Paul Attanasio
Paul Attanasio's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Washington Post
| Publications: | Washington Post |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 38% | Rocky IV (1985) |
Say what you like about the original Rocky, at least it was about something -- a sweet pug up against the system, and in love with a dowd. Rocky IV appears to be an epic about Sylvester Stallone's penchant for self-abuse.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Dec 2, 2018
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| 81% | Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) |
"Down and Out,"... is a failed fish-out-of-water story.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 88% | The Breakfast Club (1985) |
Taking place almost entirely in one room, "The Breakfast Club" is the kind of movie -- and the kind of play -- that's hardly seen anymore. And good riddance.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 78% | Pretty in Pink (1986) |
... in the end "Pretty in Pink" is as fraudulent as the junk it's supposed to transcend.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 50% | The Razor's Edge (1984) |
An adaptation of the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, this longtime pet project of Murray's will only disappoint his many fans.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 100% | Desert Hearts (1986) |
... this is an astonishingly polished and nuanced first film. It deserves to be celebrated, not quibbled with.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 83% | The Flamingo Kid (1984) |
The movie has an engaging surface, but it's all surface -- it's like watching an outsize TV.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 94% | Manhunter (1986) |
... "Manhunter" is a gory and gorgeous cop thriller...‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 29% | Breakin' 2 - Electric Boogaloo (1984) |
Such aggressive photography could lend John Candy the grace of Gregory Hines.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 95% | The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) |
... an unremarkable documentary about the San Francisco politico...‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 80% | Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) |
It's comic books in a Cuisinart, all costumes and cute monikers and no story, a sort of case history of just what's wrong with sequelitis.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 92% | Witness (1985) |
What saves "Witness" is its cast, and Weir's artistry in orchestrating and modulating their performances.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 54% | Vision Quest (1985) |
That's the problem with all of "Vision Quest" -- when the movie ends with Louden narrating off-screen his "live for today" philosophy, it's plausible in his mouth, a joke for adults.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 86% | Once Upon a Time in America (1984) |
The movie's four hours long, but no one had the time to write a single real character.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 93% | The Killing Fields (1984) |
... a visually arresting epic guaranteed to capture the hearts and minds of its audience.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Marie - A True Story (1985) |
Despite a truly remarkable study in Wonder Bread villainy by Jeff Daniels, "Marie: A True Story" is never more than a TV-style docudrama about Fighting Back.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 33% | Creator (1985) |
How did a movie this mindlessly saccharine ever get made?‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 71% | The Little Drummer Girl (1984) |
Like an enchanted escape artist, director George Roy Hill has pulled off that rarest of Hollywood feats -- the thriller of ideas.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 50% | Power (1986) |
Before it turns slack and sentimental, "Power," Sidney Lumet's foray into the world of political consultants, crackles with a kind of moral static.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 78% | Body Double (1984) |
... "Body Double" finds Brian De Palma at the zenith of his cinematic virtuosity.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 55% | Dune (1984) |
As you would expect from visionary director David Lynch, it is a movie of often staggering visual power, the most ambitious science fiction film since "2001"; it's also stupefyingly dull and disorderly.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 50% | Mischief (1985) |
"Mischief," in other words, is echt teen sex comedy, hitting its marks in the way a skilled carpenter drives home his millionth nail.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 88% | The Brother from Another Planet (1984) |
Sayles is no storyteller; despite the verve of its language, "The Brother From Another Planet" eventually sags of its own weight.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 45% | Agnes of God (1985) |
What "Agnes of God" needed was a director like David "Scanners" Cronenberg, the Bergman of blood, who would compose a fantasia upon it, drag it down to its B-movie roots.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 58% | Falling in Love (1984) |
Can contemporary romance be this flat?‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 92% | Lost Horizon (1937) |
Great directors are perhaps best understood by their failures, and such is the case with "Lost Horizon.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 64% | Ladyhawke (1985) |
Unfortunately, director Richard Donner never quite gets the tone right, and the pace is positively stuporous. The horses gallop, but the film barely canters.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 83% | An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino) (1977) |
"An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano" is buoyed by a cast that is uniformly excellent...‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 36% | Mrs. Soffel (1984) |
In "Mrs. Soffel," director Gillian Armstrong is so enthralled with her feminist message that she never lets her story breathe.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 25% | Protocol (1984) |
"Protocol" is the kind of corny screwball comedy you thought nobody made anymore.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 71% | Micki + Maude (1984) |
Who expected Dudley Moore to be a cerebral actor?‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 40% | The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) |
"The Legend of Billie Jean" is partly intended as a satire of the American machine of celebrity, but it's mostly supposed to be taken straight, and much of the fun of the movie lies in trying to tell the two apart.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 29% | Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985) |
They're not movies so much as variety shows featuring talented young comics.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 20% | Iron Eagle (1986) |
... there's no apparent logic to any of this, except as a way to capitalize on the current vogue for imperialist fervor and steal the thunder from Paramount's "Top Gun,"...‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 75% | Better Off Dead (1985) |
Mired in this is Cusack ("The Sure Thing"), an unusually adept verbal comedian not so adept (to his credit) at this kind of slapstick.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 96% | Stranger Than Paradise (1984) |
Daring in its conception but made with a watchmaker's care, "Stranger Than Paradise" is a playfully eclectic, formally perfect gem. It is also a persistently funny film that owes as much to "The Honeymooners" as it does to the avant-garde.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 30% | Secret Admirer (1985) |
Director David Greenwalt has brought "Secret Admirer" a sense of visual style, some energy and a few good zingers, but the movie (which he cowrote with Jim Kouf) is smothered by the formula.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 86% | A Private Function (1985) |
"A Private Function" is an amusing farce in the tradition of old Ealing studio comedies like "The Lavender Hill Mob," and like those movies, it never quite ignites.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 84% | Runaway Train (1985) |
"Runaway Train" isn't just bad -- it's bodaciously bad, grotesquely overblown, lurid in its emotion, big ideas on its brain.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 50% | Lady Jane (1986) |
Overall, the movie is cloddishly composed, with awkward zooms and theatrical blocking.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Moving Violations (1985) |
... just "Police Academy" all over again, without laughs.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 10% | Supergirl (1984) |
Movies like "Supergirl" succeed when they have fun with their material, rather than making fun of it.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 31% | The Best of Times (1986) |
... what it really resembles, more than anything, is a teen comedy populated by adults.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 50% | The Jewel of the Nile (1985) |
Director Lewis Teague uses the frame the way a magician uses a hat or a handkerchief: surprises are always popping into it, or out of its shadows.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 80% | The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) |
Thank heavens these spies come in from the cold -- it's frozen their brains.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 53% | The Last Dragon (1985) |
An intoxicating blend of comedy, kung fu, corny romance, special effects and rock videos, it's as electrically sleepless as the New York it's set against.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 20% | City Heat (1984) |
... the movie's never as good as it might have been.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 85% | Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) |
... a flaccid gabfest from beginning to end that manages to both undermine politics and trivialize art.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 72% | Murphy's Romance (1985) |
... an enjoyable, if decidedly minor, love story...‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 77% | Silverado (1985) |
The western is back, and with writer/director Lawrence Kasdan at the reins, you're glad to see it.‐ Washington Post
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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