Will Self
Will Self's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
London Evening Standard
| Publications: | London Evening Standard |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26% | Along Came Polly (2004) |
All I wanted out of this film was a scant 90 minutes reprieve from the dolour of a wet February in London, and all I got was a sense of irritation and torpor.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 80% | 21 Grams (2003) |
21 Grams soars into the chilly empyrean of first-class film-making by virtue of the most traditional of values: sympathetic characters and clever plotting.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 70% | Dogville (2003) |
For its exuberance and its difference, its fine performances and its devastating finale, Dogville is essential viewing.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Spare Parts (Rezervni Deli) (2003) |
Not the least virtue of Spare Parts is that it resists moral certainty. In this crepuscular realm of motorways, pine forests, fast-food joints and crumbling Soviet-era apartments, the ethics are of as low a wattage as the light fixtures.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 82% | The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions barbares) (2003) |
Arcand's own script is delightfully fluid, his direction poised.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 46% | Grand Theft Parsons (2004) |
Shannon does a great turn as the archetypal failed hippy idealist... and while the rest of the cast are sterling rather than shining, the script and David Caffrey's tyro direction are tight enough to pull the whole vehicle along.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 84% | Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) |
I don't even want to do Tarantino and his pathetic accomplices the honour of recounting the narrative of the second "volume" of this exercise in trashpedalling, and frankly I don't need to, because there isn't a plot to speak of.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 49% | The Passion of the Christ (2004) |
If I believed in life eternal with access to a heavenly multiplex I still wouldn't advise you to see this film, but, as things stand, if thou goest anywhere this week, be it to see an honest piece of graven imagery, not this religiose rubbish.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 97% | Capturing the Friedmans (2003) |
While with any number of... documentaries one can happily say "wait until it turns up on the small screen", with Capturing the Friedmans it is well worth sitting in the dark to find out the extent to which you think you are being deliberately kept there.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 67% | Carandiru (2004) |
We know the massacre is going to happen from the off, and yet, despite this, the tension doesn't build much, perhaps because the film is over-long.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 75% | Big Fish (2003) |
Big Fish really belongs to Albert Finney, who proves that when it comes to large performances there is no one who can quite match a British Shakespearean with good camera sense.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2018
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| 43% | The Football Factory (2004) |
An unsparing depiction of the ugly violence surrounding the beautiful game, The Football Factory uses jagged camera work and a pumpedup soundtrack to create a strangely seductive choreography of fists, boots and bricks on flesh.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 93% | Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004) |
For all its high-falutin' references this is just another rom com with a bit of angst and ontological confusion thrown into the mix.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 24% | Van Helsing (2004) |
The exteriors are fantastic, the castles mega-looming, and there's a beautiful -- if fanciful -- masqued ball which shows off to perfection the costumes contrived by Gabriella Pescucci.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 54% | Troy (2004) |
Brad is worth the ticket price alone and others turned in creditable performances, particularly Eric Bana as an upright family man who just happens to be the prince of a warlike city-state, and Sean Bean as Odysseus the Ironic.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 87% | Bad Education (2004) |
The problem with the film is its very staginess -- it never really seems to get out of drag. Between the impersonations of the priesthood, the impersonations of the transvestites and the impersonations of the actors themselves, there is little to choose.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 44% | The Day After Tomorrow (2004) |
I don't think The Day After Tomorrow will pacify audiences as well as its predecessors, because even as disaster movies go, this one is a write-off.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 55% | The Ladykillers (2004) |
It is not the blockbuster the (Coen) brothers hanker after, and it is not going to be a critical success, but, for me, it is the best comedy they have managed.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 39% | The Reckoning (2004) |
As for young master Bettany, his Nicholas never managed to convince at all. His priest was insufficiently Godfearing, his adulterer not lusty enough, his actor too facile, and his detective too forensic.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 90% | I'm Not Scared (Io non ho paura) (2003) |
If you had despaired of Italian cinema ever regaining the lyricism of the Tavianis and Rossellini, I'm Not Scared will come as a welcome surprise. And if you seek a good yarn well spun, you won't be disappointed.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 86% | Intimate Strangers (2003) |
In what is essentially a two-hander you have to expect a little more combustion between the leads, but I never really bought the complicity between them to begin with, so the pay-off seemed preposterous.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 22% | Renegade (2004) |
I have no requirement that film genres, any more than literary ones, should be pure, but it's difficult to imagine that an enthusiastic audience for this stoners' western would comprise anyone apart from crystal-dangling deadheads.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 57% | I, Robot (2004) |
The plot unravels rather than cranking up. The McGuffin with Spooner can be seen coming from a long way off, while the film jinks rather than twists towards its inevitable climax.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 43% | The Village (2004) |
Frankly, if you believe this twaddle, you'll believe anything, and if you believe anything, you don't need to go to the films -- you can just sit at home and fantasise for free.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 71% | Open Water (2004) |
Open Water is being touted as one of the most frightening films to chomp into your psyche for a long time, but either I'm secretly being fed sedatives or this is a case of good old hype meets collective hysteria.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 86% | Collateral (2004) |
Cruise lacked the deepdown malevolence required to bring Vincent to life. I wished him dead in the first few minutes he was on the screen -- and for the wrong reasons.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 19% | She Hate Me (2004) |
Ten minutes into She Hate Me I knew it was a bad film, 20 minutes in I knew it was offensively -- to its audience -- poor, 30 minutes in I began to wonder how it was that the producers hadn't pulled the plug on it when they saw the rushes.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2018
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| 80% | Layer Cake (2005) |
Layer Cake features all the doublecrosses, grasses and reversals of fortune that come as standard to the genre, but it is lifted by the uniformly excellent cast, the snide intelligence of the script, and the effortless pace of Vaughn's direction.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2017
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| 73% | The Big Kahuna (2000) |
It doesn't matter how much he pirouettes, paces, prowls and postures, there's something just a tad too effete about Spacey's performance to make Larry as dangerous a presence as he needs to be.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2017
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| 64% | Bride and Prejudice (2005) |
There is a good film here struggling to emerge, but I would have preferred either an all-Indian Austen adaptation, or a Bollywood musical that tried to incorporate the Hindu diaspora.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2017
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| 38% | Birth (2004) |
This is a grown-up, intelligent, beautiful film. Rejoice.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2017
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| 82% | Finding Neverland (2004) |
Wooden, yes, and saccharine, too. Oh, and did I mention the neutered whimsy?‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2017
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| 48% | Alfie (2004) |
The weakness is the script (by Elaine Pope, who won an Emmy for Seinfeld and should've done better). It isn't funny, it isn't clever and it certainly isn't profound.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2017
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| 80% | The Manchurian Candidate (2004) |
Good as the players are, they can't make this hokum remotely believable.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
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| 27% | Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) |
What I can't stand about this film is the way it talks down to its audience.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
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| 63% | I Heart Huckabees (2004) |
While superficially I Heart Huckabees is a deranging experience, it ends up being deeply reassuring.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
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| 71% | William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (2004) |
I've decided to be merciful to Michael Radford's meat and-potatoes, 21st-century, politically correct, GCSE-student version of The Merchant of Venice.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
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| 86% | Garden State (2004) |
On the basis that it behoves all of us to keep a little nugget of our 15-year-old selves locked up in our breasts, I'm going to say this is a loveable film and that you should all go and see it to awake your inner adolescent.‐ London Evening Standard
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
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