Stephen Dalton
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Publications: | Hollywood Reporter, Sight and Sound, Times (UK), Uncut Magazine [UK] |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Score Yet | The Waldheim Waltz (2018) |
A timely and engagingly personal reminder of recent European history.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Mar 5, 2018
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| 40% | Songwriter (2018) |
Banal adventures of a bland superstar.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 24, 2018
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| 100% | In the Aisles (In den Gängen) (2018) |
A lyrical portrait of emotionally damaged misfits sharing a soulless working environment in contemporary East Germany, In the Aisles is full of tender observation and humane empathy for its downtrodden protagonists.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2018
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| No Score Yet | RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: async AT THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY (2018) |
This is a concert movie, but unusually intimate and intense, with ultra-sharp high-end acoustics to capture every textural glitch and microtonal quiver in Sakamoto's deluxe minimalist sound paintings.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2018
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| No Score Yet | The Silence of Others (2018) |
Calls for justice mostly fall on stony ground in The Silence of Others, a stirring documentary about the victims of Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco and their ongoing fight to extract some kind of legal payback.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 21, 2018
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| No Score Yet | 3 Days in Quiberon (3 Tage in Quiberon) (2018) |
A single knockout performance does not make a compelling film, and Atef's intimate psychodrama ultimately lacks the imaginative verve and narrative meat to fill its overlong running time.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 20, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Horizon (Horizonti) (2018) |
Horizon unspools at an unhurried, lyrical pace. While the two leads both give crisp, naturalistic performances, the otherworldly setting is arguably the real star presence here.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 20, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Shut Up and Play the Piano (2018) |
A polished snapshot of Beck's well-rehearsed shtick, as fast-moving and entertaining as the man himself.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 20, 2018
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| 50% | Black 47 (2018) |
Black 47 feels more like a small screen misfire than the grand cinematic epic that this rich story deserves.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 17, 2018
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| 73% | The Mercy (2017) |
Uninspired biopic sheds little light on unfathomable maritime mystery.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 4, 2018
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| 14% | Winchester (2018) |
Winchester draws on a fascinating true story but then simplifies and sensationalizes it to fit creaky, clunky horror conventions.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
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| 0% | Lies We Tell (2018) |
Weak script and amateurish direction sink this dead-on-arrival debut.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jan 30, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Vacuum (Vakuum) (2017) |
While not exactly a fun viewing experience, Repond's somber psychodrama is a compelling piece of work, with a chilly candor and forensic eye for detail that recall Euro-gloom maestro Michael Haneke.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2017
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| 82% | Bingo: The King of the Mornings (Bingo - O rei das manhãs) (2017) |
Brichta gives a compellingly wired performance, his fast-talking energy recalling the inspired intensity of vintage Robin Williams or Jim Carrey.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Dec 18, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Secret Ingredient (Iscelitel) (2017) |
Pass the bong, dude.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Dec 13, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Asphyxia (Khafegi) (2017) |
Chilly but stylish homage to vintage film noir.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Dec 4, 2017
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| 87% | Song of Granite (2017) |
If Andrei Tarkovsky had grown up in rural Ireland, he might have made a biographical cine-memoir as luminously beautiful as Song of Granite.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2017
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| 92% | David Bowie: The Last Five Years (2017) |
With a tone more celebratory than elegiac, this is a worthy screen memorial that should interest serious Bowiephiles and casual fans alike.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Nov 9, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Darling (2017) |
Darling ... has a gripping obsessive-compulsive energy and an attractive cast of alluringly amoral, sharp-edged Nordic beauties.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Nov 6, 2017
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| 93% | My Pure Land (2017) |
As a rousing rebuke to patriarchal power, Masud's assured debut mostly hits the target, even if the overall package feels clumsy and simplistic in places.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Nov 4, 2017
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| 78% | Strangled (A martfüi rém) (2017) |
A robust, atmospheric suspense thriller that shows how politics and personal ambition can have a toxic effect on justice.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 22, 2017
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| 70% | The Ritual (2017) |
A superior B-movie shocker set in the hinterlands of northern Sweden.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 16, 2017
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| 8% | The Snowman (2017) |
For all its high-caliber talent mix, The Snowman is a largely pedestrian affair, turgid and humorless in tone.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 11, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse (Hagazussa) (2017) |
A spooky, stylish, spellbinding debut.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 10, 2017
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| 83% | Ghost Stories (2018) |
Ghost Stories is a witty and well-crafted love letter to old-school horror tropes.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Oct 8, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Decor (2014) |
Decor is a stylistically bold mix of self-referential love letter to vintage Arab cinema and bittersweet social commentary on post-revolutionary Egypt‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
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| 96% | The Endless (2018) |
[A] rich banquet of mind-bending weirdness.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 25, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Ron Goossens, Low Budget Stuntman (2017) |
A potent cocktail of hilarity and vulgarity.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 25, 2017
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| 83% | Never Here (2017) |
An elusive, allusive, classy psycho-thriller debut.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 19, 2017
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| 75% | Sheikh Jackson (2018) |
Salama ... uses playful juxtapositions and time-jumping plotlines to make serious points about compassion, generational friction and family dysfunction.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 15, 2017
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| 66% | Breathe (2017) |
Its noble intentions [are] hobbled by a trite script, flat characters and a relentlessly saccharine tone that eventually starts to grate.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Black Kite (2017) |
The central drama is deadeningly flat, a chessboard of mono-dimensional ciphers arranged across a schematic grid of good and evil.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2017
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| 82% | Cult of Chucky (2017) |
A lean 91 minutes long, Cult of Chucky is part self-spoofing slasher, part lowbrow bloodbath and all guilty pleasure.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2017
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| 90% | Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2018) |
Fiennes rejects rock-doc conventions like talking heads, archive footage and linear narrative. Which is commendably bold on one level, but may leave some viewers scratching their heads and craving a little more context.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2017
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| 0% | Stratton (2018) |
West aims for a kind of Jason Bourne or Mission: Impossible feel, but he falls short in budget, star power and explosive spectacle.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Sep 1, 2017
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| 25% | Eat Locals (2016) |
A low-budget British vampire comedy with more bark than bite, Eat Locals feels like a school reunion project for survivors of Guy Ritchie's early gangster films.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 31, 2017
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| 100% | Cold Hell (Die Hölle) (2017) |
Puts a smart contemporary spin on lurid giallo-style ingredients, minimizing the voyeuristic violence and maximizing the feminist revenge elements. This stylish, fast-moving exercise in hard-boiled pulp noir punches way above its weight.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 29, 2017
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| 31% | Leatherface (2017) |
The gory carnage is sparingly but vividly staged, the suspense-driven plot twisty enough to tax the brain.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 27, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Meda or The Not So Bright Side of Things (Meda sau Partea nu prea fericita a lucrurilor) (2017) |
Pavlu's prize-winning performance is the key bright spot here. Brooding and haunted, he conveys a stoic air of quiet desperation with minimal fuss.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 23, 2017
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| 40% | Attraction (Prityazhenie) (2017) |
As serious sci-fi, Attraction barely leaves the launchpad. But as superior bubblegum spectacle, it easily blasts into orbit.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2017
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| 17% | Overdrive (2017) |
[A] formulaic adolescent male button-pusher ... witless and brainless but not entirely joyless.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 14, 2017
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| 76% | The Ghoul (2017) |
Tunley confirms his mastery of macabre moods here. Now he needs a bigger budget and a broader canvas.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Aug 11, 2017
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| 17% | All Eyez on Me (2017) |
A ploddingly pedestrian dramatization of Tupac Shakur's brief, tumultuous life.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2017
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| 86% | An Insignificant Man (2016) |
An Insignificant Man is journalistically fuzzy and unashamedly partial. But it also has the appealing zeal of an idealistic passion project, and has generated an impressive amount of newsworthy buzz for a first-time feature.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jun 6, 2017
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| 71% | West of the Jordan River (2018) |
A dry and sometimes depressing film, but informative and humane too.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2017
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| 49% | Churchill (2017) |
Cox aside, this pedestrian drama is hobbled by too many monodimensional characters and too much overly explanatory dialogue that feels like a dry high school history lesson ...‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 29, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Fortunata (2017) |
This compassionate character study strains to hit the same kind of female-centric heights as vintage Pedro Almodovar, but it falls short and ends up something of a soapy hot mess instead.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 28, 2017
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| 75% | The Merciless (Bulhandang) (2017) |
The Merciless is a superior slice of hardboiled pulp fiction in the blossoming "Korean Noir" style.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 25, 2017
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| 100% | I Am Not a Witch (2017) |
A fable-like story about a young African girl banished from her village for alleged witchcraft, it blends deadpan humor with light surrealism, vivid visuals and left-field musical choices.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 25, 2017
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| 20% | Alive in France (2017) |
Scholarly cinephiles and punk-rock purists who fetishize a certain kind of old-school bluesman authenticity may find engaging material here, but the shapeless home-movie feel and sketchy lack of context ultimately borders on self-sabotage.‐ Hollywood Reporter
Read More | Posted May 22, 2017
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