Verne Gay

Verne Gay
Verne Gay's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): Newsday
Publications: Newsday

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
89% Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's 'All in the Family' and 'The Jeffersons' (2019) Of the two live episodes, "The Jeffersons" was easily the better, and also made the unexpected case that it was possibly the better series all along. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted May 23, 2019
3.5/4 100% The Last Survivors (2019) Short on perspective, but long on one essential message -- never forget. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 29, 2019
2.5/4 63% Native Son (2019) An especially thoughtful film - that's already a given - but an unexpectedly inert one. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 3, 2019
4/4 77% The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019) It's so high-gloss -- so weirdly hypnotic -- that neither Gibney nor "The Inventor" can get to the real human behind the image. A shortcoming of the film? Sure, but the only one. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 21, 2019
2.5/4 77% Amy Schumer Growing (2019) Mostly solid material that yokes the old Schumer with the new. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 19, 2019
3.5/4 100% Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me (2017) A fascinating tribute to the consummate performer, this doc also sets the record straight on his politics and civil rights record. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 18, 2019
3.5/4 No Score Yet Watergate (2019) Ferguson's "Watergate" in fact is a marvel of obsession, full of endless details...and enough footage to swamp even the wonkiest of Watergate junkies. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 18, 2019
3/4 92% Ellen DeGeneres: Relatable (2018) Irony wins and Ellen rules. Fury has had nothing to do with DeGeneres' triumph or enduring appeal. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 18, 2018
3.5/4 No Score Yet Superb, but not for the casual viewer. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 30, 2018
2/4 83% My Dinner with Hervé (2018) Dinklage turns in a fine performance, but his passion project is otherwise a standard-issue biopic. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 18, 2018
99% The Tale (2018) Jenny's reluctance to stare down the horror gives "The Tale" an ineluctable psychological power. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 23, 2018
3/4 100% If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd (2018) Excellent portrait of a legendary band that gets to the heart of why it's endured -- that tragedy notwithstanding. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 15, 2018
3/4 No Score Yet Freaky Friday (2018) A colorful Friday with the Disney touch, while Zuehlsdorff and Blickenstaff shine. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 8, 2018
2.5/4 96% Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (2018) Come Inside My Mind valiantly tries to penetrate the silence. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2018
2/4 32% Fahrenheit 451 (2018) Flat, slow and turgid, no one - neither Jordan nor Shannon - can stir this gluepot. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted May 15, 2018
3.5/4 No Score Yet A luminous adaptation, with Hawke as one more memorable "Jo" in a long and glorious line of them. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted May 9, 2018
2.5/4 No Score Yet Kevin James: Never Don't Give Up (2018) Amusing, fast, inoffensive -- for the most part. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 24, 2018
3.5/4 69% Paterno (2018) Brilliant as ever, [Al] Pacino is the master trickster who manages to both demonize and humanize Paterno. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 19, 2018
No Score Yet GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II (2017) Moving, vivid, important. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 9, 2018
100% Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert (2018) Alice Cooper as Herod blew the roof off the Armory. Or was it perhaps that atomic tangerine lamé suit that did all the destruction? In any event, poor Armory. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 1, 2018
3.5/4 No Score Yet Hope & Fury: MLK, the Movement and the Media (2018) Some fleeting segues to the Black Lives Matter movement feel obligatory and woefully incomplete -- but they don't derail this otherwise excellent program. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 25, 2018
3/4 100% Chris Rock: Tamborine (2018) There's a new world order out there. Looks like Chris Rock -- yes, Rock -- got the memo, too. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 14, 2018
2.5/4 89% May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers (2017) But what "May It Last" never adequately explores is where that desolation and pain came from. The result is a celebration, without much in the way of revelation. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 29, 2018
2/4 No Score Yet I Am Sam Kinison (2017) With friends, family and admirers all lined up here, they attest to a good man who was deeply troubled. What they can't quite get to is who exactly that man was. He briefly comes into focus, then recedes. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 17, 2017
2.5/4 94% The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee (2017) Warm, genial portrait of a great editor, but not much else. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 5, 2017
3/4 89% The Problem with Apu (2017) A congenial and persuasive argument for why Apu must go. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2017
3.5/4 100% Baltimore Rising (2017) Excellent you-are-there film that takes viewers -- and Baltimore -- from despair to hope. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 19, 2017
3/4 No Score Yet Beyond a Year in Space (2017) Brisk informative overview of Kelly's life back on the ground, but leaves a few questions unanswered, including this one: How long before that first trip to Mars? - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 14, 2017
3/4 93% Jerry Before Seinfeld (2017) Seinfeld-before-"Seinfeld" fans will especially enjoy this congenial, familiar hour special. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 18, 2017
B+ 70% To the Bone (2017) The performances are mostly excellent, Collins' above all. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 17, 2017
B- 74% The Wizard of Lies (2017) De Niro and Pfeiffer inhabit these roles so fully that you forget they're De Niro and Pfeiffer - no small feat considering their statures. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted May 18, 2017
A 67% The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017) A beautiful, moving film, and Oprah (as usual) brings it. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 20, 2017
A 100% Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg (2016) A movable, funny and very enjoyable feast. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2017
A- No Score Yet Raunchy, offensive, funny. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 21, 2017
B 100% Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends) (2017) Emotional portrait of a frontman at the center of a horrific attack, but it doesn't feel quite complete. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 13, 2017
A+ 100% Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (2017) A beauty that will mostly make you laugh and, of course, cry. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 6, 2017
76% Hairspray Live! (2016) NBC promised the most lavish live TV musical ever, spread across a couple of Universal lots. But instead, this often felt like some of those million-plus high school productions: crimped, dark, confined and spread across a few school stages. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 8, 2016
B+ 11% Search Party (2016) Uneven, intelligent, weird, sometimes funny (more often not) - and almost consistently engaging. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2016
B No Score Yet Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise (2016) As worthy, intelligent, sweeping and absolutely necessary as this four-hour film is - and caveat emptor, I've only seen the first two - "Black America" still often feels like a survey. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 15, 2016
A- 100% Hamilton's America (2016) There's something viscerally inspirational about the Miranda on full display here. That's what's best too. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2016
B- 28% The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again (2016) Dutiful, reverent, energetic, expertly crafted and yet utterly incapable of escaping the long shadow of its exotic midnight forbear. The capacity to entertain is still here. The capacity to shock is not. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 18, 2016
B+ 100% Suited (2016) Often moving film about transgender identity - almost nothing about fashion. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 17, 2016
D 62% Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? (2016) The movie is much ado about nothing, feeling desperately thin and pointless. At first promising campy fun, it's soon simply mystifying, then misguided, gross and finally tiresome in its look-at-me-ness. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2016
A 100% O.J.: Made in America (2016) Excellent, balanced, powerful, engaging, comprehensive perspective on the "trial of the century" and race. The first two parts are best. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 9, 2016
A- 88% All the Way (2016) Cranston doesn't turn in one performance here, but at least a dozen. All of them, incidentally, are spectacular. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted May 19, 2016
A 93% Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015) Fine, judicious, generous portrait of a lady who sang the blues. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 29, 2016
C+ 82% Confirmation (2016) Confirmation is really Affirmation. Little here challenges - or deepens - the record. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 12, 2016
67% Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper (2016) Fascinating, disjointed, moving, tiresome, elegant, tacky, fast, slow. There's a little something for everyone here. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 5, 2016
A- 100% Everything Is Copy (2016) A son's post humous gift to his mother - and often a fascinating one. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2016
A- 97% Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck (2015) Morgen and his editors have simply done a remarkable job -- also an artful one -- in piecing together this residuum. - Newsday EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2016