Sheri Linden
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Publications: | Boxoffice Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, Variety |
| Critics' Group: | Los Angeles Film Critics Association |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Score Yet | Last Stop Coney Island: The Life and Photography of Harold Feinstein (2018) |
Quietly vibrant, like its subject.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Nov 15, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Fire on the Hill (2018) |
Though writer-director Fallentine is intrigued with bygone ways, his film isn't awash in nostalgia; the elegiac feeling is pierced with glimpses of gritty social realities and the quirks of personal drive.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Nov 13, 2018
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| 62% | Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) |
To the filmmakers' credit, and even though they don't entirely avoid the clunky factoid-itis that often plagues the genre, this is a biopic that favors sensory experience over exposition. It understands what pure, electrifying fun rock 'n' roll can be.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 23, 2018
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| 83% | My Dinner with Hervé (2018) |
[Dinklage's] remarkable wordless reaction is at once sheepish, knowing, proud and embarrassed. Like a well-shot arrow, that instant of self-awareness pierces the uneven narrative, straight to the broken heart.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2018
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| 100% | Mr. SOUL! (2018) |
A rich and illuminating piece of cultural history.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2018
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| No Score Yet | American Dreamer (2018) |
A tightly wound, mostly believable mix of genre riffs and real-world nightmares.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 8, 2018
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| 74% | Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) |
More of a slog than it has any right to be, the artifice turned up so high that it overwhelms the story instead of igniting it.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Softness of Bodies (2018) |
Blady's refreshingly concise first feature stands out from the pack with its strong performances and its incisive slant on millennial navel-gazing.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 26, 2018
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| 100% | Making Montgomery Clift (2018) |
A welcome corrective to simplistic and salacious Hollywood lore.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 25, 2018
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| 86% | The Land of Steady Habits (2018) |
If the center holds, it's thanks to the enthralling performance by Mendelsohn, one of the most compelling character actors of any era.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 13, 2018
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| No Score Yet | The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia (El viaje extraordinario de Celeste García) (2018) |
Fueled by a delightfully simple sci-fi premise, The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia is an earthbound comedy with a keen grasp of human foibles and societal woes.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2018
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| 30% | Kin (2018) |
Having lit the narrative fuse, the helmers don't always manage to keep it burning, and the intended emotional payoff arrives more as tacked-on explanation than revelatory sock to the solar plexus.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 28, 2018
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| 87% | The Swan (Svanurinn) (2018) |
It doesn't always manage to stay afloat, but its center never wavers, with Valsdóttir delivering a bracingly unsentimental portrayal of a perceptive outsider weathering an often grim awakening.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 10, 2018
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| 91% | Gavagai (2018) |
A challenging but rewarding journey.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 6, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Canary (Kanarie) (2018) |
Olwagen's third feature is a winning combination of thoughtfulness and exuberance that could translate into international theatrical play beyond its fest run.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jul 23, 2018
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| 20% | The Lightkeepers (2010) |
However sad the dearth of substantial film roles for older actors, it's far sadder to watch them partake in anemic affairs like "The Lightkeepers," a lifeless period romance of the cutesy-cantankerous persuasion.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jun 18, 2018
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| 83% | Five Seasons: The Gardens Of Piet Oudolf (2018) |
Though it's not entirely satisfying, Piper's film is a welcome reminder of the power of seeing directly, rather than through the mediating layer of our ever-present screens.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jun 13, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Fort Maria (2018) |
An engaging quartet played in a quietly quirky key.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jun 7, 2018
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| 57% | Hotel Artemis (2018) |
Foster finds the damaged, self-medicating core of her character, but she's undercut by the stubborn flatness of the drama, despite its originality and smarts.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jun 6, 2018
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| 53% | Book Club (2018) |
As far as it goes, Book Club is a mostly painless ride, with a few laugh-out-loud moments, but as Peggy Lee memorably sang, Is that all there is?‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 16, 2018
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| No Score Yet | We the Coyotes (2018) |
A valentine to the fringes, modestly proportioned and keenly observed.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 10, 2018
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| 77% | The Escape (2018) |
Wrenching scenes from a disintegrating marriage, beautifully played.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 9, 2018
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| 100% | Blowin' Up (2018) |
Blowin' Up offers one of the most hopeful real-world visions of heroic women - from the judge and DAs to the attorneys, social workers, counselors and, not least, the defendants - ever to fill the screen.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Apr 27, 2018
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| No Score Yet | It's a Party (2018) |
The movie clicks from first moment to last.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Apr 26, 2018
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| 56% | Maine (2018) |
As an immersion in the physical world and a very particular form of public solitude, Maine delivers.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Apr 24, 2018
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| 72% | The Rachel Divide (2018) |
A fascinatingly complex, humanizing portrait that faces controversy head-on.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Apr 24, 2018
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| 35% | I Feel Pretty (2018) |
The bracing promise of the setup steadily loses fizz and the overlong feature grows smaller - constricted, deflated - as it travels familiar routes.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Apr 18, 2018
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| 100% | The Judge (2018) |
Erika Cohn's documentary could have delved deeper at key points, but in its engaging fashion it strikes one inspirational note after another...‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2018
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| 90% | Big Fish & Begonia (2018) |
Its blend of 2D and CG animation uses a radiant palette, and its story moves between the spirit and animals worlds with an undercurrent of yearning and waves of pure delight.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Apr 6, 2018
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| 70% | Beauty and the Dogs (Aala Kaf Ifrit) (2018) |
As Mariam careens between hospitals and police stations, facing bureaucratic indifference and misogyny, the movie's fever pitch begins to feel at odds with its artistry.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2018
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| 75% | Roxanne Roxanne (2018) |
A film that breaks the musical biopic mold in ways that are sometimes frustrating and frequently exhilarating.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2018
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| 92% | The Peacemaker (2018) |
The weight of the world is evident in O'Malley's dour gaze, but it's clear too, in Demo's sensitive, piercing portrait, that the endless job he's carved out for himself is his lifeblood, and its own kind of addiction.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 21, 2018
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| 13% | Josie (2018) |
The genre pieces are set up so clearly in Josie that they border on parody.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Mar 16, 2018
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| 92% | Nossa Chape (2018) |
Charged and poignant.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2018
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| 50% | Flower (2018) |
Mistaking provocation for insight, and failing to sell the presumed heroism of its cunning central character, the movie grows less involving with each step.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2018
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| 77% | In the Land of Pomegranates (2018) |
What sets Hava Kohav Beller's documentary apart is the intense colloquy at its disheartening heart: a series of discussions among young Palestinians and Israelis during a retreat in Germany.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Virginia Minnesota (2018) |
The tonal shifts among mystery, folklore, melodrama and satire are neither smooth nor productively rough, and the narrative core remains unclear, lost amid the surfeit of disconnected moving parts.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Mar 12, 2018
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| 100% | Pet Names (2018) |
A winningly sharp Millennial riff on the greens of summer.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Mar 12, 2018
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| 92% | Social Animals (2018) |
Neither celebrating nor bemoaning its subject, it gazes head-on at the ways some people embrace the chance to live life as a nonstop popularity contest while others are hurt by it.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Mar 11, 2018
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| 91% | Hannah (2018) |
Gorgeously and at times frustratingly austere, "Hannah" has a simple, compelling premise. But more than that, it has the unparalleled Charlotte Rampling.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
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| 50% | Submission (2018) |
Honoring the primacy of language for his characters, Levine deftly reveals the ways they wield it to seduce, attack, manipulate, repress and, occasionally, to communicate.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
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| No Score Yet | The Homeless Chorus Speaks (2018) |
A lesson in empathy, demonstrating how ground-shifting the simple act of listening can be.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
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| No Score Yet | The Road to Mother (Anaga aparar jol) (2016) |
It works mainly in fits and starts, though there's no question that the movie's depiction of the effects of Soviet rule on a nomadic population will be eye-opening for many Western viewers, and deeply resonant for Kazakhstanis.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Mar 5, 2018
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| 96% | November (2018) |
Sarnet's earthbound fairy tale occupies a dreamscape somewhere between the teeming canvases of Brueghel and the existential agonies of Bela Tarr's films. And it's funny, with a sly salaciousness all its own.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Mar 1, 2018
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| 20% | Mute (2018) |
The narrative doesn't quite coalesce, and except for a few late-in-the-proceedings moments, it doesn't deliver the grim, indelible shivers of the best noir.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2018
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| 57% | Half Magic (2018) |
There's charm and smarts to the healthy positivity, but without the balancing sting of the earlier sections, the intended abracadabra goes up in smoke.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2018
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| 64% | The Boy Downstairs (2018) |
[A] droll, knowing and tender romance - a story that brings a delicate touch to one of the thorniest of life's questions: How do you predict regret?‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Being Black Enough or (How To Kill A Black Man) (2018) |
Though the filmmaker's confidence at times outstrips the execution, his decidedly non-formulaic approach is a refreshing break from the three-act conformity of too many first films.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 16, 2018
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| 37% | Nostalgia (2018) |
A day-old news flash of a drama, delivered in weepy headlines posing as dialogue.‐ Los Angeles Times
Read More | Posted Feb 15, 2018
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| 59% | Entanglement (2018) |
[Jason] James' assured timing and visual knack almost mask how strained and half-baked the story is. ‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 9, 2018
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