Chris Fujiwara
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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The American (2010) |
A lethargic work that breaks out intermittently into action and suspense, an American movie for people who don't like American movies. - n+1
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| Posted Mar 13, 2018
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Essential Killing (2010) |
Maybe the only failing of Essential Killing is that everything in it is seen so sufficiently that one doesn't feel the need to go back to watch it another time (unlike most great films, which improve on repeated viewings). - n+1
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| Posted Nov 14, 2017
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Petition (2011) |
Moments of communication sought or denied give poignancy to a film filled with helplessness and outrage. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jan 27, 2010
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Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) |
Eastwood is a master of the extended look (this comes from the two directors he acknowledges as his own masters, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel), the look that stretches time and that is blinded by what it sees. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Apr 23, 2009
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Rescue Dawn (2006) |
Bale's lack of ambiguity points to the biggest limitation of a film that makes the grade as an adventure yarn by ignoring the most disturbing implications of its story. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Apr 23, 2009
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Mutual Appreciation (2005) |
Mutual Appreciation shows life as contingent, conditional, enigmatic, never finally realized, as, in short, everything that the Harvey Mansfields of the world abhor, and it shows why to accept this kind of life is an act of strength. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Oct 20, 2006
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Masculine-Feminine (1966) |
Watching the movie now, 39 years after it was made, I'm struck most by its sadness, its harshness, and its pessimism. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Apr 02, 2005
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Eyes Without a Face (1959) |
Les yeux sans visage [is] a balance between cruelty and tenderness that has rarely been attempted in cinema. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Mar 05, 2005
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A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) |
Even at its most maddening and cute, the elaborate interplay between hallucination and reality rewards attention. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Feb 26, 2005
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Million Dollar Baby (2004) |
I'll say only that Eastwood has never been more moving, as a director or as an actor, than he is in the last 30 minutes of this film. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jan 15, 2005
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Zatoichi (2003) |
Zatoichi himself is a remarkable creation. With his dry laugh and cocked head, Kitano makes him a kind of clown -- an ideal choice for a film so concerned with fun, games, and performing. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Aug 14, 2004
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Before Sunset (2004) |
The result is a complicated and thrilling game that, unlike some diversions we have had lately, does not debase the words "romantic" and "comedy." - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jul 03, 2004
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Dawn of the Dead (2004) |
The acting is better than necessary, the special effects are savage and persuasive, and the undercranked action scenes are enjoyably frenetic. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Mar 26, 2004
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Twisted (2004) |
You're not sure whether to take the film as a sophisticated parody, a surrealist prose poem, or an unusually dumb thriller. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Mar 06, 2004
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Mystic River (2003) |
Each of the three childhood friends who grow up to become the main characters of Mystic River brings the film a particular style of revelation. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Oct 04, 2003
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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) |
Before becoming a standard exercise in wearing out welcomes, Gore Verbinski's adventure comedy brings good spirits and narrative vigor to its chore of refurbishing the pirate genre. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Aug 02, 2003
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The Shape of Things (2003) |
It would seem we're expected to react with mounting discomfort and fascination, though boredom, laced with a sporting curiosity about what kind of unpleasantness impends, is just as appropriate a response... - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jul 02, 2003
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Alex & Emma (2003) |
[A] disaster. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jul 02, 2003
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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) |
In his promising directorial debut, Clooney gets away with most of the flourishes he allows himself. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jan 25, 2003
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Evelyn (2002) |
There are many, many pub scenes, which Bruce Beresford (as complete a hack as any director who ever lived) milks for each ounce of quaintness. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Dec 23, 2002
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Solaris (2002) |
Why Steven Soderbergh and his producers (who include James Cameron) wanted to try their hands at it is a mystery. And viewing the hollow result doesn't shed any light on that mystery. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Dec 16, 2002
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Far From Heaven (2002) |
Haynes, in choosing the melodrama as his form, raises expectations that he doesn't fulfill: he actually does less than what melodramas can do, and did. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Nov 23, 2002
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Moonlight Mile (2002) |
You watch for a whole hour before Moonlight Mile collapses into bathos. But when it collapses, it collapses hard. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Oct 05, 2002
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Seven Samurai (1954) |
It's no wonder Spielberg and Lucas love Kurosawa so much: Seven Samurai and, at a much lower level, The Hidden Fortress are prototypes for the kind of filmmaking with which the two Americans reinvented popular cinema. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Aug 31, 2002
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Signs (2002) |
All the winks and tics with which Shyamalan signals that he's looked at a Fantagraphics book or seen a real movie only make this film's calculated tearjerking more offensive. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Aug 03, 2002
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Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) |
The film creates a vivid sense of the reality of the townspeople and their daily lives, even though Tarr deliberately makes their social relations hard to decipher. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jun 11, 2002
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A New Leaf (1971) |
A New Leaf establishes May as one of American cinema's finest moralists - and certainly its funniest. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jun 01, 2002
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CQ (2001) |
In other words, ''CQ'' triumphs over its own trendiness only by being vapid and superficial. - Boston Globe
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| Posted May 31, 2002
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Hollywood Ending (2002) |
Hollywood Ending is a small film, but its ease and grace are virtues that can't be overrated. - Boston Globe
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| Posted May 03, 2002
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Trouble Every Day (2001) |
Trouble Every Day is a success in some sense, but it's hard to like a film so cold and dead. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Apr 26, 2002
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Murder by Numbers (2002) |
For much of its length, the film is plausible, if predictable and ponderous. Its strongest assets are its actors. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Apr 19, 2002
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Lost in Space (1998) |
About the only thing that's presented with any purposeful consequence is the pandering set-up for a sequel. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Mar 24, 2002
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The Mother and the Whore (1973) |
The Mother and the Whore is a great film. It's great in the disdainful purity of its technique, in the performances of its three leads, and above all in giving a definitive view of the '70s. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Mar 24, 2002
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Memento (2000) |
It's pointless to knock Memento. The proof of the film's success is that 10 minutes after you've seen it, it's exactly as if you hadn't. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Mar 24, 2002
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Blade II (2002) |
Any subtlety, mystery, or surprise present in the first film is gone. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Mar 22, 2002
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The Son's Room (2001) |
The Son's Room is a triumph of gentility that earns its moments of pathos. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Mar 01, 2002
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Beijing Bicycle (2001) |
[Wang's] reliance on sugarcoated music and his trite use of slow motion show that his heart lies in making undemanding fluff for the world market. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Feb 01, 2002
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Band of Outsiders (1964) |
An inexhaustible meditation on how the world is formed by desire. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Sep 07, 2001
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Himalaya (1999) |
Valli's touch as an artist is too light, and his dramatic sense too timid, to make the film much more than a collection of pretty pictures. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Jul 30, 2001
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Time and Tide (2000) |
There is nothing in the movie worth looking at. - Boston Globe
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| Posted May 25, 2001
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