Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams
Mary Elizabeth Williams's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): L.A. Weekly Salon.com
Publications: L.A. Weekly, Salon.com

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
98% The Go-Go's (2020) Watching the film, it's pure pleasure to witness such scrappy exuberance, such mayhem so enthusiastically pursued. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2020
100% Athlete A (2020) There are moments in Athlete A that will make you gasp at the brazen brutality of Nassar's crimes. Yet it never feels prurient or sensationalized. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 25, 2020
92% Hannah Gadsby: Douglas (2020) Gadsby is no everywoman, her worldview is entirely her own. That's why she stands out, at once fiercely and quietly, like a tiny, perfect lion. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2020
57% Resistance (2020) It feels important to remember what humans can endure in the darkest hours, and that those hours can pass. Most significantly, Resistance is a reminder of the truly lifesaving work of artists. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 30, 2020
87% Emma. (2020) This new "Emma." -- yes, with a period affixed to the name -- is one that knows in its bones that Austen wrote the first great teen comedy, and runs with that joyfully. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 21, 2020
78% Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) Come for the ass kicking, stay for the takedown of rape culture. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 7, 2020
95% Little Women (2019) It acknowledges the tradeoffs we still have to reckon with, but it celebrates them. And it brilliantly, movingly puts forth the simple, timeless notion that sisterhood is always powerful. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2019
20% Cats (2019) There's something uniquely fun about seeing the likes of Ian McKellen and Jennifer Hudson fully committing to their down-on-their-paws characters, a spirited sense of shared strangeness. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 23, 2019
84% Her Smell (2019) For all its yelling and theatrics, Her Smell can't even be bothered to figure out where the outlet is. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 11, 2019
97% Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018) As Oscar winner Morgan Neville's timely, tear-duct lubricating documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" makes clear, the easily parodied, often underestimated icon of children's television was a total badass. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 14, 2018
98% Get Out (2017) By focusing the storyline on a particular form of racism -- the kind that's often disguised as peculiar envy -- Get Out reveals something more insidious. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 27, 2017
32% Austenland (2013) It says weirdos deserve romance too, and that Austenland isn't so much a page in a book or a place on a map, but a corner of your heart. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2013
85% You've Been Trumped (2012) As Baxter demonstrates with agonizing, unflinching clarity, the result was a community and a land that were literally rolled over in the name corporate greed - and with the apparent blessing of the local authorities. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2012
4% A Little Bit Of Heaven (2012) A moment of silence, please, for Kate Hudson's career. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2012
93% 50/50 (2011) What ensues is "Beaches" meets "Pineapple Express." Which, I've got to tell you, is pretty much what living with cancer is like. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 30, 2011
17% I Don't Know How She Does It (2011) What the hell happened to Sarah Jessica Parker? - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 15, 2011
90% Bridesmaids (2011) It's a movie that succeeds, often beautifully, not by forcing its characters to be as naughty and gross and pathetic as men are. It soars by letting them be as naughty and gross and pathetic as women are. Three cheers for equality. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted May 10, 2011
60% Water for Elephants (2011) The problem isn't just miscasting or the cheesiness of the material. It's Pattinson's increasingly predictable, dour persona. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 21, 2011
66% The Karate Kid (2010) It was resonant in the gung-ho '80s, and it's a notion every generation deserves to discover anew. Based on the young Smith's considerable wattage, this Kid may just surpass the original. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 11, 2010
58% Shrek Forever After (2010) Like last year's Up, this isn't merely a cute kid's movie with funny one-liners and adorable critters. It's a soulful meditation on the age-old question: Is that all there is? - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted May 21, 2010
42% Letters to Juliet (2010) Letters to Juliet is a by-the-numbers romantic comedy -- and I mean that in a good way. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted May 13, 2010
66% Date Night (2010) What comes as a welcome surprise is how Date Night manages to make sport of romantic movie conventions without being mean about them. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 9, 2010
49% Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) When the movie slows down to catch its breath, there's very little of the heart and soul -- and wry wit -- that make the Riordan books so beloved. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 11, 2010
12% Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009) While it fails on nearly every conceivable level, as a textbook case in everything contemptible in the studio system, Did You Hear About the Morgans? is as good as it gets. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2009
85% The Princess and the Frog (2009) The sweetest, most sincere romantic comedy to come along in ages, and a luminous love letter to a great American city. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 24, 2009
52% Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) Have we learned nothing from The Klumps? - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 5, 2009
35% Pride and Glory (2008) What makes the characters in Pride and Glory real -- and raises the movie above the standard corrupt-cop fare -- is their capacity to live and die in shades of gray. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2008
36% How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) Like the characters it portrays, How to Lose Friends eventually becomes the very thing it mocks, its delectable naughtiness sacrificed to sentiment and audience appeal. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2008
18% Righteous Kill (2008) Director Jon Avnet generously puts the actors together as often as possible, and the sheer satisfaction of watching Michael Corleone and Travis Bickle spark off each other almost mitigates the utter hokum that permeates every other element of the film. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 12, 2008
14% The Women (2008) You go, girls. Preferably as far away as possible. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 12, 2008
17% The Happening (2008) Shyamalan's such an eager recycler, grinding out the same ideas and images again and again. The man who showed such promise less than a decade ago has been leaving a diminishing creative footprint ever since. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 13, 2008
26% What Happens in Vegas (2008) You'd think the combination of Diaz, Kutcher and Vegas would be good for at least a little sexy, silly fun. But don't bet on it. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted May 9, 2008
80% Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008) doesn't have the brisk economy of the original book, but the animated Horton feels nevertheless close to the sweet, quirky heart of Dr. Seuss. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 14, 2008
70% Definitely, Maybe (2008) Definitely, Maybe isn't a particularly good movie. It's hard to make either romance or comedy out of relationship wreckage, not to mention career ennui, and the pace is often meandering and sulky. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 14, 2008
41% 27 Dresses (2008) The biggest disappointment of 27 Dresses is that it inhabits a Harlequin romance New York City, one remarkably short on homosexuals and divorce. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2008
19% The Invasion (2007) Gratuitously violent [and] soullessly brain dead. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2007
7% License to Wed (2007) Despite its fuzzy, getting-to-know-you message, the movie itself offers zero motivation for any of its protagonists. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 6, 2007
71% Baby Boy (2001) [Jody's] lessons on growing up and moving on never ring more than halfhearted and false. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 6, 2001
63% Music of the Heart (1999) Another utterly bland lump of Hollywood crapola. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
96% The Iron Giant (1999) The metal-machine sci-fi cartoon delivers robot action, retro nostalgia and stony metaphysics. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
75% Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1999) We've heard it all before, and usually with a slightly more comprehensible accent. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
16% Dudley Do-Right (1999) In the end, it's neither Dudley Do-Right nor Do-Wrong, but merely Dudley Do-Just-So-So. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
46% The Way of the Gun (2000) McQuarrie has inserted some of the most groan-worthy dialogue outside of the porn world. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
45% Holy Smoke (2000) Campion, who co-wrote the script with her sister Anna, appears to have spent so much time and energy creating Ruth that she didn't have anything left over for rest of the characters. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
92% Election (1999) A tart study in teacher-student relations, adolescent pecking orders and the nasty vicissitudes of living in a world of haves and have-nots. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
10% Woo (1998) Woo may be as skimpy as a sequined halter top, but it's undeniably appealing nonetheless. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
81% Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) Dark, bitingly funny! - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
45% Mickey Blue Eyes (1999) Uninspired, recycled! - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
9% The Bachelor (1999) The Bachelor doesn't generate enough laughs or sighs to hold together. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000
53% Original Gangstas (1996) Where Original Gangstas works is in its understanding that the stars are playing the characters they created 25 years ago as their older selves. - Salon.com EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 1, 2000