April Wolfe
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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The Lair of the White Worm (1988) |
What's so wonderful about Russell's quintessential female villain is that she embodies a sense that evil has no gender. It has no feelings. It simply is, and it's quite fun to get to know it. - Film Comment Magazine
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| Posted Sep 20, 2019
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Perfect (2018) |
There's a lack of control and specificity in their themes and how they play out, so it's never quite clear why the filmmakers are telling this story and what they're trying to get across. - TheWrap
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| Posted May 17, 2019
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Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018) |
The breadth of detail about not just film and Guy-Blaché's body of work but also the actual process of how a woman's work gets erased is jaw-dropping, and Be Natural has the potential to completely upend the canon of international cinema. - TheWrap
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| Posted Apr 20, 2019
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Wild Nights With Emily (2018) |
With a tone evocative of Drunk History, the film approaches storytelling with a whimsical air, where period authenticity of every object and costume isn't necessarily the focus. - TheWrap
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| Posted Apr 10, 2019
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Captain Marvel (2019) |
Absolutely grounds itself in the '90s, even evoking a riot grrrl-adjacent feeling, buoyed by a soundtrack that features almost exclusively rock fronted by female voices - a reminder of an era that showed so much promise for brash, loud women. - TheWrap
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| Posted Mar 05, 2019
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Ruben Brandt, Collector (2018) |
What's so grand about Ruben Brandt isn't its story or the characters, which are both abstractions. It's the animation-the detailed artwork, so dense that it warrants repeat viewings. - AV Club
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| Posted Feb 13, 2019
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Isn't It Romantic (2019) |
One of those satires that wants to have its Valentine's chocolates and eat them too. - TheWrap
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| Posted Feb 12, 2019
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Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Played With Fire (2018) |
Though documentary re-enactments can come across slapdash, Georggson's attempt to create an authentic portrait of his subject with period-appropriate production design and costuming results in a mood not unlike a David Fincher film or a Larsson novel. - TheWrap
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| Posted Jan 26, 2019
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Egg (2018) |
It's nice to see Palka embracing the messiness of feminist theses as she progresses in her career, and if she continues delivering a movie a year, someday we'll likely be able to examine the full life of a woman through the entirety of her body of work. - TheWrap
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| Posted Jan 17, 2019
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Destroyer (2018) |
Despite the film's needlessly fractured structure and a relentlessly grim story, Kidman and Kusama seem to be speaking the same language, illuminating the faults of the protagonist and of every tragic hard-boiled detective in cinematic history. - TheWrap
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| Posted Dec 19, 2018
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Anna and the Apocalypse (2017) |
If it was popular in the horror/teen/musical canon, it's here. That's not to say McPhail doesn't impress with his technical execution. - AV Club
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| Posted Nov 27, 2018
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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) |
Maybe all these dutifully meaningless stories would have been easier to swallow spaced out into standalone episodes, as the directors had originally planned. - Denver Westword
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| Posted Nov 15, 2018
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Widows (2018) |
This thoughtful, textured story - though brutal at times - stands as one of the clearest depictions of turmoil, racism and nepotism in local politics that's ever been drawn onscreen. - Denver Westword
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| Posted Nov 13, 2018
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Bodied (2017) |
Simultaneously entertaining, overwhelming, compelling, and grating, Bodied raises its hand and talks until words mean nothing and everything. - AV Club
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| Posted Oct 30, 2018
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Shirkers (2018) |
What we - and Tan - come to find is that how the director describes or sees herself in the past doesn't always match up to her collaborators' opinions of the time; this is also a story about the stories we tell ourselves. - TheWrap
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| Posted Oct 25, 2018
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Suspiria (2018) |
Like great dance, it becomes an expression of the soul. - Denver Westword
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| Posted Oct 24, 2018
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The Captain (2017) |
Hubacher's performance is a masterful physical feat. - Village Voice
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| Posted Oct 22, 2018
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The Sisters Brothers (2018) |
Ultimately a story about brotherhood, friendship and the insecurity of life in a violent place, the film injects a sweetness and innocence into the genre, mostly through one stellar performance by John C. Reilly. - Denver Westword
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| Posted Oct 19, 2018
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Halloween (2018) |
Too bad that Laurie's story is only one of this Halloween's two movies. Whoever made the decision to slash up some hot and horny teens to round out the movie has seriously undercut what might have been a horror achievement... - Denver Westword
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| Posted Oct 19, 2018
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Strike, Dear Mistress, and Cure His Heart (2018) |
The film is at its best when it's most unhinged. When Reece blocks his scenes like a theater director, some serious shades of R.W. Fassbinder's Chinese Roulette bleed through, and it's totally satisfying and electric. - Syfy Wire
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| Posted Oct 19, 2018
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A Star Is Born (2018) |
The A Star Is Born story construction has worked, again and again, because it's archetypal tragedy - nobody believes there's a happy ending in sight. But Cooper still earned every one of my tears. - Houston Press
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| Posted Oct 18, 2018
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Maximum Impact (2018) |
Hoo-boy, this movie has some pretty blatant intentions of specifically making the FSB (née KGB) look nice and not shady at all. But aside from the political implications, you'll find this film is also quite hateful of women, too. Goody! - TheWrap
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| Posted Sep 26, 2018
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Life Itself (2018) |
There is about as much honesty and genuine emotion in this film as you would find in a damage-control ExxonMobil commercial. - Village Voice
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| Posted Sep 20, 2018
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The Bleeding Edge (2018) |
Here's hoping The Bleeding Edge gets the right attention on a decidedly unsexy topic. - Village Voice
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| Posted Sep 01, 2018
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Let the Corpses Tan (2017) |
Even the carnage, here, is inspired...More times than I could count I had no idea what the hell was happening, and also just didn't care that I didn't know. Let the Corpses Tan is that strange and beautiful. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 31, 2018
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The Bookshop (2017) |
Sometimes nice to be reminded of violence of the papercut variety, that some troubles can be worked through without an ass-kicking. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 20, 2018
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Skate Kitchen (2018) |
In Skate Kitchen, the kids come as they are, and they're wildly fascinating. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 17, 2018
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Juliet, Naked (2018) |
Peretz could have given each potential pairing equal time in the story, but he sticks with the most evocative of the two; Juliet, Naked has its charms, and they are named Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 14, 2018
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Like Father (2018) |
These are two phenomenal performers giving their all to a sharp family drama disguised as an outrageous cookie-cutter comedy. I had no idea how much Like Father was something I needed. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 13, 2018
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King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2017) |
... King Cohen endeavors to remove the stigma of indulging in a Cohen classic, and largely succeeds. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 06, 2018
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Like Father (2018) |
These are two phenomenal performers giving their all to a sharp family drama disguised as an outrageous cookie-cutter comedy. I had no idea how much Like Father was something I needed. - Houston Press
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| Posted Aug 03, 2018
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What Will People Say (2017) |
The quiet psychological terror and the simple, blunt manner in which it was shown stole my breath. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jul 14, 2018
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The Endless (2017) |
The grounding force of this film is the brothers' relationship, which is contentious but loving, and wholly realistic. - Film Comment Magazine
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| Posted Jun 29, 2018
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Boundaries (2018) |
There's real love in that routine, and that's where Farmiga and Feste shine. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jun 28, 2018
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Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) |
Hey, there are some sick one-liners, and somewhere in the convoluted plot is a heart-pumping chiller of a story with no easy heroes. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jun 26, 2018
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The Icarus Line Must Die (2017) |
What sets Grodner's story apart is its intense focus on specific people in the scene who are emblematic of a way of living and surviving in Los Angeles that's slowly dying. - TheWrap
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| Posted Jun 21, 2018
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Half the Picture (2018) |
Even though so much of what this film has to say is so ingrained in me already, I still found myself being surprised. - TheWrap
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| Posted Jun 08, 2018
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The Gospel According to André (2017) |
a thoughtful meditation on the life and career of fashion guru André Leon Talley - Village Voice
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| Posted Jun 07, 2018
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Hereditary (2018) |
Hereditary is wicked existential horror. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jun 07, 2018
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In Darkness (2018) |
The first third of the story then presents [the protagonist] like a typical Hitchcock ingenue before branching out into a promisingly ambitious mystery. Too bad that story ultimately loses focus and its protagonist's point of view. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jun 07, 2018
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Book Club (2018) |
Even though it follows the map of every romcom before it, Holderman's film still offers the too-rare chance to marvel at just how good these women are at their craft, how easily they inhabit the bodies and lives of other people. - Village Voice
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| Posted May 19, 2018
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Revenge (2017) |
Offers a woman's POV on the age-old tale and succeeds in turning a B concept soaked in blood into a pure adrenaline rush of terror, grounded firmly in the real and horrifying dynamics that breed rape culture. - TheWrap
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| Posted May 10, 2018
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Racer and the Jailbird (2017) |
This is melodrama, after all, but borderline boring melodrama, painting over scenes of potentially high tension with blasé realism. - Village Voice
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| Posted May 04, 2018
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Bad Samaritan (2018) |
There's frightfully little atmosphere to this film - anything from creepy sound design to evocative cinematography - rendering the flaws in the story all too visible. - Village Voice
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| Posted May 04, 2018
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The 12th Man (2017) |
One of the wildest, most creative fugitive stories told about the Nazi occupation... - Village Voice
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| Posted May 04, 2018
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Ghost Stories (2017) |
This film nails its black humor and finds a bizarre but satisfying conclusion to manage all the loose ends. - Village Voice
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| Posted May 04, 2018
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Wildling (2018) |
The attention paid to images does not translate to character development, story, or dialogue, leaving little emotional resonance, while making me seriously wonder if the men telling these stories understand much at all about female sexuality. - Village Voice
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| Posted May 04, 2018
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Let the Sunshine In (2017) |
When films are made about straight men in this predicament, they're often considered explorations of a "mid-life crisis," but Denis' film poses the questions: What if crises aren't limited to a certain age, and what if love itself is the crisis? - TheWrap
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| Posted Apr 27, 2018
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Krystal (2017) |
So baffling that it must be appreciated at least for its ability to defy all logic. - TheWrap
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| Posted Apr 13, 2018
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Sweet Country (2017) |
[Warwick] Thornton delicately peels back all the layers of Aussie injustice in this film, but what's most unnerving is that the story proves to be so universal. - Village Voice
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| Posted Apr 04, 2018
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