Catherine Shoard
Catherine Shoard's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Guardian
Daily Telegraph (UK)
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Tenet (2020) |
The world is more than ready for a fabulous blockbuster... It's a real shame Tenet isn't it. - Guardian
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| Posted Aug 21, 2020
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The Air I Breathe (2007) |
Pretentious at best, risible for the rest of the time, this is most notable for Andy Garcia's staggeringly hammy cameo as the opera-loving moneylender Fingers. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted May 01, 2020
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The New World (2005) |
All [Malick's] trademarks are present and correct: the swaying grass, the gurgling rivers, the trees, the birds, the internal monologues. They all fit. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Feb 12, 2020
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Caché (2005) |
Austrian sadist Michael Haneke's most mainstream film to date is this exquisitely calibrated and jittery thriller. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Feb 12, 2020
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Rumor Has It ... (2005) |
Rumour had it that this was rubbish, and so it is. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Feb 12, 2020
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Frozen (2005) |
Not, at first glance, the sexiest pitch, so thumbs up to first-time director Juliet McKoen for making this fairly gripping. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Feb 12, 2020
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Burlesque (2010) |
And it's this tension that rescues Burlesque - a film cursed with being too competent to be a Showgirls-style guilty pleasure, and too ropey to be really recommendable. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 28, 2019
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Fun With Dick and Jane (2005) |
A gummy remake of the George Segal/Jane Fonda 1977 comedy, this is evidently conceived as a showcase for Carrey's waning talents, but it suffers from a mouldy premise and the slightly unsavoury underlying message. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Jan 17, 2018
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Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005) |
Coogan may be game and there are plenty of nods to assorted sexploits, but this riffing on his caddish public image was done a lot more amusingly and a lot less smugly in a 10-minute skit in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Jan 17, 2018
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Breakfast on Pluto (2005) |
Sadly, Kitten himself is the sort you'd be happy to string across a tennis racket, and the film never quite copes with his lethal insufferability. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Jan 16, 2018
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Jarhead (2005) |
Gyllenhaal can, in fact, act, so the blame must fall elsewhere for his dim performance, all topless tears and soulful voiceovers. The same goes for Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Cooper and Jamie Foxx, three good actors forced into contortions of theatrics. - Daily Telegraph (UK)
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| Posted Jan 16, 2018
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Hidden Figures (2016) |
Although it looks like a movie machine-tooled to ride the wave of #OscarsSoWhite backlash, its actual ambitions seem far more modest: to entertain a lot, to educate a bit and to cheerlead pretty much constantly. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 12, 2016
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Fences (2016) |
This film is conceived as a showcase for its performers, and, as that, it is immaculate. - Guardian
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| Posted Nov 22, 2016
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Queen of Katwe (2016) |
For what is, in essence, a by-numbers Disney sports flick, there's endless freshness and vivacity to Mira Nair's picture - her best in years. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 11, 2016
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Risk (2016) |
Listening to Assange explain how his missives can be intercepted through overhead power cables, even those allergic can't fail but be impressed. - Guardian
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| Posted May 19, 2016
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Golden Years (2016) |
There are the seeds of something interesting here, but premise and talent are ill-served by crude and cliched characterisation and thudding execution ... - Guardian
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| Posted Apr 28, 2016
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The Family Fang (2015) |
Ultimately Bateman's latest adds little to a debate leant pithier insight by Larkin 44 years ago. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 15, 2015
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Suffragette (2015) |
Director Sarah Gavron does well to galvanize her story with a degree of urgency: the result of swift, assured camerawork and a brilliantly understated performance by Carey Mulligan. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 15, 2015
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Truth (2015) |
As high-class cheese goes, Truth slips down fine. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 14, 2015
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The Program (2015) |
A fluid and nippy telling of a tale that still seems strangely urgent. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 14, 2015
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I Saw the Light (2015) |
The framing is erratic, logic shonky and for every cliche Abraham confounds (the call not to use any music other than that which Hank performs is admirable), there's three he clings to (barely a letter goes by without being read aloud). - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 12, 2015
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The Lady in the Van (2015) |
No better, no worse - the synopsis serves. If you like the sound of it, you will likely like the film. And, for what it's worth, I did. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 12, 2015
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Anomalisa (2015) |
Life is lonely and cold, it says, leavened only briefly, if you're lucky. Happiness is transient. Love an anomaly. We're lucky such art as this is not. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 07, 2015
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He Named Me Malala (2015) |
It is worth the price of admission alone to watch this young woman tour the world, ticking off the Nigerian president over Boko Haram, holding forth with Obama and Oprah and the rest. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 04, 2015
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Ant-Man (2015) |
Watching it is like channel-surfing between Hot Fuzz, a duff early 90s Michael Douglas drama and the very schlockiest bits of Interstellar. - Guardian
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| Posted Jul 08, 2015
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Furious 7 (2015) |
Everything about F&F 7 is supersized, from the actors to the running time to the scope of urban destruction. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 25, 2015
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Eastern Boys (2013) |
Robin Campillo's drama is sweet and neat, as ambitious as it is gripping. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 04, 2014
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Hello Carter (2013) |
The script persistently lets things down, and there's something irredeemably dreary about both palette and scope. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 04, 2014
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Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) |
This should be affecting stuff, but it's consistently undercut by the massively naff aesthetic. - Guardian
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| Posted Nov 29, 2014
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Draft Day (2014) |
Quarterback scrambles forever muscle centre stage, leaving the human element scrimmaging on the sidelines. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 02, 2014
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Still Alice (2014) |
This is an effortlessly excellent film, about a horribly hard subject. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 12, 2014
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Top Five (2014) |
Top Five is a film broad and filthy enough for multiplex appeal, but also sufficiently arch to satisfy those who fancy themselves a little more sophisticated. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 12, 2014
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A Little Chaos (2014) |
It has to be said, the performances are excellent. Winslet manages emotional honesty within anachronistic confines, and Schoenaerts escapes with dignity. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 10, 2014
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Cake (2014) |
Despite its sour centre, Cake's conceits quickly crumble, leaving just a half-baked pity. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 10, 2014
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The Imitation Game (2014) |
It's too formulaic, too efficient at simply whisking you through and making sure you've clocked the diversity message.: without square pegs - like those played by Cumberbatch and Knightley - the world would be by far the poorer. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 08, 2014
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Madame Bovary (2014) |
The first half is shot almost like a horror, all oppressive rumbling clouds and lashing of mist and shot of her back, suffocating corset laced up like a spine. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 07, 2014
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Batched (2014) |
Conflicting our sympathies serves the work well. Both play and film button-push, but the substantial changes made in the transfer soften the grotesque and muddy the waters. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 07, 2014
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While We're Young (2014) |
[Baumbach's] best, and funniest, in a decade. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 07, 2014
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St. Vincent (2014) |
It plays out like a best-of album: safe, fun, but inessential if you're already familiar with the back catalogue. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 07, 2014
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The Theory of Everything (2014) |
Redmayne towers: this is an astonishing, genuinely visceral performance which bears comparison with Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 07, 2014
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This Is Where I Leave You (2014) |
This is Where I Leave You is totally amiable, utterly unmoving filler given a major shot in the arm by its cast, people it's simply a pleasure to watch, even with the creeping feeling they're better than this. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 07, 2014
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The Judge (2014) |
Sadly there's no denying the charge: first-degree cheese, with intent. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 04, 2014
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Chef (2014) |
There's nourishment to be had, if you lower your expectations. But be warned: a lot of it is just watching Jon Favreau make toasties in a van. - Guardian
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| Posted Jun 26, 2014
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The Family (2013) |
The collateral damage involving innocent bystanders is staggering. Just mind you don't get caught in the crossfire. - Guardian
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| Posted Nov 21, 2013
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Philomena (2013) |
Why does it work quite so well? In part, it's the Dench effect. - Observer (UK)
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| Posted Nov 04, 2013
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Cutie and the Boxer (2013) |
This works best as a portrait of a marriage, as Ushio and nimble wife Noriko rattle around their dank flat trying to keep the love strong as the water drips and the bailiffs thump. - Observer (UK)
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| Posted Nov 04, 2013
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Short Term 12 (2013) |
The kids are sensitively drawn, if a little pick-and-mix in terms of their issues and ethnicities, and the whole movie breathes with kindness and intelligence. - Observer (UK)
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| Posted Nov 04, 2013
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Thor: The Dark World (2013) |
The whole thing cost about $200m. But the best thing about it is still an old Swede in his pants. - Observer (UK)
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| Posted Nov 04, 2013
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Drinking Buddies (2013) |
There are emotional razors amid the wooziness. - Observer (UK)
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| Posted Nov 04, 2013
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Gloria (2013) |
It's gloriously strange and slippery, impossible to pin down - at once funny, uplifting, moving and deeply disquieting. - Observer (UK)
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| Posted Nov 04, 2013
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