Witney Seibold
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movie Reviews Only
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| 98% | The Swerve (2020) |
A raw nerve, sandpapered into oblivion. THE SWERVE dramatizes the way casual domestic slights can lead to outright emotional erosion. Azura Skye's performance is one of the best I've seen this year. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 33% | Metamorphosis (2020) |
Functions better as a metaphor for domestic angst than a fully-formed feature film. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 88% | The Truth (La vérité) (2020) |
How is it that a master filmmaker like Hirokazu Kore-eda can pair with Deneuve and Binoche and make a film this dully melodramatic and uninteresting? - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 71% | Yummy (2020) |
Yuck. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 100% | House of Hummingbird (Beolsae) (2020) |
A touching, true, brutal, and frustratingly achingly hopeful coming-of-age drama that will stay with me for a long, long time. One of the best films of 2020. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 48% | My Spy (2020) |
Charmless, unfunny, and... What film were we talking about? - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 63% | Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020) |
Too long and only fitfully funny. Although it may appeal to a narrow audience of Will Farrell fans who also know a lot about Icelandic culture. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 88% | You Don't Nomi (2020) |
The cult phenomenon is talked about, but the film ultimately is only a conversation about SHOWGIRLS without coming to a conclusion or discovering a story. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 84% | Mr. Jones (2020) |
Perhaps in the 1990s, MR. JONES would have gained some mild attention from Academy voters for telling a dark story with just the right amount of frankness and Hollywood sheen. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 41% | Wasp Network (2019) |
Perfunctory and unengaging. It presents its historical events with little actual sense as to its larger context. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 74% | The King of Staten Island (2020) |
Emotionally disarming, but meandering and laconic, it doesn't quite pack the punch it wants. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 8% | Artemis Fowl (2020) |
Contains a scene of Gad unhinging his jaw, eating dirt, and farting clods of earth out his backside. You too may begin shouting "What fresh Hell is this?" - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 92% | Da 5 Bloods (2020) |
Enervated by Lee's awesomely forthright style, it scrapes its fingernails against profundity. Lindo gives one of the performances of the year. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 100% | Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2019) |
Partly a relitigation of a previously maligned horror flick, but more importantly an examination of the treatment of queer actors in a prejudiced system. Shudder's documentaries continue to be strong. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 70% | The High Note (2020) |
A frank L.A. drama about the music industry and the careful tightrope legends must walk. Ross is a standout, even if Johnson's protagonist is a mite insubstantial. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 14% | Intuition (La Corazonada) (2020) |
Predictable and forgettable at the same time. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 72% | Becky (2020) |
Refreshingly brutal. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 100% | I'm No Longer Here (Ya no estoy aquí) (2019) |
A fresh exploration of a fascinating and desperate subculture that, even with the ridiculous hairdos, is way, way cooler than you, man. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 87% | Shirley (2020) |
Fictionalizing aspects of Jackson's life - including inventing new protagonists - perhaps takes away some of the more interesting details of her actual career, but Moss is so engrossing, it hardly matters. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 79% | Tommaso (2020) |
Ferrara and Dafoe have together been slowly building up an ongoing miniature Human Comedy in the shadows. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 92% | The Vast of Night (2020) |
A patient rapture. One of the best films of 2020. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Nov 3, 2020
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| 97% | The Painter and the Thief (2020) |
Looks - really looks - at the kind of person that is typically dismissed, and finds a deep friendship and connection. Sadly, it doesn't conclude in a satisfying way. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 78% | Blood Machines (2019) |
Want to see something truly unique? Want to see a lesbian orgy/dance number being psychically manipulated as a means of controlling a fleet of neon nightmare starships in deep space? - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 66% | The Lovebirds (2020) |
It barely works, and it's thanks solely to the collective charms of Rae and Nanjiani. The rest is bland, cartoony, and not entirely funny. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| No Score Yet | Mother's Little Helpers (2020) |
It's not exactly the Boomers vs. Millennials screed it hopes to be, and follows typical story beats, but 'Mother's Little Helpers' does excel with some pretty good performances and difficult memories of a lost childhood. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 40% | Capone (2020) |
Not just bad, but misguided. Who wanted to see a story of Al Capone in a diaper, slowly dying of syphilis? - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 47% | Scoob! (2020) |
I know these sorts of movies are typically bland corporate exercises more than stories or works of art, but they don't have to feel like it. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 46% | Arkansas (2020) |
'Arkansas' is obnoxious, faux-quirky, and too clever by half. It feels like it was lifted directly from the wave of post-'Pulp Fiction' scuzz movies that arose in the late 1990s, but without the wit. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 65% | Clementine (2019) |
Wispy and wistful, but mysterious in the Claire Denis mould. It can be refreshing to discover a film's story, rather than be directly told. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 90% | Bull (2020) |
Maudlin, quiet, and natural, 'Bull' captures, with a raw edge, the lives of a marginalized society within a marginalized society, and how human connection can still grow therein. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 97% | The Half of It (2020) |
Compassionate and emotionally universal, Alice Wu's film understands several very particular teen experience: Falling in love, adolescent dignity, and thinking you're the only brain in town. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 90% | Blood Quantum (2020) |
The zombie action is awesome and typical at the same time. It's when it calms down and gives into bouts of sadness that 'Blood Quantum' begins to come to life. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted May 27, 2020
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| 67% | Extraction (2020) |
By now, aren't we past something like 'Extraction?' The exemplary action doesn't distract from the utter brainlessness and soullessness of the entire endeavor. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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| 98% | Circus of Books (2020) |
A fascinating look at an important slice of L.A.'s queer history. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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| 81% | To the Stars (2020) |
Initially, you may find 'To the Stars' dealing exclusively in well-worn cliches. But you may eventually find it emotionally disarming you, and then knocking you flat. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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| 91% | The Willoughbys (2020) |
A twisted little bit of crunchy, chocolate frog, 'The Willoughbys' is a peculiar film for peculiar children. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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| 33% | Rising High (Betonrausch) (2020) |
Brings nothing new to the rise-of-a-conman genre, but it does it well enough. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 88% | Selah and the Spades (2020) |
The story itself is shabby, but the half-in-half-out R-rated near-fantasy world created by director Tayarisha Poe is more relatable, more soulful, more real, more potent, and more relevant than your usual self-aggrandizing YA fare. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 44% | Endings, Beginnings (2020) |
Mumblecore without the thrills. 'Endings, Beginnings' is staring so intensely at its own navel that its head is embedded in its own abdomen. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 43% | Sergio (2020) |
While what Sérgio Vieira de Mello did was undoubtedly important, this film does little to make his life seem dramatic or even interesting. Its out-of-sequence narrative adds nothing. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 32% | Love Wedding Repeat (2020) |
This broad, not-very-funny farce only has one original idea in its head - to restart a film that wasn't working - and it doesn't exploit it to its full potential. What a disappointment. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 81% | Tigertail (2020) |
Tzi Ma's face is etched with sadness, casting a melancholic pall over the film's entire drama. We truly understand a particular immigrant experience and why some particularly strict parents got that way. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 87% | Sea Fever (2020) |
To call it another 'Alien' monster movie knockoff is an easy descriptor, but Neasa Hardiman's soulful and quiet direction also evoke the adult tone of 'Alien,' as well as add a unique, wet, chilly sense of place. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 69% | We Summon the Darkness (2020) |
The half-baked 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot' conversation at the film's beginning do little to erase how boring it becomes when it settles into predictable bloodletting and slashing. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 71% | Trolls World Tour (2020) |
An obnoxious explosion of glitter right into your eyes. 'Trolls World Tour' proves that, even during quarantine, parents can be annoyed by ugly animated films with a lot of screaming in them. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 93% | Invisible Life (A vida invisível de Eurídice Gusmão) (2019) |
A stirring portrait of two sisters separated by systemic social injustice in 1950s Brazil. By turns, 'Invisible Life' is horrifying, moving, educational, and bleak. Its hope comes in small bites that we must savor to survive. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 100% | Slay the Dragon (2020) |
A film that needs to be shown in classrooms. An important treatise on gerrymandering, which may be the central injustice of our time. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 75% | The Other Lamb (2020) |
Denotes a recent trend in horror: The feminist wilderness parable. And while 'The Other Lamb' may not have the heft of 'The Witch' or 'Hagazussa,' it evokes similar senses of dread and misogynist injustice. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 91% | Uncorked (2020) |
The story - someone pursues an unusual profession to the chagrin of their family - is familiar. Luckily, the direction is deft and the acting is great (Courtney B. Vance is, as always, a standout), putting 'Uncorked' slightly higher than its peers. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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| 79% | There's Something in the Water (2019) |
Ellen Page has chosen a fascinating topic - the insidious and pervasive racism involved in Canadian environmental policies - but merely mentioning that it is a problem doesn't instill the passion to make positive change. - Critically Acclaimed Podcast
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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