Richard Nilsen

Richard Nilsen
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications: Arizona Republic
Critics' Group: Phoenix Film Critics Society

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
3/5 67% Ha-Sodot (The Secrets) (2007) Each of the three primary directions of the movie might make a fascinating film, but tied together, they never cohere, and you find yourself sitting through two long hours wondering why you are doing so. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 19, 2017
2/5 42% The Flowers of War (2011) "The Flowers of War" seems like a pretty good film until you begin to think about it. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2012
3/5 62% La délicatesse (Delicacy) (2012) "Delicacy" is not a very good movie. But it is entertaining enough -- barely enough -- to make it worth seeing. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2012
4.5/5 73% Norwegian Wood (2012) We cover years at a bound, but when we light, we tend to spend long, lingering moments through the camera's loving eye. This is a beautiful film to see. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2012
4/5 95% Pina (2011) For anyone with an interest in dance, "Pina" is a must-see. For anyone not interested in contemporary dance, "Pina" is a should-see. It could change your mind. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 9, 2012
3/5 No Score Yet The Vintner's Luck (2011) Renier may remind you of a young Michael York. And the photography is gorgeous, in a conventional sort of way. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 3, 2011
1/5 36% Finding Joe (2011) The bottom line for all these speakers is that if you follow the so-called hero's journey, you will find fame and fortune. I think we've heard this tune before. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2011
3/5 37% Restless (2011) Gus Van Sant doesn't make bad movies. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2011
3/5 81% Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2011) It is a peculiar conflation of history -- there really was an Empress Wu -- and pure cinematic fantasy. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 29, 2011
4/5 85% La tête en friche (My Afternoons with Margueritte) (2011) The film is leisurely paced, as many French films are, and not much actually happens, but as a character study, it feels true, and ultimately moving. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2011
2.5/5 75% The Whistleblower (2011) You come away from watching the film with a moral bellyache. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 25, 2011
3.5/5 91% Crime After Crime (2011) It reminds us, once again, that little can be quite so riveting as a well-told story from a compelling talking head. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 18, 2011
4.5/5 81% Mesrine: Killer Instinct (L'instinct de mort) (2010) Four hours of French gangsters may not sound like a cinematic joy, but with Euro-star Vincent Cassel in the lead role, the movie is utterly hypnotic. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 12, 2011
3/5 68% Bride Flight (2011) This very pretty melodrama is a rather ordinary entry. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 14, 2011
3/5 73% Octubre (2011) There is much observation of local detail and an overpowering sense of the oppressiveness of urban poverty, but the film never quite gets airborne. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 7, 2011
3/5 83% Potiche (2011) "Potiche" is a frothy French confection, a sort of île flottante of movies. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 2, 2011
4/5 89% Cinco días sin Nora (Nora's Will) (2010) This is a very wise film, without any stench of didacticism: Through it all, the abiding power - like the strong force of an atomic bond - is not love exactly, but relationship, the net that wraps us all together and holds us fast. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 24, 2011
3.5/5 100% Strongman (2011) One cannot help but think of Fellini's Zampano and Gelsomina. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 18, 2011
3.5/5 83% Four Lions (2010) Really, these guys are just knuckleheads. And the movie is full of outrageous laughs. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 10, 2010
3/5 41% The Little Traitor (2009) Doesn't attempt much, doesn't accomplish much, doesn't offer much and doesn't leave you with anything memorable to take home with you. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 2, 2010
4/5 62% Howl (2010) The film forces us to face what a powerful poem "Howl" remains. That poetry isn't just pretty language, it has the ability to make us think about our lives, even to change our lives. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 21, 2010
4/5 56% Bran Nue Dae (2010) Bran Nue Dae is an infectiously joyful Australian Aboriginal musical. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 23, 2010
4/5 33% A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop (San qiang pai an jing qi) (A Simple Noodle Story) (The First Gun) (2010) It takes real chutzpah to challenge the Coen brothers when it comes to stylization in movies, but Chinese director Zhang Yimou has done just that. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 23, 2010
3/5 No Score Yet Pete & Cleo (2010) We might expect the movie to come down on the side of indigenous wisdom and the old ways, but it never really slips into that cliche -- although it passes many cliches along the way. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 23, 2010
3/5 55% Mao's Last Dancer (2010) Hollywood has a long history of turning highbrow art into middlebrow mush, and Mao's Last Dancer is just one more kick dancer in that long line. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 26, 2010
2.5/5 53% Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2010) Two narcissists do not a couple make, and without any actual relationship, there really isn't a movie. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 23, 2010
4.5/5 95% Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010) The plain fact is that, on some level, it doesn't matter whether the film is true or not. Either way, it's fascinating. Either way, we learn a lot. Either way, it's a great film. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 24, 2010
4/5 72% Women Without Men (Zanan-e bedun-e mardan) (2010) It seduces us with imagery and metaphor. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted May 27, 2010
3.5/5 87% La Danse -- Le Ballet de l'Opera de Paris (2009) It is an insider's look at the ballet, but one that only an insider will get the most out of. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 29, 2010
4/5 88% Séraphine (2009) What makes this slow, intense film so compelling is its persuasive creation of complex characters: You scarcely believe Moreau is an actor and that the film isn't, on some level, archival footage of the real painter. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 29, 2010
3/5 87% Amreeka (2009) A good-hearted film about the resilience of the human spirit. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2009
4/5 85% Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Complex) (2008) The Baader-Meinhof Complex is not an easy film to watch; its violence is ugly and brutish. And there's a lot of it. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 1, 2009
3/5 59% The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009) Although The Stoning is efficiently made, it is ultimately a cheat. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2009
3/5 86% Disneynature Earth (2009) It's such a joy to see this footage on the big screen -- even better than hi-definition TV -- that you may want to suffer the slings and arrow of an outrageous soundtrack just for the opportunity to see what's on the screen. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 22, 2009
3.5/5 88% I.O.U.S.A. (2008) You will not likely forget the Jeremiad it presents about how the United States has been living on borrowed money -- and borrowed time -- for decades and now is presenting the bill for our extravagance to our grandchildren. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 30, 2008
4.5/5 79% I Served the King of England (2008) This episodic, picaresque film is one delightful surprise after another, a complete joy to watch. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2008
4/5 94% Ne le Dis à Personne (Tell No One) (2006) Tell No One is a French action thriller and murder mystery that doesn't cheat. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 28, 2008
2.5/5 76% OSS 117: Le Caire Nid d'Espions (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies) (2008) A lame comedy with a few decent laughs and several yawn-spawning set pieces that don't really go anywhere. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2008
2/5 81% Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) It all begins to feel veddy, veddy pretentious and a very, very long way from the Brooklyn or Manhattan that he actually understands. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 14, 2008
3/5 55% Elsa & Fred (2008) For some, the movie will be an emotional paean to love at the twilight of life; to others, though, it's a contrived, manipulative film calculatedly sentimental and -- except for poor Alfredo -- totally false to life. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 24, 2008
4/5 96% Up the Yangtze (2007) The movie never editorializes; it simply presents. It is tragedy, not statistics. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 10, 2008
4/5 87% Reprise (2006) If you are young, male and dream of making a name for yourself in the arts, Reprise is about the joys and sufferings of that quest: It is a Jules and Jim for the punk-rock generation. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 12, 2008
4/5 87% Meduzot (Jellyfish) (2008) Most of the first hour passes without much more forward motion than its namesake. But in the corners and niches of that slow development, we get to know a handful of people, crisply drawn in fast sketches. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2008
4/5 88% Roman de gare (2007) Don't go to the theater expecting too much and you can't help but leave with a smile on your face. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted May 22, 2008
3.5/5 68% Fugitive Pieces (2008) Bit by fragmented bit, it all adds up to a one-note portrait of its protagonist. Granted, that one note is a powerful one. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted May 8, 2008
3.5/5 81% Priceless (2006) Priceless is a Hollywood remake waiting to happen. It's almost guaranteed. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 24, 2008
3.5/5 83% The Rape of Europa (2007) It's long for a documentary, almost two hours, but it has a big story to tell. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 6, 2008
4/5 88% Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust (2004) Imaginary Witness is powerful and complex, and few will manage to make it through to the end without gasping, weeping or covering their eyes. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 7, 2008
5/5 100% Man on Wire (2008) It is one of the most suspenseful, white-knuckled films of the year. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 22, 2008
94% The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) May well be the best movie of the year. - Arizona Republic EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2007