Sam Weisberg
Sam Weisberg's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
L.A. Weekly,
Village Voice
| Publications: | L.A. Weekly, Village Voice |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable (2018) |
Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable is an elegant, tender ode to Winogrand, but it's no hagiography.‐ L.A. Weekly
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2018
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| No Score Yet | No Greater Law (2018) |
At long last, here is a documentary about religious fanatics that, while certainly critical, doesn't treat any of its subjects with a trace of condescension.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 19, 2018
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| 88% | Netizens (2018) |
Cynthia Lowen, who produced the disturbing 2011 doc Bully, scores another infuriating triumph with her directorial debut, Netizens, which follows three victims of online sexual harassment and defamation.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 19, 2018
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| 100% | Little Woods (2018) |
Nia DaCosta's absorbing debut is laced with urgent dread, experienced by characters you care deeply about.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 19, 2018
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| 80% | The Feeling of Being Watched (2018) |
Boundaoui's exposé of her own near-Sisyphean quest for justice is a searing snapshot of an ongoing battle with seemingly no end in sight.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 19, 2018
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| 68% | The Seagull (2018) |
Bening has played so many high-intensity mothers by now, you'd think she'd have exhausted her resources. But she's a firecracker in Michael Mayer's spirited adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, as the aging, boastful actress Irina.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 19, 2018
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| 88% | Love After Love (2018) |
Harbaugh, with his subtle approach, renders this trio likable. He knows just when to burrow the camera in for jittery effect and when to relent.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 28, 2018
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| 60% | Ramen Heads (2018) |
As demonstrated by this exquisite documentary, the preparation of Japan's national dish is an arduous affair ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 14, 2018
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| 95% | November (2018) |
[A] bone-chilling, hallucinatory tour de force ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Feb 21, 2018
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| 75% | Frank Serpico (2017) |
Frank Serpico, though sprawling and seething, isn't a hagiography. It probes instead into Serpico's personal agonies.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2017
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| 75% | The Exception (The Kaiser's Last Kiss) (2017) |
Whenever Plummer is onscreen, The Exception is scintillating entertainment. Unfortunately, it gets bogged down ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted May 31, 2017
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| 68% | Take Me (2017) |
While the film, to its credit, doesn't become a trite morality play, the ending is thin and contrived nonetheless.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted May 3, 2017
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| 71% | Flames (2017) |
Flames, though energetically crafted, erotic, and at times heartfelt, is an exasperatingly esoteric meditation on love.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 27, 2017
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| 81% | Actor Martinez (2017) |
Whether the real-life Martinez is this hotheaded and quick-tempered is left a mystery, but it matters not a whit, because even five minutes in the company of this Martinez is excruciating.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2017
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| 86% | Nakom (2017) |
The film ... transcends its familiar "career vs. home obligations" conflict.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 1, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Rooted In Peace (2017) |
The film is not without its trenchant moments, most rooted not in peace but in science.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 14, 2016
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| 90% | Bobby Sands: 66 Days (2016) |
Byrne never resorts to such cheap tricks as matching the imagery to what the interviewees are saying, and the film is no hagiography.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 30, 2016
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| 81% | By Sidney Lumet (2016) |
Shares the flaws of Lumet's own movies: It's workmanlike and impassioned, but ultimately preaching to the choir.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 27, 2016
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| No Score Yet | Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer - 30th Anniversary (2016) |
A gruesomely riveting sucker punch of a movie.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2016
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| 100% | Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang (2016) |
The film, in the end, is a celebration of a humble artist who easily could have been - and perhaps deserves to be - a megalomaniac.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2016
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| 50% | London Town (2016) |
It's extremely likable, but sentimental is the last thing a tale about growing up poor and angry in working-class, late-1970s England should strive to be.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2016
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| 81% | La Notte (1961) |
Ennui and eroticism make an oddly alluring combo in Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 16, 2016
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| 38% | Is That You? (2016) |
This is a maudlin, manipulative film, and while it's never aggressively annoying, that's only because it severely lacks energy.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 24, 2016
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| 95% | Spa Night (2016) |
There are no haters here, no bullies, and the only real enemy is the self-repression that plagues the shy, closeted Korean Angeleno teenager at its center.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 17, 2016
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| 88% | The Thoughts That Once We Had (2016) |
We don't just learn about Deleuze; we learn it is possible to love blues music, Maria Montez, Communist propaganda films, and Cheech and Chong in equal measure.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jun 1, 2016
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| 82% | Unlocking the Cage (2016) |
Unlocking the Cage is a genuine rarity: a rather happy documentary about a losing battle for justice.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted May 25, 2016
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| 55% | Hyena Road (2016) |
Viewers are graced with a few disappointingly subdued action scenes, two humdrum romantic subplots, and a virtual museum of bad acting.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2016
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| 9% | Point Break (2015) |
Stiff, humorless, tension-free ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 29, 2015
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| No Score Yet | Iraqi Odyssey (2015) |
Heartrending throughout, Iraqi Odyssey is everything you want in a documentary - informative, involving, and eager to decipher complex, often paradoxical historical conundrums.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 24, 2015
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| 98% | Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words (Jag är Ingrid) (2015) |
Vivid and enlightening ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 12, 2015
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| 63% | Rock In The Red Zone (2015) |
Bialis's growing immersion in the town is poignant, even admirable.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2015
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| 76% | Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (2015) |
We've seen many an insider doc about films destroyed by their creators' chutzpah (Overnight, Lost in La Mancha), but what's most wrenching here is McQueen's displays of vulnerability and tenderness.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2015
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| 95% | Palio (2015) |
While Spender spends enough time with both new and retired jockey legends to collect a gold mine of macho, bullheaded rapport, you wish she delved deeper into the more sinister, behind-the-scenes wheelings and dealings.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 3, 2015
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| 87% | In The Shadow of Women (2016) |
Merhar saves In the Shadow of Women with the simplest of gestures: a smile.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2015
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| 88% | Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt) (1992) |
Before, one left the theater befuddled; one now leaves the theater equally befuddled but also moved, even genuinely disturbed.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 3, 2015
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| 100% | How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock at his Farm in Normandy (2015) |
Fitfully captivating, though plenty amusing.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 11, 2015
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| 91% | Metropolitan (1990) |
It might make you long for a return to movies in which teens have a greater vocabulary than their parents.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2015
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| 71% | I Am Chris Farley (2015) |
The movie is saccharine. The tone is set from the get-go by that lazy, obsequious title - it sounds like some bogus self-help seminar that one of Farley's characters would have smashed to smithereens.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jul 28, 2015
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| 100% | Famous Nathan (2015) |
Terrific documentaries are a dime a dozen; ones this multifaceted are to be cherished.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2015
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| 79% | A Hard Day (2015) |
In a very frenetic two hours, Kim demonstrates every conceivable way in which one grown man can injure another.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jul 14, 2015
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| 65% | Days of Grace (2015) |
Most of this frantic moviemaking is more disorienting than riveting.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 28, 2015
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| 39% | The Road Within (2015) |
It ultimately succumbs to the bland, sentimental uplift we've come to expect from such outings.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Apr 14, 2015
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| 20% | Supremacy (2015) |
[A] dour, dreary drama ...‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jan 27, 2015
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| 53% | Pioneer (2014) |
The tension never lets up.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 3, 2014
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| 89% | Red Knot (2014) |
Red Knot exhibits such spot-on, heartbreaking honesty about behaviors that tear many couples apart ... that it's easy to forgive Cohen his metaphorical excesses.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Dec 2, 2014
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| 93% | Little Hope Was Arson (2014) |
Theo Love's mesmerizing documentary Little Hope Was Arson is as evenhanded as it is unsettling.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 18, 2014
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| 100% | Sex And Broadcasting (2014) |
A funny, woozy, infectiously cheery look at a still-persevering (though struggling) national treasure.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 18, 2014
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| 85% | The Sacrifice (1986) |
Only those who still quiver at the shopworn lament that advancing technology is destroying the world will find the philosophizing vital in this bookish stupor.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 11, 2014
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| 69% | Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain (2014) |
It's an unsolved mystery in Hollywood why so many based-on-true-life polemical films end up so unremarkable.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 4, 2014
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| No Score Yet | Tiger Lily Road (2014) |
While not as kinky, dark, or schizoid as debuting director/screenwriter Michael Medeiros intends, Tiger Lily Road succeeds on its own small, claustrophobic level.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 21, 2014
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