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Adrian Martin
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Un Chien Andalou (1929) |
Buñuel scrupulously respects certain conventions of classical continuity and linkage, creating a certain, disquieting narrative sense among these fragments from the unconscious. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Nov 02, 2023
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Amityville 1992: It's About Time (1992) |
An engaging combination of florid, baroque horror and colorful teen comedy, Amityville 1992 is one for "exploitation" cinema connoisseurs. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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The Man Without a Face (1993) |
Gibson handles ably, if not imaginatively, this cross between a typical episode of The Wonder Years and a hothouse family melodrama in the vein of The Prince of Tides. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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Mad Dog and Glory (1993) |
Robert De Niro has rarely shown such judicious acting restraint as he does here, with extremely moving results. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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Hard-Boiled (1992) |
Hard-Boiled is action cinema at its finest and most imaginative. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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Manny & Lo (1996) |
Its toughness, its bizarre humour and its constant element of surprise ensure that it is a perfectly modern and searching testament to contemporary experience. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jul 24, 2023
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The Matrix (1999) |
Rarely has a blockbuster been so enjoyable. Superbly staged and edited, it never loses its drive and intrigue. Reeves has come a long way as an actor since the woeful Johnny Mnemonic, and so has the entire cyberpunk genre on screen. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jul 12, 2023
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Magnolia (1999) |
Once the script framework is locked down -- nine characters passing through a single day and night in the San Fernando Valley -- Anderson can only trudge relentlessly through the bleak stations of American misery. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jun 30, 2023
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Starship Troopers (1997) |
Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is an odd and most distressing film. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Mar 16, 2023
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Twilight (1998) |
The dead opposite of a "spectacular," Twilight will satisfy those who can gladly attune themselves to the novelistic subtleties of psychological mystery-thriller action. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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The Assignment (1997) |
In its low-rent way, it aims for every frisson, reversal and shock-tactic -- and mostly succeeds. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Wild Things (1998) |
Wild Things is a richly enjoyable piece of hokum that blends camp humor and low melodrama with mind-boggling plot moves of Dario Argento and the structural cleverness of Quentin Tarantino. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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The Big Lebowski (1998) |
The latest, gruesome effort from Joel and Ethan Coen is surely one of the least bearable films of 1998. Suddenly, the dubious facets that were kept under control in their previous films march to the foreground and obliterate all else. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) |
In terms of the aesthetic challenges of the musical genre, Minnelli and his collaborators went a long way here towards integrating singing and dancing into a whimsical, fairy-tale flow of incidents and scene changes. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Nov 10, 2022
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Underground Inc.: The Rise & Fall of Alternative Rock (2019) |
The animation is especially impressive in the way it compresses and conveys a great deal of information. The busy sound editing and design, by Alex Newport and Mark Bradridge, is another standout feature. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Titanic (1997) |
Ultimately, it is Cameron's overweening ambition to overlay a grand journey of the human spirit atop all the thrills, spills and clinches that hobbles his epic, rendering it enjoyable but mediocre. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Mar 17, 2022
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Beloved (1998) |
[Demme] seems overly keen to invest his film with a sober, humorless, hushed aura. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 02, 2022
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Go Fish (1994) |
In a strange and compelling way, Go Fish is like a modern re-invention of certain Old Hollywood forms -- specifically the musical and the romantic comedy of manners. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Aug 24, 2021
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Bloodshot Heart (2020) |
A drunken Australian step-cousin of 1970s European and American cinema, Parish Malfitano's excellent debut is a rich minestrone stew of cinephilic allusions. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Aug 31, 2020
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The Irishman (2019) |
A paradoxical, melancholic but thoughtful and engaging film, well directed by Scorsese. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jul 14, 2020
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Wild Grass (2009) |
At the age of 88, former wunderkind Alain Resnais made his friskiest film in years with this astonishing comedy of unconscious desire. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Pacific Heights (1990) |
Paranoiac domestic thriller with confused ideas and hackneyed clichés, but some interesting moves and frissons. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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White Nights on the Pier (2015) |
Working with his familiar ensemble of highly disciplined actors and technicians, Vecchiali creates touching, nocturnal dialogue scenes that are rigorously sculpted and magical. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Special Effects (1996) |
Every sequence is like a rough sketch for a film Larry Cohen would do properly if he had the time and the money. But what great ideas he has! - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Body Melt (1993) |
Cult Australian horror film (actually from 1993) superbly directed by polymath artist Philip Brophy. Don't miss it! A fave of Tarantino. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Silences (2016) |
Margot Nash is among Australia's finest filmmakers, and this is a beautiful, probing, intimate documentary-essay-reflection. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Raw (2016) |
Raw jumps from body issues to family issues to social issues, and then does the full circle all over again. Overrated but intriguing. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Favourite (2018) |
An inspired, cosmopolitan meeting of the Greek Weird Wave (director Lanthimos) and Australian Quirky Comedy (co-writer Tony McNamara). - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Transit (2018) |
Christian Petzold's stripped back melodrama takes not the slightest effort to recreate its World War II setting, yet it's all the more politically potent for that fact. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Vox Lux (2018) |
Natalie Portman sings Sia's songs in this boldly stylised and intellectually ambitious film about pop music. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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High Flying Bird (2019) |
Ultra-talky, sports-insider drama of power and celebrity, involving even for the uninitiated. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Highwaymen (2019) |
The famous outlaws Bonnie & Clyde hardly get a single close-up in this fascinating study of the rangers brought out of retirement to track them down. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Night Eats the World (2018) |
An intriguing amalgam of arthouse and pop genre impulses, this French zombie film exemplifies a worldwide trend - with mixed results. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Celeste (2018) |
Tropic Gothic as it confronts flesh, memory and the blurred promises of sexuality. Placing Celeste in the context of Australian director Ben Hackworth's work. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Hunt (2020) |
This Blumhouse social thriller spreads its political, satirical bile on an equal-opportunity basis. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Never Look Away (2018) |
This thinly disguised biopic of artist Gerhard Richter works directly against the complex ideas of its subject. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019) |
Great songs, inspired performances and a good digital brush-up make this essential for fans, but the Dylan Machine is covering up a lot here. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Locusts (2019) |
This Wake in Fright-lite struggles to balance the demands of a genre film with character-driven drama. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Burning (2018) |
as often happens in the films of Lee, there comes a mysterious moment when the scattered threads of the plot begin to tie together, and Burning suddenly moves up to a higher level of intensity. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Peterloo (2018) |
Among the worst and most awkward films of a terribly overrated director. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Mule (2018) |
Return to form for Eastwood as director with this moving, eloquent, richly expressive drama. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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After (2019) |
Adapted from young adult fan fiction, not much happens in this adolescent love story, yet it becomes weirdly interesting. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012) |
Hemingway & Gellhorn, for all its awkwardness as historical drama, is never less than interesting to watch, and sometimes captivating. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Eden (2014) |
A beguiling, compelling, involving film that repays multiple viewings. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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A Hidden Life (2019) |
Simple or simplistic? Malick has chosen to aim for the hard clarity of a fairy tale - or a moral tale - here. For the spectator, it's a case of: take it or leave it. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Bacurau (2019) |
A roughly Western or Mad Max premise is spliced - as Brazilian cinema has often done, à la Glauber Rocha - with local traditions, politics and mythologies. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Bliss (2019) |
If you ever want a handy argument against the cinema of sensation, hysteria and excess, then Bliss is it. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Ella es Ramona (2015) |
A clever romantic comedy midway between Woody Allen and Philippe Garrel. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Invisible Man (2020) |
Very tame version of an Entity-type premise, without inventiveness or interest. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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Capone (2020) |
Capone jumps, from the word go, into a very odd, post-genre abyss. - Film Critic: Adrian Martin
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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