Cory Woodroof
Tomatometer-approved critic
Cory Woodroof is a film critic based in Nashville, Tennessee. He writes for the Nashville Scene, The Playlist, The Young Folks and The Falcoholic, among other publications. He is also a board member with the Music City Film Critics' Association.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Scream VI (2023) |
Scream being its own trash-talking ombudsman will keep these films alive for as long as they’re needed. - For the Win (USA Today)
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| Posted Mar 10, 2023
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Cocaine Bear (2023) |
[It's] basically a mix of James Wan’s Malignant and the bear scene from The Revenant. - For the Win (USA Today)
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| Posted Mar 01, 2023
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Titanic (1997) |
Those shots of the boat sinking — the grand terror of it all — goodness gracious, man…the swooning, doomed romance…Garber by the clock…Leo the damn movie star…cinema! Cinema, I say! Cinema! - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 19, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin (2023) |
The world is a better place when Shyamalan just goes out there with a concept like this and does the damn thing. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 19, 2023
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Your Place or Mine (2023) |
I’m a little concerned Your Place or Mine might be the first movie ever written by ChatGPT. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 19, 2023
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) |
It feels like Marvel is starting to spin its wheels a bit, with this Ant-Man movie a weird blend of refried Guardians of the Galaxy and a far-less interesting extension of what Loki was doing with all the multiverse hubbub. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 19, 2023
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A Man Called Otto (2022) |
It’s the kind of schmaltzy, big performance studio drama that used to get a billion Oscar nominations, and darn it, I kind of miss those being in vogue. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Plane (2023) |
This one is more solid than you’d expect it to be, refreshingly straightforward and knowing in what its job is and how to execute it without much fuss. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Missing (2023) |
Missing is an absolute blast. Such a smart way to play the true crime game while cutting the culture around it to pieces. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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You People (2023) |
Kenya Barris isn’t a bad director by any stretch, but just imagine what this could’ve been with a better script. It's good for what it is, even if the potential was tantalizing. We only get so many Eddie Murphy vehicles, so you take what you can get. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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When You Finish Saving the World (2022) |
It’s a solid first feature, brimming with ideas but not always able to communicate those clearly. Still, I admire the hustle. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Polite Society (2023) |
Nida Manzoor is going to be a rockstar. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023) |
In 90 minutes, you get what you need, but a legend like this deserves a lot more. All music icons get the solid, standard doc treatment, though. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023) |
Cory Finley takes a gigantic swing here, and I so appreciated the gusto to make this one. It’s a very strange sci-fi romance with tinges of comedy and melancholy strewn about. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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King Coal (2023) |
I really appreciated the thesis in this one, that coal is so ingrained in Appalachia’s culture that it’s going to be near impossible to pry it away from the hills. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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The Persian Version (2023) |
I wish we could get more mainstream movies like this, ones without big names in the cast but a lot on the mind and in the heart. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Victim/Suspect (2023) |
A very solid, depressing piece of accessible documentary journalism about a very troubling trend. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Rye Lane (2023) |
A very sweet and funny meet-cute, akin to the great lineage of walk-and-talk romcoms. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Shortcomings (2023) |
I didn’t peg Randall Park be the one to make High Fidelity for Film Twitter, but here we are! - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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The Starling Girl (2023) |
This is quite good, even if it’s an uncomfortable sit. It’s just sad to see someone’s faith get so wrecked by fundamentalist garbage. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Eileen (2023) |
I really dug the filmmaking and the performances, but the movie purposefully going off the rails kind of lacked the control to make its venom settle. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Cat Person (2023) |
It’s 80ish minutes of a clever “nowadays” dating satire flanked by one of the most self-defeating third acts I’ve seen in a long, long time. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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A Still Small Voice (2023) |
It’s a sobering watch but an important one all the same. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Dude, Where's My Car? (2000) |
This is horrible, but it’s also offensive as hell. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012) |
Stuff like Dobis is right up the alley you’re used to. However, the transition to R-rated material and a feature-length format isn’t quite as seamless as you’d hope. John C. Reilly is hilarious as you’d think, though. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Assassination Nation (2018) |
If Joker, Euphoria, Kill Bill and The Purge did the same TikTok dance, but Sam Levinson was the one who came up with the moves…yeah. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Life (1999) |
Y’know, this was pretty solid. Kind of a funnier riff on The Shawshank Redemption, if not … well … as good. - 615 Film
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings (2023) |
The best film of Sundance 2023 was Nicole Holofcener’s surprisingly resonant You Hurt My Feelings, which might be the best film ever made about our societal inability to handle various forms of criticism. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Theater Camp (2023) |
Theater Camp is a bit like Waiting for Guffman meets TikTok meets your favorite camp comedy. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023) |
It’s a deeply profound meditation on the life and career of one of America’s most beloved actors. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) |
The whimsical, delightfully off-kilter film feels like something ripped off of Adult Swim at times, just with a more refined filter. It’s ultimate a moving story about breaking out of your shell, and Ridley has never been better. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Magazine Dreams (2023) |
Majors’ breathtaking physicality and uncomfortable intensity might make this one of the standout performances of the decade when all is said and done. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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A Little Prayer (2023) |
Veteran actor David Strathairn delivers what might be the defining performance of his career with A Little Prayer. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Fremont (2023) |
A quirky dramedy about an Afghan woman who tries to assimilate in America by working at a fortune cookie factory, Fremont builds a deeply humane, surprisingly funny tale about what it’s like to build a new life. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Fancy Dance (2023) |
It’s a stirring family drama that gives Gladstone a wonderful platform. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Beyond Utopia (2023) |
Beyond Utopia is a breathless documentary with startling footage of a South Korean pastor who works to help dissidents escape North Korea. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Bad Press (2023) |
It’s one of the best American films about journalism to come along in the past decade, a genuinely shocking study on how the First Amendment isn’t a guarantee for all U.S. citizens. - Nashville Scene
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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80 for Brady (2023) |
If you want to understand the unbeatable charm of 80 for Brady, watch Sally Field chow down on hot wings in a contest hosted by Guy Fieri. - For the Win (USA Today)
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Cloverfield (2008) |
Fifteen years after Cloverfield‘s release, the terrorizing monster movie remains one of the best examples of studio ingenuity, taking a worn-out genre and infusing it with something hyper-relevant and truly unpredictable. - For the Win (USA Today)
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| Posted Jan 25, 2023
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House Party (2023) |
Some of the jokes here are mercilessly funny, including one NFL star cameo that has to be one of the best gags in a studio comedy in eons. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Spoiler Alert (2022) |
Michael Showalter is competent enough to make the real-life drama sink in, and the cast is good enough to sell it. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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The Pale Blue Eye (2022) |
A pretty study February chiller with snow everywhere and Henry Melling doing his best Foghorn Dreadhorn impression. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Jurassic Punk (2022) |
I’m a sucker for showbiz docs, and I quite liked this one because I think it’s the best thing we’ve gotten in a long time that actually deals with the VFX revolution. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) |
We’re probably past due for another Shrek movie, and this was a good reminder that there is more to do there now that DreamWorks seems like it’s actually trying again with the golden goose. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022) |
Better than the '90s one! - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Cats Don't Dance (1997) |
I refuse to believe anything else but that a young Damien Chazelle walked into a movie theater, watched this and left thinking, “I’m going to make this movie, but it’ll be a 3-hour bacchanal with Brad Pitt.” (Mark Dindal kicked ass with this one) - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Armageddon (1998) |
Clearly ridiculous, but damn it, we didn’t know what we had. This was a blast, and startlingly emotional by the end. The Aerosmith song is still a bop. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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House Party (1990) |
It’s the affable hangout movie that I kind of expected it to be, with a delightful George Clinton cameo, a great Robin Harris performance and one of the most “oh…oh dear” dated comedy bits of the early 90s. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Step Brothers (2008) |
I still don’t know if this is quite the Dadaist masterpiece people make it out to be, whereas a movie like Hot Rod accomplishes the purposeful absurdism with a lot more consistency. But y’know, it’s still pretty darn funny. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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Fred Claus (2007) |
What a weird-ass movie. It’s not really for kids, it’s not really for adults, it’s not really for anyone who enjoys Christmas. - 615 Film
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| Posted Jan 15, 2023
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