Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): Washington Post Orlando Weekly NPR.org NPR

Publications: Washington Post, Orlando Weekly, NPR.org, NPR

Movie Reviews Only

Movies

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
	98%	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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 14, 2019
1.5/4	32%	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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 13, 2019
2/4	88%	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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 5, 2019
	71%	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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 28, 2019
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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 26, 2019
	96%	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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 14, 2019
2.5/4	70%	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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 7, 2019
	88%	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 EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 31, 2019
	89%	Who Will Write Our History (2019)	The filmmakers aren't simply trying to appeal to viewers who might be bored by a movie constructed entirely of historical material. The mix of old and new elements actually makes an argument for the movie's approach. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 17, 2019
	No Score Yet	Jobe'z World (2019)	Jobe'z World's screenplay begins with a promising scenario, but most of its eccentric characters - including Jobe himself - are sketchy, and the dialogue needs a couple more spins through the word processor. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 10, 2019
2/4	73%	On the Basis of Sex (2019)	As filmmaking, it's clunky, but as fan service, it's more effective. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 25, 2018
	92%	Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018)	Cold War is an ode to joylessness that feels historically credible but narratively arbitrary. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 20, 2018
	27%	Mortal Engines (2018)	Mortal Engines marshals billions of pixels and barely an iota of inspiration. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 13, 2018
2/4	81%	Ben is Back (2018)	The tight time frame gives the movie a welcome urgency, but it doesn't prevent its second half from becoming lurid and melodramatic. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 11, 2018
	76%	Never Look Away (2019)	Never Look Away is philosophically vexing. But it's a good story well-told, and never grows tiresome despite its three-hour running time. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 29, 2018
	78%	Green Book (2018)	A well-meaning but glib and shallow ode to interracial healing. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 21, 2018
	40%	The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018)	If this twinning gambit is more playful than profound, it suits a movie that's both narratively and conceptually repetitive. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 8, 2018
2.5/4	81%	Boy Erased (2018)	It's well-meaning and finely crafted, yet short on surprises, either narrative or emotional. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 6, 2018
	90%	A Private War (2018)	Amel maintains an effective balance between explicating the business of journalism, simulating the horrors of armed conflict, and conveying the effect both are having on Colvin's body and soul. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 1, 2018
	92%	Life and Nothing More (La Vida y Nada Más) (2018)	Unsweetened by any score and unwilling to supply an emotional payoff, the film sometimes plays more like anthropology than cinema. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 25, 2018
2.5/4	87%	What They Had (2018)	What works best here comes between the movie's heavy opening and its lightweight conclusion. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 23, 2018
2.5/4	70%	The Happy Prince (2018)	"The Happy Prince" conveys the declining Wilde's pain, despair and self-pity, but also the writer's defiant banter. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 15, 2018
	90%	The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)	Colangelo's best move was to cast Gyllenhaal, who captures Lisa's conflicted emotions in subtle gestures and expressions, never overplaying. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 11, 2018
3/4	80%	22 July (2018)	Greengrass previously excelled at depicting events that overwhelmed individuals; in "22 July," he demonstrates how one deluded zealot can shake an entire country. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 9, 2018
	85%	Monsters and Men (2018)	Monsters and Men offers neither unalloyed despair nor implausible hope. It's about the way people of color live now, moving through the streets with passion, purpose and one eye on the rear-view mirror. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 27, 2018
	64%	Lizzie (2018)	The movie's handsome appearance is complemented by assured performances. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 14, 2018
	96%	Bisbee '17 (2018)	Like many arty contemporary documentaries, Bisbee '17 is rather theatrical. But that's reasonable in this case... - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 6, 2018
2.5/4	92%	Searching (2018)	[A] clever but silicon-chip-thin movie... - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 29, 2018
	93%	Support the Girls (2018)	A sometimes winning but fatally underwritten workplace comedy. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 23, 2018
	83%	Juliet, Naked (2018)	What beguiles, aside from the winning performances, are the movie's generous spirit, shifting tone, and wealth of quickly sketched yet sufficiently realized supporting characters. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 16, 2018
	92%	Nico, 1988 (2018)	[Dyrholm] plays Nico as perplexing and intriguing, ethereal yet earthy. She manages to make the viewer understand why some people wanted to be around the singer, even though she was demanding, exasperating and untrustworthy - in short, a junkie. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 1, 2018
	89%	Far From the Tree (2018)	The movie plays more like a sketch than a full study. The odd thing is that it's a sketch for a larger work that already exists. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 19, 2018
	93%	Sorry to Bother You (2018)	Sorry to Bother You takes too long to get to a payoff that's impressively brash but too surreal to function as satire. Yet tightening and focusing the movie's script probably wouldn't have helped. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 5, 2018
	69%	Damsel (2018)	Damsel goes for rueful smiles, not uproarious laughs. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 21, 2018
	57%	Hotel Artemis (2018)	The movie's premise is enjoyable, even if stitched together from a pile of dystopian hand-me-downs, and the comic moments are sharp. What fails is the pacing and, ultimately, the plot. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 7, 2018
	88%	American Animals (2018)	Stuffed with references to classic crime flicks, American Animals is British writer-director Bart Layton's clever and assured bid to rival Stanley Kubrick and Quentin Tarantino. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted May 31, 2018
2/4	86%	Upgrade (2018)	Although writer-director Leigh Whannell's themes are as predictable as his premise, the action scenes are efficient and effective. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted May 30, 2018
	40%	Mary Shelley (2018)	Viewers may initially find Fanning's American-girl presence jarring, but she holds her own - and her accent. By the movie's end, her performance has come to seem as authentic as anything else in this perfumed account. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted May 24, 2018
	93%	Beast (2018)	Pearce has some mildly wicked fun with his scenario, winking as he stages such routine thriller-flick maneuvers as having the lights suddenly cut out. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted May 10, 2018
3/4	84%	Disobedience (2018)	What warmth there is - and it is considerable - radiates from its three lead performers and a script that treats each of the central characters as neither hero nor villain. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted May 1, 2018
	55%	Mrs. Hyde (Madame Hyde) (2018)	Mrs. Hyde has its keen moments, but it lacks a thesis. If it were a term paper, any conscientious teacher would send it back for a rewrite. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 26, 2018
	54%	Godard Mon Amour (Le redoutable) (2018)	Perhaps Hazanavicius thought he'd follow his subject's example and simply jump-cut from happy to sad. Godard had the verve to get away with it, but Godard Mon Amour doesn't. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 19, 2018
	82%	Beirut (2018)	It's hardly a stretch for Hamm to play a man who's clever, disenchanted, and charismatically dissolute. But he does it as surely as he ever has, and Pike is more convincing as a Yank than she was a German in 7 Days in Entebbe. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 12, 2018
	91%	Lean on Pete (2018)	As its scenario goes from sad to worse...the movie seems to aspire only to bumming everybody out. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 5, 2018
2.5/4	50%	The Miracle Season (2018)	It's no champion, but it's still a reasonably good cry. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 5, 2018
2.5/4	100%	Lives Well Lived (2018)	Their stories are eventful and moving, and well supported by archival photos and footage. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 4, 2018
	68%	Finding Your Feet (2018)	Whether it's inspired, perverse, or just lazy to make over-60 actors prance through familiar rom-com routines, Staunton, Spall, and Imrie are up to the task. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 29, 2018
2.5/4	100%	Keep the Change (2018)	What distinguishes it are Israel's empathetic characterizations - she's known Polansky for 15 years - and the winning performances, not only by the leads but also by the supporting players. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 21, 2018
	24%	7 Days in Entebbe (2018)	Even a tight timeline can't keep the movie on track. - NPR EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 15, 2018
2.5/4	91%	Love, Simon (2018)	The movie is well-made and likable, without any major missteps. It's also just a little bland. - Washington Post EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 15, 2018

Best Reviewed Movies

4/4 I Wish 3.5/4 A Summer's Tale 3.5/4 Rebels of the Neon God 3.5/4 La princesse de Montpensier (The Princess of Montpensier) 3.5/4 Mysteries of Lisbon