Sean Nelson

Sean Nelson
Sean Nelson's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
Publications: The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
No Score Yet The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing S. Ngor (2015) It's both engaging and enraging, and it feels important. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted May 8, 2020
49% Jurassic Park III (2001) The script, partially written by the team responsible for Election, is lean, tidy, and best of all, negligible--these screenwriters know better than to let the plot obscure the action, and the result is probably the best of the three Jurassic Park films. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 26, 2019
97% Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018) But the big turn in Neighbor is the revelation that Rogers really was that gentle, that kind, that deeply, utterly good. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 6, 2018
93% First Reformed (2018) Commandingly demonstrates that [Paul] Schrader is still worth listening to. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted May 22, 2018
97% Three Identical Strangers (2018) What starts off looking like a standard issue Netflix doc about a zany family... rapidly becomes one of the most complex, even shocking adoption stories you'll ever hear. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted May 22, 2018
95% The Death of Stalin (2018) This film's grave, absurd, brilliant, and brutal historical context has a way of making the future look, if not hopeful, then at least familiar. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2018
76% Basket Case (1982) Everything about the film is gratuitous, and, despite its essential humorlessness, it's almost hilarious in a sidelong sort of way. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2018
81% Where Is Kyra? (2018) Where Is Kyra? is an unorthodox comeback vehicle for Pfeiffer-the film is truly a total bummer, the rare example of cinema that is both beautifully made and 100 percent joyless. But it remains noteworthy, and maybe even important... - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 25, 2018
99% I Am Not Your Negro (2017) An ingeniously constructed documentary about one of the 20th century's greatest, and more conflicted, artist/polemicists. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 9, 2018
91% Phantom Thread (2018) Designed with the elegance of a Max Ophüls film, written to combine the social observation of Henry James and the foreboding of Alfred Hitchcock, and scored with a narcotic elegance by Jonny Greenwood. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2018
94% Call Me by Your Name (2018) [There is] a hole at the center of what would otherwise be-and still, semi-miraculously, is-a very involving, melancholy film. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2017
71% Scrooged (1988) Still, Murray is magnificent in the film, the effects are better than you'd expect, and the 1988 version of Hollywood excess is almost quaint by comparison with the CGI purgatory we live in today. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 15, 2017
94% It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Paralyzing joys are the very heart of George Bailey's dilemma; they are, to borrow words from George's father, "deep in the race." - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 15, 2017
97% Ethel & Ernest (2016) ... this adaptation of Raymond Briggs's graphic memoir of his parents' lives is both humble and profound, with gorgeous renderings of Briggs's justly famous lines. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 6, 2017
32% Wonder Wheel (2017) I can't think of another celebrated director whose dialogue sounds so written, whose class and dramatic conceits betray such total sequestration from any observable world, whose human observations so utterly fail to bear scrutiny off the screen. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 6, 2017
91% The Disaster Artist (2017) It's also a reminder that Franco is a smart and funny performer with perverse comedic instincts that pay off constantly. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2017
90% Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) This strikes me as an especially Irish kind of cosmology-one that arose naturally in a country divided by religion and empire for hundreds of years. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 27, 2017
99% Lady Bird (2017) [Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf's] verbal battles are hilarious, their stalemates wrenching, their tender moments intoxicating. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 9, 2017
93% The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) Ultimately, the chief difference between this film and its two predecessors is the presence of resolution. The story ends, just like we all knew it would. And there's something inherently disappointing about that. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
89% Mean Creek (2004) Mean Creek is a strong premise gone horribly awry. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
47% The Brown Bunny (2004) You certainly don't want to spend 90 minutes watching Vincent Gallo drive, shower, brood, and weep, which is almost all this movie is. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
92% Tarnation (2004) Tarnation is one of the most powerfully emotional movies I've ever seen. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
43% Palindromes (2004) Nothing about Palindromes is easy to resolve. This should come as great news for fans of Todd Solondz. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
42% Beyond the Sea (2004) Beyond the Sea ranks among the worst films of its sub-subgenre because its director/star only seems interested in making the film to exploit his remarkable physical resemblance to the title character. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
84% Trainwreck (2015) [Trainwreck] is human, which is more than you can say for most films. Or books. Or humans. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
90% The Witch (2016) As in any good horror film, The Witch is ripe with allegorical possibilities. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
73% Hallam Foe (Mister Foe) (2007) [Mister Foe] creates a gently, but deeply, moral atmosphere. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
36% Salinger (2013) Many reviewers have made the obvious joke that Holden Caulfield would've hated Salinger because it's so phony-and he would have, and it is. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
96% A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) Just when you thought there was no gas left in the tank of revisionist vampire cinema, along comes A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
97% Mr. Turner (2014) The resulting portrait, with all its mystery and theater, is utterly fascinating and emotionally expansive, as only Mike Leigh films are. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
35% Hits (2015) Cross's debut as a feature film writer/director focuses on this bleak social intersection, with encouraging (though discouraging) results. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
77% Danny Collins (2015) The big problem with Danny Collins is Danny Collins, a weird hybrid of late Rod Stewart, mid-period Neil Diamond, and, I don't know, a less-sexual Tom Jones? Rick Nelson in reverse? The math doesn't quite make it. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
82% Heaven Adores You (2015) Because of the integrity of the whole enterprise, it never approaches the mawkish showbiz bullshit stories like that tend to engender in lesser docs. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
97% Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) [Mad Max's] visual intelligence and wit vastly outweigh its concessions to the genre. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
65% Babe: Pig in the City (1998) Babe: Pig in the City is one of the most subversive films ever marketed to children. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
35% The Great Wall (2017) The flaw with The Great Wall is that it isn't fun. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
81% T2 Trainspotting (2017) If the story is ever-so-slightly predictable, it's no less pleasurable to watch it unfold. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2017
92% Logan Lucky (2017) The podunk milieu in which Logan Lucky is set feels overstated, like a New Yorker taking a selfie in front of a Stuckey's. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA) EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 18, 2017