Allison Benedikt
Allison Benedikt's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Chicago Tribune
Los Angeles Times
L.A. Weekly
Village Voice
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Strength and Honor (2008) |
Schlocky. - L.A. Weekly
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| Posted Dec 06, 2007
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Six Days (2007) |
Short on insight and artistry, Six Days takes a dry approach to the hottest of conflicts. - Village Voice
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| Posted May 15, 2007
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Down in the Valley (2005) |
Patchy but powerful rumination on myth, youth and man's capacity for brutality. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 18, 2006
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The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) |
It does a bang-up job of illuminating why many a contemporary pop icon and, online, a whole new generation of men have taken to Bettie. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Apr 20, 2006
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Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (2005) |
The film is packed with hilarious, often poignant interviews with metal luminaries. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Apr 13, 2006
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The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005) |
Feuerzeig recounts it all with clear-eyed candor, turning to Johnston's battered friends and family for insight and empathy and to Johnston's tapes and drawings for an inside look at his illness. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Apr 13, 2006
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Brick (2005) |
The mystery feels elementary and his characters, though compelling as sketches, remain one-dimensional from the first to the last good-looking frame. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Apr 07, 2006
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Friends With Money (2006) |
A class-conscious L.A. tale of four best friends and the men who love (and hurt) them. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Apr 06, 2006
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Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) |
As visually stunning as it is, DR9 is also more than two hours and contains, at best, 10 lines of dialogue, an ear-piercing Bjork score and no discernible plot. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Apr 06, 2006
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Adam & Steve (2005) |
Adam & Steve is a mostly bland, sporadically crude, by-the-numbers romantic comedy about two gay men in love. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 30, 2006
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ATL (2006) |
Like most media these days, ATL feels like the product of video-on-demand-era focus groups, which means that it's entertaining, but not smart. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 30, 2006
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She's the Man (2006) |
As you can imagine, sticking a girl dressed up as a boy into a dorm with hunky boys lusting for girls is the stuff of comic mix-ups, and in She's the Man, we have plenty. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 17, 2006
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Unknown White Male (2005) |
Though problematic, repetitive and stylistically rough, the film raises intriguing questions, the most compelling of which is, does our memory determine who we are? - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 11, 2006
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Winter Passing (2005) |
Midway through, Rapp loses momentum, failing to hone in on just what kind of movie he wants to make, and Winter Passing languishes in that no-man's land between tiny, meandering, indie drama and plotted, pointed family melodrama. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 11, 2006
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16 Blocks (2006) |
In the end it's not the predictable action but the lack of chemistry and camaraderie that sinks 16 Blocks. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 03, 2006
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Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2005) |
...an uplifting, funny and engaging star-studded affair. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 03, 2006
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Running Scared (2006) |
There's clearly supposed to be tension between Joey's good and bad sides. Sure, he's a mobster, but he's also a family man, which makes him... gray. (Not black and white = very sophisticated.) - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 24, 2006
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Workingman's Death (2005) |
It's not exactly a good time at the movies, and even as pure education, it's a rather dull film with very little dialogue. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 24, 2006
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Why We Fight (2005) |
Jarecki seems to have had his answers before asking the questions. He's a master at filtering, at choosing the best quotes to bolster his argument and at connecting dots that, perhaps, shouldn't be. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 17, 2006
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Eight Below (2006) |
Eight Below is the Brian's Song of dog movies: schmaltzy, feel-goody, inspired-by-a-true-story-y. It's formulaic and frequently over the top, 30 minutes too long and altogether too slow. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 17, 2006
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Imagine Me & You (2005) |
I guess there's something progressive going on when a lesbian love story gets to be just as dreadful and tacky as most straight ones. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 04, 2006
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End of the Spear (2006) |
End of the Spear is a childish and visually repetitive movie, ham-fisted, proselytizing and overtly simplified. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jan 19, 2006
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Tristan & Isolde (2006) |
Mindless, predictable and mildly entertaining. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jan 12, 2006
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The Matador (2005) |
Funny and touching. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jan 05, 2006
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Match Point (2005) |
It's a pleasure to let the Allenisms wash over you, ever so slightly disguised in the form of a taut dramatic thriller but never diluted. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jan 05, 2006
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Rumor Has It ... (2005) |
[An] easygoing but surprisingly likable comedy. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 27, 2005
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Munich (2005) |
Do we need another handsome, well-assembled, entertaining movie to prove that we all bleed red? - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 22, 2005
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Fun With Dick and Jane (2005) |
It's inoffensive material with few laughs and even fewer jabs. And when the end credits thank guys such as Jeffrey Skilling and Bernie Ebbers, you'll swear it should be the other way around. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 20, 2005
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The Family Stone (2005) |
The Family Stone aims to please, and lands precisely on so-so. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 15, 2005
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Protocols of Zion (2005) |
Purporting to look at the roots of modern-day anti-Semitism, Levin only has eyes for a well-worn checklist of Jew-haters and oppressors, his shoddy search for answers turning up not a single one. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 08, 2005
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Christmas in the Clouds (2001) |
With its schmaltzy romance, slapdash mistaken identity and heartwarming finale, Christmas in the Clouds belongs on 'Lifetime.' - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 06, 2005
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Just Friends (2005) |
Even with young talent, director Roger Kumble and writer Adam Davis rely way too heavily (no pun intended) on the fat-suit joke and titular impasse. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 22, 2005
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Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic (2005) |
Silverman throws her carefully crafted persona a proper, and hilarious, coming-out party. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 10, 2005
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Bee Season (2005) |
So, we've got spelling bees, Kabbalah, Tikkun Olam, Hare Krishna and robbery -- and yet Bee Season is completely vacant. - Metromix.com
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| Posted Nov 10, 2005
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Derailed (2005) |
In the vast world of ludicrous plots, and the vaster world of ludicrous plots for thrillers starring handsome celebrities, Derailed rings almost logical. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 10, 2005
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Jarhead (2005) |
A good, not great movie. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 03, 2005
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The Squid and the Whale (2005) |
Baumbach captures a crisis in one family's life that, though it shakes the foundation, leaves all four Berkmans drifting toward highs and lows unknown, each of them only dimly aware that, no matter what the movies tell us, we never really come of age. - Metromix.com
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| Posted Nov 03, 2005
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G (2002) |
The filmmakers are going for something operatic here with their mix of love and loss, rap and race. They miss. By a lot. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 27, 2005
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Domino (2005) |
[Director Tony] Scott and screenwriter Richard Kelly turn Domino's life upside down, mixing tiny parts fact with heaping, heaving sums of fiction. But with a real-life story like Domino's, why all the fantasy? - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 13, 2005
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Waiting ... (2005) |
Remember Office Space, with Jennifer Aniston as a flair-wearing Chotchkie's waitress? See, writer/director Mike Judge got his chain-dining establishment just right. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 06, 2005
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Into the Blue (2005) |
Mad props to Peter Zuccarini, who headed the team of ocean-bound photographers and captured some remarkably vivid footage, and also to the actors, who spend plenty of time looking cool, calm and collected swimming with the predatory fishes. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 29, 2005
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Mirrormask (2005) |
For all its flying cats with rainbow wings and navigational library books, MirrorMask barely has a story, its talent and vision focused entirely on its singular dreamworld facade. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 29, 2005
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Everything Is Illuminated (2005) |
Every novel cannot be a movie, and this one should not have been. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 22, 2005
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A History of Violence (2005) |
Cronenberg crafts a remarkably interesting thriller, with suspense that is less about what's coming around the corner--often, we know--and more about Tom's slow transformation in the face of terror. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 22, 2005
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Just Like Heaven (2005) |
Just Like Heaven is a huge waste of talent (Witherspoon's) and time (ours), a supernatural romantic comedy that is neither romantic, comedic, super or natural. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 15, 2005
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Milwaukee, Minnesota (2003) |
Everyone seems to be playing someone else in Allan Mindel's full-of-potential, slight-of-script Milwaukee, Minnesota. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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The Baxter (2005) |
Michael Showalter is a funny man, but ... how to put this gently ... not a funny movie star. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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9 Songs (2004) |
An expertly blended mix of live music and real sex. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Aug 26, 2005
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Right Now (2004) |
If you're not careful, A Tout De Suite--Benoit Jacquot's ode to the French New Wave, infused with his love of American crime classics 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'Badlands'--will fool you. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Aug 25, 2005
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The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) |
The answer is, unequivocally, yes. Yes, Steve Carell can carry a movie. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Aug 19, 2005
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