Carol Midgley
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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All That Breathes (2022) |
Simple in its slow, calm storytelling, but profound in the philosophical points it raised about how we are all connected in the vast ecosystem. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Feb 09, 2023
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Lancaster (2022) |
In the end this was less a film about the Lancaster bomber as a piece of military hardware, and more about what it meant to those young men, some only teenagers, who risked their lives in it. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Endangered (2022) |
Thoughtful, depressing and, if you’re a journalist, utterly enraging documentary. Actually scrub that... [it] should be disturbing for everyone capable of critical thought...
- Times (UK)
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| Posted Jun 30, 2022
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Navalny (2022) |
An emotional rollercoaster of a film... - Times (UK)
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| Posted Apr 26, 2022
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Mission: Joy (Finding Happiness in Troubled Times) (2021) |
The documentary lasted 80 minutes but the message was beautifully succinct. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Feb 28, 2022
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Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts (2022) |
If you haven't had enough sugar this Christmas an overdose on this Harry Potter reunion extravaganza should rectify that. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 31, 2021
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Four Hours at the Capitol (2021) |
Outstanding. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Oct 27, 2021
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Help (2021) |
It is rare that a TV drama manages to be agonising and compelling; unbearable yet utterly immersive. Help was such a drama. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Oct 20, 2021
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Killing Escobar (2021) |
The only times he seemed close to faltering was when his father was mentioned; right there you saw the legacy of toxic parenting, man handing on misery to man. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jul 20, 2021
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Diana (2021) |
Yes it was one-sided and yes it was a homage, but it seemed to be offering something fresh -- and with a Diana documentary it's not often you can say that. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jun 28, 2021
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Friends: The Reunion (2021) |
Oh. My. God. Could this have BEEN any more schmaltzy? - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jun 05, 2021
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Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes (2020) |
However, in tone you felt it was a tribute that Derbyshire, whose tapes were discovered in cereal boxes in 2001, shortly after her death, would have enjoyed. Like her, it was unconventional. - Times (UK)
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| Posted May 17, 2021
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Danny Boy (2021) |
It was a thoughtful, non-melodramatic meditation on what we expect of soldiers in the heat of battle and on the tightrope of maintaining decency in war. - Times (UK)
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| Posted May 17, 2021
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Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause (2021) |
McCall was candid about her menopause at age 44 and kept the programme information-dense, the data clearly explained. There were gimmicks. - Times (UK)
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| Posted May 17, 2021
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Fake Famous (2021) |
Occasionally the film, with its buzzy vibe, felt as superficial as the industry it was sending up. However, it was entertaining. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Apr 02, 2021
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The Mole Agent (2020) |
Sounds depressing. Its big reveal was that it was often the exact opposite. Sweet, charming and poignant, it was a meditation on growing old, loneliness and making a life when confined in an institution. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Mar 30, 2021
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Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death (2021) |
Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death was made with great sensitivity. Sadly, great sensitivity was not always afforded to her when she was alive. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Mar 18, 2021
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Class Action Park (2020) |
Equally extraordinary was that those kids, now adults, knew he had been reckless with their lives yet they looked back at those days with affection. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Feb 19, 2021
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Rhod Gilbert: Stand Up to Infertility (2021) |
It was heartfelt and honest. I hope that in about a year's time Gilbert will be able to start writing part two of that tour: The Baby Years. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Feb 02, 2021
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The Mystery of D.B. Cooper (2020) |
By the end of The Hijacker Who Vanished: The Mystery of DB Cooper, I felt like saying: "Dammit, I'm DB Cooper." - Times (UK)
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| Posted Nov 24, 2020
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Dunkirk: The Forgotten Heroes (2014) |
It will make you well up with tears and want to kick a wall in anger at the same time. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Oct 04, 2020
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(undefined) |
It would be funny if it wasn't so heinous. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Aug 26, 2020
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(undefined) |
Derren Brown is such a brilliant mental manipulator that by the end of Derren Brown: 20 Years of Mind Control -- Live I wondered if he might be persuaded to slip inside No 10. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Aug 24, 2020
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(undefined) |
Wark weaved together well and with authority what was a tawdry and depressing saga. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Aug 21, 2020
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(undefined) |
Despite its unwieldy title and much filler, it was a charming film that reminded us what quietly extraordinary lives seemingly ordinary people lead. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Aug 20, 2020
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(undefined) |
It made for extraordinary television, watching a man we have seen fronting various health programmes flatlining before our eyes. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Aug 11, 2020
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Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer (2019) |
As someone noted, the Enquirer had been out-enquired. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jun 29, 2020
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Sitting in Limbo (2020) |
This was hugely affecting drama, but I would have liked to have seen in it more of the politicians who drove this policy rather than the faceless uniformed guards who had to implement it at the sharp end. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jun 09, 2020
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After Auschwitz (2017) |
The film did get sidetracked by other political issues, which diluted the impact, but it was still utterly compelling. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Apr 17, 2020
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Confronting Holocaust Denial with David Baddiel (2020) |
It is to Baddiel's great credit that he remained calm throughout, disarming the denier, who believes Jews have tricked the world for profit, with the weapons of sarcasm and humour. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Feb 19, 2020
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(undefined) |
The therapy room scenes - featuring various children, each with a dead parent, weeping, but trying to help others in the same boat - were a privilege to watch, articulating children's resilience, but also how much pain they hide. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Feb 11, 2020
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In the Pool (2005) |
Barrymore: The Body in the Pool was not just a scrupulous documentary, it felt like a prelude to a breakthrough. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Feb 10, 2020
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(undefined) |
The key to the film's mischief was its access to Farage over a prolonged period, culminating, he probably imagined, in a flattering profile of a man hoisted on the shoulders of grateful Leave politicians. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jan 31, 2020
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The Windermere Children (2020) |
The young Polish actors playing the teenagers did a harrowing subject proud. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jan 29, 2020
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(undefined) |
Tom Mangold's pin-sharp, revelatory documentary had all the elements of a classic scoop. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jan 27, 2020
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(undefined) |
With no narration, no music and only snippets of local interest on-screen, such as the Waikato bunny-jumping competition and where the 2016 earthquake had destroyed the railroad, it had a druggily soporific effect. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Jan 21, 2020
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(undefined) |
The documentary kept a respectful distance, and while it touched on Beckett's casual approach to sexual fidelity, Dunbar said it felt like prying and retreated. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 31, 2019
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(undefined) |
It was a terrible story told sparingly, eloquently and with such realistic dialogue and camerawork that at times it felt like a documentary. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 30, 2019
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A Christmas Carol (2018) |
This was a total cut above the crowd - nutty, muscular, textured and with Guy Pearce delivering an intense, complex performance as Scrooge. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 23, 2019
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(undefined) |
In its denouement, which you could see coming for quite some time, it simply proved what Christie fans know: the queen of crime is not easily emulated. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 17, 2019
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(undefined) |
Things don't get much more festive than Lucy Worsley in crushed velvet. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 10, 2019
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The Case of Sally Challen (2019) |
It was an excellent, meticulous film about a tragedy in which there were no winners, only losers. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 10, 2019
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Elizabeth is Missing (2019) |
The story, adapted from Emma Healey's novel, was cleverly told so that we didn't know where Elizabeth was, but experienced her "disappearance" from Maud's perspective; confused and disjointed with little sense of elapsing time. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 09, 2019
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(undefined) |
It was a lyrical documentary done in vivid colours, rather like [Paul] Gauguin's paintings, but recounting a little too briefly his brief, fraught flat-share with Vincent van Gogh. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Dec 02, 2019
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(undefined) |
This was vital television, but I wonder how many people had the stomach to stick it to the end. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Nov 26, 2019
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(undefined) |
Even the most pusillanimous soul would admire these women's bravery. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Nov 21, 2019
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(undefined) |
The best contributions came from the veterans, who were little older than boys at the time. They told of men's black hair turning white with stress and fear, and of terrible cases of shell shock. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Nov 12, 2019
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(undefined) |
[John] Maggio was assiduous in his telling of the politics of what is also known as "the forgotten war," but these human details are the ones that stick most. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2019
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(undefined) |
The last ten minutes of Warrior Women with Lupita Nyong'o proved an important corrective to the romantic, reverential stories that we had heard so far of the Agoji, a kick-ass army of women who fought for the Dahomey kingdom in Benin, west Africa. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2019
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(undefined) |
[Andrew] Graham-Dixon navigated the story most entertainingly, veering between disdain and astonishment that a bespectacled little conman brazened it out for so long. - Times (UK)
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| Posted Oct 10, 2019
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