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Amy Biancolli
Amy Biancolli's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Houston Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
Hearst Newspapers
Houston Chronicle contributor.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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The Secrets (2007) |
The Secrets twines coming-out, coming-of-age and coming-to-terms-with-Orthodoxy in a way that diminishes all three -- and dilutes its message with clichs. - Houston Chronicle
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| Posted Jan 19, 2017
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) |
In its last third, The Goblet of Fire builds to a climax of such overpowering dread that you might just forget the rest. Harry grows up in an instant, and the film does, too. - Houston Chronicle
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| Posted Dec 08, 2014
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Land of the Lost (2009) |
- San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jan 22, 2013
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War of the Buttons (2011) |
It does not attempt to provide a complete or even vaguely realistic depiction of the rural French resistance in the endgame to World War II. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Oct 11, 2012
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Argo (2012) |
Even though most people know the outcome, this movie still will have you on the edge of your seat. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Oct 11, 2012
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Frankenweenie (2012) |
The overall effect is great cinema, good fun, a visual feast for pie-eyed Burton fans - and a terrifically warped reminder of just how freaky a PG film can be. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Oct 04, 2012
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) |
Somehow, these imperfections fit. Somehow, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" shouldn't be flawless. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 28, 2012
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Pitch Perfect (2012) |
"Pitch Perfect" is major key all the way, a blast of tuneful sugary cheer kicked up with enough tart humor to offset the glucose. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 28, 2012
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Hotel Transylvania (2012) |
The film is good goofy fun, even as the plot uncorks a whole lotta nothing. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 28, 2012
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How to Survive a Plague (2012) |
When it's over, this documentary lingers as a testament to extraordinary human bravery. It stands as one of the most heartbreaking and suspenseful sagas of the year. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 20, 2012
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10 Years (2011) |
Even the most exhausted, hackneyed and innately annoying genre can yield a film of breezy charm and prickly dramatic consequence. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 20, 2012
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End of Watch (2012) |
The best scenes are filmed inside the cruiser, dashboard shots that face inward instead of out, catching Gyllenhaal and Peña in moments so playful and true they make all other buddy cops look bogus by comparison. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 20, 2012
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Arbitrage (2012) |
Features an exceedingly dapper Richard Gere in a series of nice suits and handsome close-ups that serve no purpose other than to remind us how exceedingly dapper Richard Gere looks in nice suits and handsome close-ups. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 13, 2012
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Bachelorette (2012) |
Headland works hard to reconcile the wild and the tame; if she never quite gets the balance right, ya gotta admire her bold juxtaposition of overdose-resuscitation gags with lessons on self-loathing and bulimia. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 06, 2012
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The Words (2012) |
"The Words" is a decent, ambitious, unoriginal film about a decent, ambitious, unoriginal writer. Both aim for greatness. Both fall short. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Sep 06, 2012
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For a Good Time, Call ... (2012) |
Adheres to those familiar, looping patterns of joy, rancor and revelation that everyone, in the age of Final Draft, have come to expect of a standard comic screenplay. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 31, 2012
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The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012) |
The whole thing runs about an hour too long: It should have been a TV show. The adventure's too big for the kids who would love it the most. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 31, 2012
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Sleepwalk With Me (2012) |
It all adds up to a fine, funny exercise in disheveled self-deprecation: a self-portrait of a guy who can't control a major portion of his life. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 31, 2012
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Compliance (2012) |
We feel like gutless witnesses to a crime. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 23, 2012
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Premium Rush (2012) |
Like the lithe and maligned carriers weaving their way through Big Apple traffic, "Premium Rush" is a thin, brash, sinewy thing built entirely for speed. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 23, 2012
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ParaNorman (2012) |
The world of Blithe Hollow exists in real space. The residents have real bags under their eyes, real bellies at their belt buckles. Ugliness alternates with rapturous beauty ... - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 16, 2012
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The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) |
A sun-dappled, heartwarming family film about a 10-year-old who sprouts out of the garden one magic night. It stars an extraordinary boy, C.J. Adams, with an extraordinary pair of gray eyes that gleam with joy and insight. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 15, 2012
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The Campaign (2012) |
Raucous in its send-ups of the moral, financial and sexual peccadilloes of the common political animal. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 09, 2012
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360 (2011) |
Much like its own characters, it dithers too much - and it dares too little. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 09, 2012
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Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (2012) |
Real emotions get expressed. Real family harmony emerges. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 02, 2012
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Total Recall (2012) |
For all of its dazzlingly rendered cityscapes and nonstop action, this revamped "Total Recall" is a bland thing - bloodless, airless, humorless, featureless. With or without the triple-bosomed prostitute. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 02, 2012
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Red Lights (2012) |
By strict definition, any movie featuring Robert De Niro as a spoon-bending clairvoyant superstar ought to hold a few cards up its sleeve. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 02, 2012
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The Imposter (2012) |
This is as much a film about self-deception as it is about deception, and as such, it is a study in pain. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Aug 02, 2012
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The Queen of Versailles (2012) |
Through a clear lens unclouded by politics or blame, it offers insight into the hazardous American practice of living beyond our means. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jul 26, 2012
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Dark Horse (2011) |
[Solondz] pulls one too many narrative stunts, with one too many dream sequences, calling into question the reality of everything that's happened - including that soap-operatic finale. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jul 19, 2012
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30 Beats (2012) |
That's all that happens: drift from one unrealized, uninteresting character to another. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jul 19, 2012
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Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) |
The plot ... just barrels forward with very few surprises. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jul 12, 2012
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Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) |
Its fertility and its terror stem from the same truth: To the young mind, there is no sealed barrier cleaving reality from fantasy. Not yet. The wall hasn't been built. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jul 05, 2012
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Savages (2012) |
Complain as loudly as you like about Oliver Stone - his politics, posturing and relationship with the facts - but until now he hasn't directed a film that's flat-out dull. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jul 05, 2012
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People Like Us (2012) |
If not for the icky air of incest, Pine and Banks would make one fine-looking couple. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 28, 2012
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Ted (2012) |
For all of its transgressive plush-toy sex and screw-'em humor, the plot is pretty standard stuff. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 28, 2012
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The Invisible War (2011) |
It is far too difficult to watch. Which means we must. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 21, 2012
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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) |
"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," a half-tender portrait of two very lonely hearts in the closing weeks of humanity's run on Earth, is a strange movie. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 21, 2012
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You Instead (2011) |
The script is as bland as they come. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 14, 2012
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Turn Me On, Dammit! (2011) |
Teenage boys aren't alone in exploring their confused and unruly libidos. Girls go there, too. And when they do, it's no small thing. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 14, 2012
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Rock of Ages (2012) |
No matter how you feel about Guns N' Roses, Tom Cruise's as a bandanna-headed Axl Rose type will hit you as the purest bit of genius in the man's entire film career. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 14, 2012
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Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2011) |
There is no casting decision or character nuance or plot turn too obvious to indulge. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted Jun 08, 2012
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Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012) |
The screenplay, by Eric Darnell and Noah Baumbach, churns out the snappy witticisms with admirable creative gusto, but it whizzes along at such a frenetic pace that you'll probably miss half of them. - San Francisco Chronicle
Read More
| Posted Jun 08, 2012
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High School (2010) |
Surely this could be a fine premise for an entertaining stoner flick. It isn't. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted May 31, 2012
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Moonrise Kingdom (2012) |
It's an adventure, a love story, a biblical allegory complete with approaching storm, a mash note to composer Benjamin Britten and a profoundly touching discourse on the needs of troubled children. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted May 31, 2012
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Men in Black 3 (2012) |
If you're looking for cinema verite, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a fun, fizzy sequel in a franchise left for dead 10 years ago, have at it. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted May 24, 2012
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Battleship (2012) |
It's loud, it's large, it's stupid, and its best gag involves a chicken burrito. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted May 17, 2012
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The Dictator (2012) |
This isn't the last word on cinematic send-ups of totalitarianism -- for that, we still have Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator -- but it's a fine and riotous jab in the ribs. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted May 15, 2012
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Last Call at the Oasis (2011) |
One can argue the movie's finer points, but in the end, there's no escaping its creeping pile-up of evidence that Mother Earth is critically dehydrated - and we need to do something, fast. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted May 10, 2012
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God Bless America (2011) |
In this "Falling Down" of pop-cultural observation, Goldthwait forgets the thrill of the chase; he's more concerned with piercing verbal barbs than actual suspense. - San Francisco Chronicle
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| Posted May 10, 2012
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