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
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 58% | 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
Read More | Posted Jun 7, 2018
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| 85% | 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
Read More | Posted May 31, 2018
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| 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
Read More | Posted May 30, 2018
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| 33% | 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
Read More | Posted May 24, 2018
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| 94% | 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
Read More | Posted May 10, 2018
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| 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
Read More | Posted May 1, 2018
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| 48% | 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
Read More | Posted Apr 26, 2018
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| 55% | 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
Read More | Posted Apr 19, 2018
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| 77% | 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
Read More | Posted Apr 12, 2018
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| 92% | Lean on Pete (2018) |
As its scenario goes from sad to worse...the movie seems to aspire only to bumming everybody out.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Apr 5, 2018
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| 2.5/4 | 47% | The Miracle Season (2018) |
It's no champion, but it's still a reasonably good cry.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Apr 5, 2018
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| 2.5/4 | 100% | Lives Well Lived (2018) |
Their stories are eventful and moving, and well supported by archival photos and footage.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Apr 4, 2018
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| 70% | 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
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2018
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| 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
Read More | Posted Mar 21, 2018
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| 25% | 7 Days in Entebbe (2018) |
Even a tight timeline can't keep the movie on track.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2018
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| 2.5/4 | 92% | Love, Simon (2018) |
The movie is well-made and likable, without any major missteps. It's also just a little bland.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2018
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| 95% | November (2018) |
The movie's central story, a tortured-love triangle, is slight. But the context is fascinating and the visual style bewitching.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2018
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| 71% | Double Lover (L'amant double) (2018) |
It does rely on certain Gallic attitudes toward women that don't travel well. Louis' psychiatric method could reasonably be described as sexual assault, and the notion that Chloe might be "hysterical" is at best archaic.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Feb 15, 2018
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| 2/4 | 33% | The Monkey King 3 (2018) |
Much of "The Monkey King 3" is devoted to philosophical musing and romantic mooning, the latter cued to a drippy ballad.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Feb 15, 2018
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| 62% | Peter Rabbit (2018) |
Peter Rabbit is sometimes crass, but more often simply dull.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Feb 8, 2018
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| 77% | Before We Vanish (Sanpo suru shinryakusha) (2018) |
Although a tighter cut of the 130-minute Before We Vanish would likely be an improvement, it might lose this version's intriguing asides.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
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| 87% | A Ciambra (2018) |
While A Ciambra is not a happy story, its vigor and authenticity deliver a sort of joy.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Jan 25, 2018
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| 84% | The Final Year (2018) |
Gradually documentarian Greg Barker's look at Barack Obama's foreign policy team comes into focus, thanks in large part to the counterpoint played by the Trump campaign.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2018
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| 83% | Lover For A Day (L'amant d'un jour) (2018) |
Despite its neo-new-wave style, Lover for a Day is neither offhand nor autobiographical.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Jan 11, 2018
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| 77% | In the Land of Pomegranates (2018) |
If watching it is frustrating, so is the larger process of seeking understanding, or at least a nonviolent mutual tolerance.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 75% | In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts) (2017) |
In the Fade boasts an assured sense of style and a meticulously constructed script. Moments that initially appear to be asides turn out to be essential, and the final scenes of the first two chapters are vivid and startling.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Dec 28, 2017
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| 78% | The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017) |
Jared Moshe, the writer and director of The Ballad of Lefty Brown, is a fan of classic Westerns and he's made a movie that should please fellow aficionados.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Dec 14, 2017
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| 2/4 | 33% | The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (2017) |
The story is motley and not very involving, and the anything-goes CGI undermines the battle sequences.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Dec 14, 2017
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| 3/4 | 85% | Youth (Fang Hua) (2017) |
Feng [snakes] his camera exuberantly though scenes that highlight colorful costumes, dynamic choreography and beautiful chorines.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Dec 13, 2017
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| 0% | November Criminals (2017) |
Sam Munson's 2010 novel The November Criminals is the kind of book that attracts smart filmmakers and serious actors - that then, all too often, gets diluted into a bland disappointment like November Criminals.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2017
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| 91% | The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) (2017) |
The filmmaker's universe is both deeply ordinary and just a little uncanny.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Nov 30, 2017
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| 2.5/4 | 40% | The Swindlers (2017) |
An entertaining if mostly routine con-game thriller.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Nov 30, 2017
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| 85% | Wonder (2017) |
The movie's biggest fantasy is a world where there are no fundamental conflicts, only misunderstandings.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
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| 3/4 | 98% | BPM (Beats Per Minute) (120 battements par minute) (2017) |
"BPM" is often exhilarating and ultimately moving, but it makes few concessions to audiences without a strong preexisting interest in its subject.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
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| 93% | Thelma (2017) |
Trier is a ingenious filmmaker, and he makes Thelma visually compelling even when the story lazily turns to the usual scare-flick tropes.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Nov 9, 2017
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| 75% | 11/8/16 (2017) |
It's a tightly woven series of closeups of a diverse, divided populace.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 2.5/4 | 85% | Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no jûnin) (2017) |
"Blade" goes for the carotid while offering a classic look and a comic-book story. It's part Kurosawa, part "X-Men," part "Ichi the Killer."‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 84% | The Square (2017) |
The argument in favor of The Square is not that it's great fun to watch, but that it's very entertaining to ponder after viewing. It lingers, both amusingly and disturbingly.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2017
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| 1.5/4 | 29% | All I See Is You (2017) |
Despite a modicum of visual style and competent performances, it is unable to keep us guessing - or, more important, to make us care - long enough to work up true suspense.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2017
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| 2.5/4 | 94% | Chavela (2017) |
A solid if conventional bio.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2017
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| 67% | Wonderstruck (2017) |
Wonderstruck offers much to occupy the eyes and minds of movie buffs and Haynes fans. Yet there's little room left for insight and emotion in this overstuffed cabinet of curiosities.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2017
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| 87% | Professor Marston & The Wonder Women (2017) |
Sweet and rather silly, the movie is entertaining. It's rarely persuasive, however, and generally seems like a missed opportunity.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2017
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| 2.5/4 | 92% | Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) |
Writer-director S. Craig Zahler takes his handiwork so seriously that viewers may do the same.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2017
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| 40% | The Mountain Between Us (2017) |
J. Mills Goodloe and Chris Weitz's script ... dispenses backstory as if through an I.V. drip, designed to just barely sustain the audience's interest. Most of the time, character development is buried under fresh powder.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2017
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| 35% | Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017) |
Despite all the revelations about Felt's career and family, he is no more complex a character at the end than at the beginning. Neeson's performance is all steel-spined bearing and resonant intonation.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
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| 2/4 | No Score Yet | Stopping Traffic: The Movement to End Sex Trafficking (2017) |
As both a movie and a battle plan for ending the child-sex trade, "Stopping Traffic" is disorganized and incomplete.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
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| 3/4 | 100% | Two Trains Runnin' (2016) |
The movie's thesis is that the 1960s' political clashes and cultural revelations were essentially linked, and equally liberating.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2017
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| 96% | Ex Libris: New York Public Library (2017) |
Ex Libris's graceful exit suggests that Wiseman always knew exactly where he was headed.‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Sep 14, 2017
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| 95% | Spettacolo (2017) |
[An] engaging documentary ...‐ NPR
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2017
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| 3/4 | 100% | Twenty Two (2017) |
For viewers unfamiliar with the topic, "Twenty Two" provides the basic facts about the estimated 200,000 women enslaved in Japanese-occupied China.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Sep 7, 2017
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