Richard von Busack
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Biography: |
Born in Los Angeles, von Busack attended school at UC Santa Cruz and went on to be the lead film critic at Metro Newspapers, the Silicon Valley-based chain of weeklies.
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| Favorites: |
This year it was: Late Marriage, Spider-Man, World Traveller, Y Tu Mama Tambien...
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| Publications: | MetroActive, Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA), North Bay Bohemian |
| Critics' Group: | San Francisco Film Critics Circle |
| Location: | East of the San Francisco Bay |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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| 88% | First Man (2018) |
First Man isn't a session of hero worship, but it does help one understand the otherness of Neil Armstrong, the seeming nervelessness that still exemplifies bravery in this age of scoundrels.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Oct 11, 2018
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| 43% | Hell Fest (2018) |
Honoring the knife-wielding maniac multiplex fodder of the 1980s, this mostly scare-free thriller lets you admire the hard work of the art directors and designers.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Oct 4, 2018
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| 90% | A Star Is Born (2018) |
This A Star Is Born is like movie night at the rehab clinic: all the shame of drunkenness and none of the elation.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Oct 4, 2018
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| 96% | The Atomic Cafe (1982) |
The Atomic Cafe is a true horror comedy, with a wealth of death's-head humor that even Dr. Strangelove can't match.‐ Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA)
Read More | Posted Sep 27, 2018
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| 83% | Bad Reputation (2018) |
While the testimonials for Jett abound, particularly from Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, we don't get very deep into her inner life. It's a warm film, though.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Sep 20, 2018
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| 78% | Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018) |
Fahrenheit 11/9 is a buffet movie -- you take some of it and leave the rest. Moments throughout justify it handsomely.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Sep 20, 2018
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| 34% | The Predator (2018) |
The script for The Predator does approach the rampage of a crab-faced superalien from the Howard Hawks' point of view... But the problem is that it isn't always possible to go comic, and Black tries it anyway.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Sep 13, 2018
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| 82% | Juliet, Naked (2018) |
Subjects that would seem like rom-com contrivance in lesser movies are sturdy and thoughtful here. It's a well-filled romance.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Sep 6, 2018
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| 72% | Bernard and Huey (2018) |
This is mid-century comedy masquerading as millennial, and the mask keeps slipping.‐ Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA)
Read More | Posted Sep 6, 2018
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| 93% | Searching (2018) |
It's neither the first nor the best movie about living (and dying) online, but San Jose-raised filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty's thriller Searching is an absorbing picture.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Aug 29, 2018
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| 85% | The Wife (2018) |
What makes The Wife insufferable soap is the masochistic insistence that the men are all crushers, and that that's all that's possible for them to do.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Aug 29, 2018
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| 94% | The Dark Knight (2008) |
The Dark Knight always ought to be played on the biggest screen possible, and played loud, like a Led Zepplin song. Director Christopher Nolans' skyscapes, the helicopter shots and views from the 200th floor, are IMAX at its best.‐ Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA)
Read More | Posted Aug 23, 2018
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| 45% | The Meg (2018) |
The Meg's target audience, the bloody-minded kid who wishes shark week was every week, isn't over served with guts and chum... There's neither speedy fun or much emotional investment in this.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Aug 13, 2018
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| 100% | Rock Rubber 45s (2018) |
Garcia's autobiographical documentary Rock Rubber 45s is a delight - this 50-something man of many talents is a born ambassador. ‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Aug 8, 2018
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| 95% | BlacKkKlansman (2018) |
This is a big movie from Lee, warm and smart. It's not essentially radical, unless the subject of self-defense is radical.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Aug 8, 2018
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| 49% | The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) |
McKinnon brings in the franticness, but it's not the same thing as chemistry. This is the kind of buddy movie that has the characters telling each other how much they love each other, instead of letting us feel it.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Aug 2, 2018
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| 76% | Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018) |
A story of recovery such as this usually isn't as balanced between the scary fun of carousing and the time spent in contemplation and making amends. The movie offers a sense of place as well as a sense of play. ‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jul 26, 2018
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| 97% | Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) |
Mission: Impossible - Fallout gives one nothing to suffer over except for the winching of nerves during one of its expert fight sequences, it's rousing soundtrack by Lorne Balfe and it's soaring mountain and cityscapes.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jul 26, 2018
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| 94% | Dark Money (2018) |
This impressive and infuriating study isn't here to make the audience despair... It's imperative to see Dark Money's expertly told tale of political skullduggery.‐ Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA)
Read More | Posted Jul 25, 2018
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| 100% | Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (2018) |
Nanette isn't for someone who wants to laugh a lung out, and yet it's something everyone should see.‐ North Bay Bohemian
Read More | Posted Jul 19, 2018
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| 88% | Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) |
This is a wonderful toy that one imagines young girls in particular would like - and it's hard to believe that there will be anything funnier this summer.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jun 28, 2018
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| 49% | Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) |
There is a surfeit of running and screaming... done mostly by Bryce Dallas Howard, whose relation to the far more interesting Laura Dern is like the difference between the first movie and this tired and strangely vicious sequel.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jun 28, 2018
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| 52% | A Kid Like Jake (2018) |
An issue film that doesn't completely come to life.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2018
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| 42% | The Valley (2018) |
The Valley gets at the angst of high tech with an almost burning acuteness.‐ Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA)
Read More | Posted Jun 14, 2018
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| 94% | Incredibles 2 (2018) |
For all the nostalgia, this doesn't seem like a replay or a retread. It's particularly welcome, elating and thrilling, and it's less kid-pitched than recent Pixars: the older you are, the more you'll be pleased by what's going on.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jun 14, 2018
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| 99% | Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018) |
An inspiring study of the friend of millions of children, perhaps insufficiently appreciated in his time but respected in ours.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jun 7, 2018
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| 42% | The Valley (2018) |
The Valley gets at the angst of high tech with an almost burning acuteness, with the constant work and the price of it as alienation at home.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Jun 7, 2018
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| 95% | Diabolique (Les Diaboliques) (1955) |
Straight-up terrifying melodrama.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted May 31, 2018
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| 100% | The Wages of Fear (1953) |
A masterpiece of cruel suspense.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted May 31, 2018
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| 93% | First Reformed (2018) |
The anger in it - the American quality, that refuses to swallow wrath instead of expressing it as violence - gives it a simmer.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted May 31, 2018
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| 70% | Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) |
Certainly one of the most romantic of the 10 films so far. But it's also spotted with doughy patches, heavy info dumps and battle scenes that aren't quite coherent.‐ North Bay Bohemian
Read More | Posted May 23, 2018
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| 82% | Deadpool 2 (2018) |
The film is not as overfilling as the first Deadpool, and from a nerd standpoint it has a little more respect for the chrome giant Colossus than its predecessor.‐ North Bay Bohemian
Read More | Posted May 16, 2018
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| 85% | Disobedience (2018) |
Chile's Sebastián Lelio exemplifies the best talents of a women's director: the empathy, the ability to dramatize without soaking in cheap emotion and the expert use of the close-up shot.‐ North Bay Bohemian
Read More | Posted May 15, 2018
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| 96% | Foxtrot (2018) |
Astonishes with its ability to thrive on serious tonal shifts, flash-forwards and a bit of animation... Samuel Maoz demonstrates a depth of feeling and a sense of bitter absurdity.‐ Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA)
Read More | Posted May 15, 2018
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| 88% | You Were Never Really Here (2018) |
Director Lynne Ramsay cuts away anything thrilling, or even compelling. It's a vigilante movie so aestheticized that it loses its energy - knuckle sandwiches with the crusts cut off, served on a doily.‐ North Bay Bohemian
Read More | Posted May 11, 2018
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| 100% | California Typewriter (2017) |
[Director Doug] Nichol's excellent sense of place expands even to the Vince Guaraldi instrumentals on the soundtrack.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted May 9, 2018
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| 34% | I Feel Pretty (2018) |
A minor comedic fable about the power of body image, I Feel Pretty by first time directors and long-time rom-com writers Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn has a couple of worthy assets.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted May 2, 2018
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| 86% | Tully (2018) |
Ultimately, there's too much sting in Tully to dismiss, and Theron's fierceness nails this down. The movie is so fervent, it's a kind of apology for the callowness of Juno.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted May 2, 2018
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| 84% | Avengers: Infinity War (2018) |
The flavors of this multi-movie sundae blend beautifully.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Apr 25, 2018
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| 97% | 1945 (2017) |
The fateful year 1945 may seem like the distant past, but this movie is timely.‐ North Bay Bohemian
Read More | Posted Apr 20, 2018
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| 95% | A Quiet Place (2018) |
Though accompanied with a rich score by Marco Beltrami, A Quiet Place communicates the power and simplicity of the silent cinema.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Apr 12, 2018
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| 90% | Isle of Dogs (2018) |
Doesn't really arouse feelings, no matter how many animated dogs in full face stare us down, sometimes with tears in their eyes.‐ Pacific Sun (San Rafael, CA)
Read More | Posted Apr 11, 2018
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| 52% | Rampage (2018) |
The movie is as hollow as a chocolate bunny.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Apr 11, 2018
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| 72% | Ready Player One (2018) |
Spielberg wouldn't be Spielberg if he didn't know how to make this galaxy of pixels alluringly strange, a wow-machine jampacked with cool stuff.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2018
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| 96% | The Death of Stalin (2018) |
Like the '60s British political comedies it resembles, The Death of Stalin may be too clever, too mordant. But it does have tang, Tom Stoppard-like wordplay and some big and surprising laughs.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2018
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| 41% | A Wrinkle in Time (2018) |
Ultimately, the multi-colored style of this movie will triumph. This film's failure won't even be a wrinkle in the progress to come.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Mar 16, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Brothers in Arms (2018) |
Watching this documentary, one gets a vicarious sense of the fun and sorrows of an actor's life.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
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| 47% | Red Sparrow (2018) |
The movie is a refrigerator, and you can smell that something's gone bad in it.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Burden of Genius (2017) |
... an unappetizing story in itself, fascinatingly told by Tjardus Greidanus in the documentary Burden of Genius.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Mar 2, 2018
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| 87% | Annihilation (2018) |
Garland, one of the smartest directors making speculative fiction films today, fills his screen with terrible beauty.‐ MetroActive
Read More | Posted Mar 2, 2018
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