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
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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
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| Posted Aug 3, 2020
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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
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| Posted Jun 25, 2020
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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
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| Posted Jun 5, 2020
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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
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| Posted Mar 30, 2020
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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
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| Posted Feb 21, 2020
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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
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| Posted Feb 7, 2020
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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
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| Posted Dec 26, 2019
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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
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| Posted Dec 23, 2019
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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
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| Posted Apr 11, 2019
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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
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| Posted Jun 14, 2018
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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
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| Posted Mar 27, 2017
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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
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| Posted Aug 16, 2013
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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
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| Posted Aug 3, 2012
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4% | A Little Bit Of Heaven (2012) |
A moment of silence, please, for Kate Hudson's career. - Salon.com
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| Posted May 3, 2012
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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
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| Posted Sep 30, 2011
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17% | I Don't Know How She Does It (2011) |
What the hell happened to Sarah Jessica Parker? - Salon.com
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| Posted Sep 15, 2011
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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
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| Posted May 10, 2011
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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
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| Posted Apr 21, 2011
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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
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| Posted Jun 11, 2010
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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
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| Posted May 21, 2010
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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
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| Posted May 13, 2010
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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
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| Posted Apr 9, 2010
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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
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| Posted Feb 11, 2010
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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
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| Posted Dec 21, 2009
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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
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| Posted Nov 24, 2009
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52% | Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) |
Have we learned nothing from The Klumps? - Salon.com
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| Posted Nov 5, 2009
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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
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| Posted Oct 24, 2008
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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
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| Posted Oct 3, 2008
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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
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| Posted Sep 12, 2008
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14% | The Women (2008) |
You go, girls. Preferably as far away as possible. - Salon.com
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| Posted Sep 12, 2008
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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
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| Posted Jun 13, 2008
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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
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| Posted May 9, 2008
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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
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| Posted Mar 14, 2008
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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
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| Posted Feb 14, 2008
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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
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| Posted Jan 18, 2008
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19% | The Invasion (2007) |
Gratuitously violent [and] soullessly brain dead. - Salon.com
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| Posted Aug 16, 2007
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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
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| Posted Jul 6, 2007
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71% | Baby Boy (2001) |
[Jody's] lessons on growing up and moving on never ring more than halfhearted and false. - Salon.com
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| Posted Jul 6, 2001
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63% | Music of the Heart (1999) |
Another utterly bland lump of Hollywood crapola. - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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96% | The Iron Giant (1999) |
The metal-machine sci-fi cartoon delivers robot action, retro nostalgia and stony metaphysics. - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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75% | Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1999) |
We've heard it all before, and usually with a slightly more comprehensible accent. - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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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
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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46% | The Way of the Gun (2000) |
McQuarrie has inserted some of the most groan-worthy dialogue outside of the porn world. - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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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
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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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
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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10% | Woo (1998) |
Woo may be as skimpy as a sequined halter top, but it's undeniably appealing nonetheless. - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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81% | Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) |
Dark, bitingly funny! - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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45% | Mickey Blue Eyes (1999) |
Uninspired, recycled! - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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9% | The Bachelor (1999) |
The Bachelor doesn't generate enough laughs or sighs to hold together. - Salon.com
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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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
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| Posted Jan 1, 2000
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