Peter Canavese

Tomatometer-approved critic

Biography:

Since 1987, Peter "Groucho" Canavese has been writing film reviews and articles in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. Peter authors and maintains an exhaustive website called GrouchoReviews and is the chief film critic for monthly ON Magazine (since 1995), and Celluloid Dreams, a weekly radio show devoted to film (Celluloid Dreams runs on KSJS?90.5 FM?every Monday at 5pm). Since 2009, he has regularly contributed film reviews to Palo Alto Weekly. His reviews have also appeared in the San Jose Mercury News (1991-1994), in Bay Area weekly Alternate101 (2007-2008), and on Portland's 1190 KEX drive-time show Mark & Dave (2008).

Favorites:

Citizen Kane, Brazil, Duck Soup, Ikiru, North by Northwest, 8 1/2

Publications: Palo Alto Weekly, ON Magazine, Groucho Reviews, Celluloid Dreams

Location: San Jose, CA

Official Websites: grouchoreviews.com

Movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
.5/4	No Score Yet	The F**k-It List (2020)	Pays lip service to questioning the systemic fallacies of American education and capitalism but offers only the shallowest of platitudes in their place before an ending that says f**k it to the notion of a coherent message. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 7, 2020
1/4	15%	Desperados (2020)	Another resort-set rom com that strings together attempts at outrageous sexual humor while trying to convince us to have faith in a truly horrid protagonist. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 7, 2020
3.5/4	99%	Hamilton (2020)	Powerfully performed and beautifully structured. With its melodic and lyrical motifs, it's densely packed, witty, and emotional...imperfect as history but still a phenomenon and a public service. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 7, 2020
3.5/4	96%	First Cow (2020)	Convincingly transports us to 19th century frontier America while keeping one foot firmly planted in our not-so-evolved 21st century landscape. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 7, 2020
2/4	85%	Nobody Knows I'm Here (Nadie Sabe que estoy Aquí) (2020)	Has a poetic soul but there's too much broth here and not enough meat. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
2.5/4	63%	Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)	Threads the needle of being mocking and celebratory at the same time...bloated but offers up ideally absurd trappings for Ferrell's brand of comedy. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
3.5/4	100%	Athlete A (2020)	Incredibly damning and presented with an audiovisual impact that the written word of its journalistic source couldn't fully capture. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
2/4	48%	My Spy (2020)	Belongs to that dubious and very practiced subgenre of action comedy that awkwardly marries an impossibly precocious tyke to a macho man, getting him in touch with his sensitivity and the kid in touch with casually normalized fatal violence. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
3.5/4	100%	Welcome to Chechnya (2020)	France answers horror with hope in this searing record of human rights abuses and heroic activism. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
3/4	91%	The Outpost (2020)	Camaraderie and carnage...honors military sacrifice while acknowledging the waste of human life in service of a murky mission. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
3/4	94%	John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020)	A living legend of the American civil rights movement gets his documentary spotlight, and the results cannot help but inspire despite a surface-skimming feel. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
3/4	86%	The Truth (La vérité) (2020)	Deneuve and Binoche as mother and daughter are worth the price of admission, and Kore-eda brings a thematic playfulness to bear. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 1, 2020
1/4	No Score Yet	Run with the Hunted (2020)	Feels like a TV season's worth of script had to be hacked down to 90m, resulting in incoherent near-pointlessness. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2020
3/4	41%	Irresistible (2020)	Pitched somewhere between Capra and 'Primary Colors', Stewart's tart political satire entertains as it wishes on a fix to our broken electoral machinery."\ - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2020
2.5/4	73%	Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019)	Another solid survey of Cohn's career and personal life that inevitably struggles to humanize an inhumane man. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2020
3.5/4	98%	Disclosure (2020)	An instantly essential film history and social plea that does for the trans community what 'The Celluloid Closet' did for gays and lesbians. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2020
2.5/4	93%	Dads (2020)	Exactly what it looks like: a celebrity-seasoned look at the benefits and best practices of fatherhood. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2020
3.5/4	99%	Miss Juneteenth (2020)	A heartfelt account of tough-minded mothering and the never-say-die pursuit of the American Dream. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2020
2.5/4	40%	You Should Have Left (2020)	This visually stylish creep show effectively employs practical tactics, such as a swinging light bulb or a forced perspective, even as its familiar story line stagnates. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 24, 2020
2/4	No Score Yet	Looks That Kill (2020)	An amiable but messy attempt to marry Hal Ashby to Tim Burton by way of YA romance novels. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 24, 2020
3.5/4	91%	The Surrogate (2020)	Chooses an uncomfortable subject and forces its characters to reckon with it, heart and soul. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 24, 2020
3/4	92%	A Whisker Away (Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu) (2020)	A sweet-natured schoolgirl romance given a fantasy twist reminiscent of 'Spirited Away.' - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 24, 2020
3/4	70%	7500 (2020)	Queasily recasts 9/11 as an action thriller, so Trigger Warning. That said, it's executed with great skill, qualifying as both high-stakes drama and even a horror movie of sorts. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
3.5/4	100%	The Killing Floor (1985)	A well-researched historical drama, with a Steinbeckian sense of economic and racial justice. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
1/4	9%	Artemis Fowl (2020)	Just short of completely inept. Nothing that needs to work here works: not the casting, not the script, not the direction, not the design, not the score. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
3/4	92%	Da 5 Bloods (2020)	Winningly layers war-veteran and African-American and partisan sociopolitical commentary over a familiar action drama plot. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
2.5/4	40%	I Like Money (Mr. Topaze) (2020)	A comedy of ethics that gets off to a sluggish start, picks up, but ultimately sputters across its finish line...worthwhile for the magnificent chemistry of Sellers and frequent foil Herbert Lom. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
2.5/4	85%	Sometimes Always Never (Triple Word Score) (2020)	More often feels like a screenplay-competition winner than an actually resonant human-interest story, but gets by on Nighy's rakish charm and lively production design. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
2/4	72%	The King of Staten Island (2020)	The lazy script is like a new Taco Bell recipe that uses all the same old ingredients: in other words, a heavily promoted product for suckers. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
0/4	No Score Yet	365 Days (365 dni) (2020)	Strictly for those wondering, "what would a straight-up ripoff of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' look like if it were made in Poland?" - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 16, 2020
1/4	No Score Yet	The Last Days of American Crime (2020)	An interesting science fiction concept--akin to 'Minority Report'--squandered on an insultingly dumb action movie. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 10, 2020
2.5/4	91%	Spelling the Dream (2020)	A bit repetitive, and awkwardly splits the difference between the overall phenomenon and the drama of one bee, but still a likable showcase for kid personality and intellectual rigor. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 10, 2020
3/4	90%	Parkland Rising (2020)	With its heart on its sleeve, 'Parkland Rising' follows one youth-driven movement that refuses to accept the American madness of the intolerable being seemingly intractable. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 10, 2020
4/4	87%	What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? (2019)	Staggering...a vital snapshot of African American life as it's being lived on the margins of society...one of the best films I've seen by far this year. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 4, 2020
3/4	79%	Judy & Punch (2020)	A feminist revenge drama with black comedy overtones and social satire. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 3, 2020
3.5/4	89%	You Don't Nomi (2020)	An object lesson in what a Rorschach test any film--and certainly one as purely campy as 'Showgirls'--can be. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 3, 2020
3/4	79%	Tommaso (2020)	Both character study and confession...film as self-therapy, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it fascinating. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 3, 2020
3.5/4	87%	Shirley (2020)	A shrewd and complex psychodrama that both understands and wickedly exaggerates the writing process while maintaining a thoughtful ambiguity. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 3, 2020
3.5/4	88%	Onward (2020)	Disney-Pixar's magic-themed fantasy adventure delivers big laughs and little tears within its tale of fraternal love and moving beyond grief. [4K Blu-ray] - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 30, 2020
3.5/4	100%	Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)	The fifteenth and final film in the DC Animated Movie Universe, an R-rated epic with sky-high stakes, will have DC fans entirely in its thrall. [4K Blu-ray] - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 30, 2020
3.5/4	100%	The Grey Fox (1982)	A "you can't make this up" crime drama powered by Richard Farnsworth's iconic performance as an aging gentleman bandit. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 28, 2020
3/4	53%	Joan of Arc (Jeanne) (2019)	Gently but shrewdly absurdist...its selling point is that it is unusual, at times even Lynchian, in its measured approach to retelling familiar history. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 27, 2020
3/4	92%	End of Sentence (2020)	An expertly performed character drama about the ways, large and small, that family can hurt one another and unexpectedly heal the wounds. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 27, 2020
3/4	92%	The Vast of Night (2020)	The plot's on the thin side, but the film is a model of independent film making on a limited budget and a beautifully embossed calling card for director Andrew Patterson. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 26, 2020
2/4	70%	The High Note (2020)	A hokey middle-of-the-road light drama about Hollywood's version of the L.A. music scene. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 26, 2020
2.5/4	75%	Military Wives (2020)	Corny and predictably formulaic...but it's buttressed by two skilled performances and, let's face it, it's nice. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 20, 2020
2.5/4	88%	The Trip to Greece (2020)	Foodie undertones, tony-tourism overtones, gorgeous locales and fun allusions to Ancient Greek culture as Brydon and Coogan reach the end of their own ten-year odyssey. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 20, 2020
3/4	97%	The Ghost of Peter Sellers (2020)	A highly unusual personal essay about a film-production disaster and a friendship colored by insanity. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 20, 2020
2.5/4	65%	The Lovebirds (2020)	An involving, pacey comic thriller depicting relationships as marathons, not sprints. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 20, 2020
1.5/4	49%	Scoob! (2020)	A big, loud, dumb crossover event that's considerably less than the sum of its parts. - Celluloid Dreams EDIT Read More \| Posted May 20, 2020