020) |
In 2017, Zoey Deutch managed to carry Flower, a brisk but slight comedy about an exuberant young hustler with Daddy issues. She does it again in Buffaloed, in which she plays pretty much the same character, but confronts a different social evil. - NPR
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| Posted Feb 13, 2020
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28% | The Rhythm Section (2020) |
What are crucially missing from this scenario, besides sheer believability, are wit, ambiguity and irony. - NPR
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| Posted Jan 30, 2020
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86% | Color Out of Space (2020) |
Despite all the peril, the film musters little urgency. It dawdles its way to a the final freakout, fueled by Colin Stetson's increasingly amok score. - NPR
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| Posted Jan 23, 2020
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81% | A Hidden Life (2019) |
As usual, Malick's style of storytelling is roundabout and allusive, but this time it seldom stalls. - NPR
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| Posted Dec 12, 2019
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3/4 | 97% | The Kingmaker (2019) |
"The Kingmaker" chills the soul by presenting shantytown residents and school kids who extol the Marcos regime and even endorse its eight-year period of martial law. - Washington Post
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| Posted Dec 11, 2019
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83% | Queen & Slim (2019) |
Queen & Slim is more interested in myth-making than storytelling, and viewers who don't care that much about the latter just might buy into the former. - NPR
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| Posted Nov 27, 2019
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90% | Dark Waters (2019) |
Ruffalo is one of the movie's producers, and he demonstrates his devotion to the project by receding into the role of the rumpled attorney. - NPR
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| Posted Nov 22, 2019
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1.5/4 | 26% | The Warrior Queen of Jhansi (2019) |
Considering all the blood spilled before and since, this epilogue doesn't feel quite so triumphant as "The Warrior Queen of Jhansi" wants it to be. - Washington Post
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| Posted Nov 12, 2019
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73% | Harriet (2019) |
If the movie doesn't burn as brightly as Tubman's legacy, the tale it tells is illuminating nonetheless. - NPR
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| Posted Oct 31, 2019
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61% | The Current War: Director's Cut (2019) |
This cut of The Current War packs enough cinematic flash to be a fitting homage to the inventor of the kinetograph. - NPR
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| Posted Oct 24, 2019
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2.5/4 | 94% | Western Stars (2019) |
It's basically a concert flick, with some extras. And those extras are not the best things in it. - Washington Post
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| Posted Oct 22, 2019
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79% | Loro (2019) |
Sorrentino's stylish but overloaded satire is less sober narrative than drunken tone poem - a buzzing, throbbing attempt to simulate the experience of living in Berlusconi-world. - NPR
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| Posted Sep 19, 2019
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92% | Monos (2019) |
To watch this fierce drama is to be welcomed to the jungle. - NPR.org
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| Posted Sep 12, 2019
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42% | Vita & Virginia (2019) |
The two women don't really seem to know each other very well. - NPR
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| Posted Aug 22, 2019
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3.5/4 | 98% | One Child Nation (2019) |
This is an important film, if often a difficult one to watch. - Washington Post
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| Posted Aug 14, 2019
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45% | After the Wedding (2019) |
If this redo is slick and shallow, it's nonetheless meticulously constructed and entirely watchable, with only a few histrionic moments. - NPR
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| Posted Aug 8, 2019
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90% | Tel Aviv on Fire (2019) |
The result is not exactly the most pointed satire ever devised by a Palestinian filmmaker, but it does elicit some smiles. - NPR
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| Posted Aug 2, 2019
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96% | I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari) (2019) |
Like other contemporary Romanian filmmakers, Jude is well attuned to human absurdities, especially those of pompous public officials. - NPR
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| Posted Jul 19, 2019
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77% | The Plagiarists (2019) |
The Plagiarists ponders authenticity, yet its characters and conflicts feel synthetic. - NPR
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| Posted Jun 27, 2019
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88% | 16 Shots (2019) |
The movie offers many pungent details, including a telling one it holds until the last moment, and is structured for maximum drama. - NPR
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| Posted Jun 6, 2019
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60% | The Fall of the American Empire (La chute de l'empire américain) (2019) |
The film's knowledge of everything from Stoic philosophy to money-laundering is refreshing. - NPR
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| Posted May 31, 2019
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1.5/4 | 41% | The Tomorrow Man (2019) |
The movie's ending could be called a twist. But it's really more of a belly flop. - Washington Post
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| Posted May 29, 2019
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89% | The Souvenir (2019) |
Hogg's confessional memoir draws you in, while her clinical style pushes you away. - NPR
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| Posted May 16, 2019
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94% | Shadow (2019) |
The ravishing costumes and sets are all in black, white, and watery shades of gray, as if they'd been conjured from Chinese calligraphy and ink paintings. - NPR
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| Posted May 2, 2019
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2/4 | 63% | Breakthrough (2019) |
"Breakthrough" glibly peddles miracles but is honest enough to admit that not everybody gets one. - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 16, 2019
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1/4 | 46% | Little (2019) |
Like most Hollywood movies that pretend to question the values of the filthy rich, "Little" implicitly endorses them. - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 12, 2019
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93% | Long Day's Journey Into Night (Di qiu zui hou de ye wan) (2019) |
What matters is what has already happened, even if it can't be precisely recalled, not what transpires in front of the camera. The wisp of a story is really just the occasion for impressionistic musing and evocative picturing. - NPR
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| Posted Apr 11, 2019
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2.5/4 | 82% | High Life (2019) |
[The] most amazing moments are never amazing enough to jar it out of its static orbit. - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 10, 2019
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2.5/4 | 54% | The Best of Enemies (2019) |
The mostly short scenes are often overpowered by pop songs - including incongruous choices from Donovan and David Bowie's back catalogues - and Henson's performance is so broad it verges on farcical. - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 4, 2019
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47% | The Chaperone (2019) |
While Norma awakens to fresh possibilities, her story remains a snooze. - NPR
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| Posted Mar 28, 2019
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99% | Ash Is Purest White (2019) |
Jia's films retain their documentary-like interest in real places and actual events, but acknowledge that depicting the new China requires a touch of surrealism. - NPR
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| Posted Mar 14, 2019
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1.5/4 | 33% | Mapplethorpe (2019) |
If the new biopic "Mapplethorpe" presents this transgressive vision is vivid detail - and it does - that's only because it includes so many of Mapplethorpe's pictures. Everything else in the film is timid and pedestrian. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 13, 2019
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2/4 | 93% | Giant Little Ones (2019) |
The plot may take an unexpected path, but that's not enough to make Franky and Ballas's story compelling. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 5, 2019
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68% | Climax (2019) |
The drawback, as Noé veterans will anticipate, is that his style trumps - no, obliterates - the scenario. Climax becomes steadily less thrilling as it approaches its, you know ... peak. - NPR
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| Posted Feb 28, 2019
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3/4 | 99% | Apollo 11 (2019) |
It's a more visceral trip than any moviegoer - even the armchair experts - has ever taken before. - Washington Post
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| Posted Feb 26, 2019
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95% | Hotel by the River (2019) |
Shot in wintry black-and-white, Hotel by the River folds Hong's usual concerns into a structure that's more complex than usual. - NPR
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| Posted Feb 14, 2019
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2.5/4 | 69% | Cold Pursuit (2019) |
This is a movie in which nearly every one of the abundant killings is not just an act of justice, but also a blackly comic punchline. - Washington Post
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| Posted Feb 7, 2019
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90% | Arctic (2019) |
The simple yet intense scenario makes Arctic a taut, cohesive exercise for Penna and editor and co-writer Ryan Morrison. It's also a fine showcase for Mikkelsen, playing a man who's resourceful but no more heroic than he needs to be. - NPR
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| Posted Jan 31, 2019
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