Wally Hammond

Wally Hammond
Wally Hammond's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): Time Out Time Out Sydney
Biography:
Time Out film critic.
Publications: Time Out, Time Out Sydney

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
93% Pandora's Box (1929) GW Pabst's extraordinary, erotic and tragic adaptation/conflation of two Wedekind plays, 'Pandora's Box', owes to the electrifying, photogenic and iconic presence of Louise Brooks - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 16, 2020
No Score Yet Handsworth Songs (2011) An essay that is as full of subtle, rich and allusive argument as it is devoid of empty didacticism and stridency. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2020
100% Tongues Untied (1989) At heart, it's a celebratory film which buzzes with intelligence, unashamed emotion, adrenalin, and that strange tenderness forged in suffering. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted May 20, 2020
100% Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1990) It's a gentle, sensitive film, the fierce anger felt by its makers evident only in the use of statistics and media snippets which build up to a damning indictment of the social and political response to the AIDS crisis. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted May 18, 2020
4/5 55% The Craft (1996) ... deliciously dangerous excursions into adolescent self-discovery. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 5, 2018
24% Van Helsing (2004) What's left is a world of industrial Gothicism, nightmare morphing effects, ahistoric gadgetry and Breughel-lite grotesquerie. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2018
100% We Went To War (2012) Something of an exemplary documentary on the effects of combat on three individuals with experience of one specific war. - Sight and Sound EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 31, 2018
85% You've Been Trumped (2012) The very smallness, independence and even parochialism of Baxter's film seems suitable and never detracts from its considerable ability to inform and, surprisingly, move. - Sight and Sound EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 31, 2018
5/5 93% Contempt (1964) A knowing, tragic-comic aria for love and moviemaking. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 29, 2015
4/5 97% Goodbye, Children (Au Revoir Les Enfants) (1987) Not the director's best work, but far, far from being his worst either. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 29, 2015
2/5 69% A Magnificent Haunting (Magnifica presenza) (2012) In the Ozpetek canon, this one is non-essential. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2013
5/5 81% Something in the Air (2013) This might just be Assayas' masterpiece. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted May 23, 2013
4/5 82% De jueves a domingo (Thursday Till Sunday) (2012) What distinguishes Castillo's film is the facility and accuracy with which she understands, remembers and recreates the fish-bowl vistas and claustrophobic intimacy of a long car-bound journey. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 4, 2013
4/5 68% Keyhole (2012) A bravura journey into a noirish nightmare world and a lock that even paid-up Maddinites won't be able to pick on a single viewing. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 13, 2012
5/5 96% The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1928) One for Hitch fans, one for thriller fans, one for cinema fans. Do not miss. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 9, 2012
4/5 93% The Apartment (1960) Directed by Wilder with attention to detail and emotional reticence that belie its inherent darkness and melodramatic core, it's lifted considerably by the performances. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 8, 2012
5/5 97% The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) Staggering and heartbreaking. Still. - Little White Lies EDIT
Read More | Posted May 17, 2012
3/5 85% Angel & Tony (Angèle et Tony) (2010) This is a sprightly and economical debut from French former journalist and writer-director Alix Delaporte. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2012
2/5 73% Hadewijch (2010) - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 16, 2012
3/5 89% Waitress (2007) Funny, gentle, unpatronising, if occasionally naive and quirky. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 18, 2011
5/5 88% I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2007) - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 18, 2011
3/5 67% The Incredible Hulk (2008) A more satisfactory adaptation of the spirit of Stan Lee's Marvel character. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 18, 2011
4/5 77% Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) Performances are more mature, the soundtrack (by Nicholas Hooper) less grandiose, and Yates executes some thrilling set-pieces. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 17, 2011
3/5 85% Frownland (2007) - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2011
4/5 No Score Yet - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2011
3/5 80% I Served the King of England (2008) - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2011
92% Drive (2011) A more or less conventional Los Angeles-set hot-rod/getaway-driver movie with neo-noir decoration -- albeit satisfying enough on its own terms. - Sight and Sound EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 27, 2011
4/5 88% Post Mortem (2012) Larraín's clever use of almost humorously unconventional framings, expressively washed-out colour tones and mysterious low-key performances brings together human comedy and historical tragedy to unique, and surprisingly emotional, effect. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 7, 2011
4/5 84% Gianni e le donne (The Salt of Life) (2012) Wittily observed, humorously understood and keenly felt. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 9, 2011
2/5 86% Kill The Referee (les Arbitres) (2010) Even for footy fans, the film's a game of guesswork. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2011
3/5 91% Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo (2009) No, not a Toho creature feature, but a diverting, slightly meandering, mini- DV-shot documentary on the Japanese love for insects. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 28, 2011
94% Animal Kingdom (2010) An ambitious and effective thriller. - Sight and Sound EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 1, 2011
3/5 50% The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) Provides rousing enough young family entertainment - though there's less to engage maturer Lewis fans and possible disappointment for older teenagers. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 9, 2010
2/5 65% Tamara Drewe (2010) The dullness of British mainstream cinema is epitomised by this Stephen Frears -- didn't he used to be an auteur? -- adaptation of Posy Simmonds's gently teasing 2005-2007 Guardian comic strip about rural goings-on. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2010
3/5 83% Black Dynamite (2009) The portentous dialogue, two-track-recorded soundtrack (by Adrian Younge) and eager performances are all highly diverting. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 12, 2010
4/5 97% Rapt (2011) A tense hostage-thriller with a difference. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 15, 2010
3/5 91% London River (2011) In the film's latter stages, Blethyn's heart-on-the-sleeve acting style finally combines with the marvellous Kouyaté's watchful intelligence and frail dignity to moving effect. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 8, 2010
4/5 90% Colossal Youth (Juventude Em Marcha) (2006) You need a bit of patience with director Pedro Costa. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 6, 2010
4/5 55% The Killer Inside Me (2010) This again-atypical film from Winterbottom is a much more sober affair than its early, controversial press might suggest. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 2, 2010
4/5 40% The Killer Inside Me (1976) This again-atypical film from Winterbottom, the genre-swapping director of A Mighty Heart, Genova and The Road to Guantanamo, is a much more sober affair than its early, controversial press might suggest. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 2, 2010
2/5 27% Remember Me (2010) Be warned, if you're vulnerable to outrageous, cringe-inducing implausibilities -- not least the ludicrous stand-up row between Tyler and his father in the latter's Twin Towers boardroom -- you'd best give this one a miss. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 1, 2010
3/5 76% Tony (2009) Not a reassuring vision, for sure, and no tourist plug for Dalston, Hackney or Haggerston, but the film's a fair calling card for Johnson's talent. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 5, 2010
2/5 55% Edge of Darkness (2010) Scriptwriters William Monahan and Andrew Bovell have sadly sacrificed some of the original's cultural specificity and its slow-burn quality. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2010
3/5 75% OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus (Lost in Rio) (2010) It's the grooving to composer Ludovic Bource's fab xylophone beats and Dujardin's hyena laugh and heroic self-regard you'll remember. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2010
2/5 41% 44 Inch Chest (2010) Aiming for black comedy and a redemptive satire on self-deluding male machismo, ham fisted debut director Malcolm Venville instead gives his cast enough rope to hang themselves rather than the characters they play. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2010
4/5 95% Hofshat Kaits (My Father My Lord) (2008) You could say this film is at once a secular fable on a religious dilemma and an almost religious parable about an all-too-human tragedy. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2010
5/5 100% Tokyo Story (Tôkyô monogatari) (1953) This remains one of the most approachable and moving of all cinema's masterpieces. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2010
3/5 52% Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) Cinematographer Robert Presley and the design team provide many instances of graphical triumph, influenced by silent cinema. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 6, 2009
4/5 96% BirdWatchers - La terra degli uomini rossi (2008) Writer-director-producer Marco Bechis's absorbing story of struggle and survival carries its committed ethnographic and political passions lightly. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 18, 2009
3/5 63% Chiko (2008) Impressive directorial skills, if a trite plotline, are on offer in Turkish-German writer-director Özgür Yildirim's occasionally violent debut feature. - Time Out EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2009