Elise Nakhnikian
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson (2010) |
As told by James and his crew, Iverson's story is a great American tragedy, a harrowing look into the gaping racial fault line that runs through America in general and Hampton, Virginia, in particular. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Feb 08, 2020
|
|
|
|
For Ahkeem (2017) |
The weight of the systemic racism they experience is crushing enough to make it hard to imagine that Daje and Antoine will be able to offer their son any more opportunities than they have themselves. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted May 10, 2017
|
|
|
|
Intent to Destroy (2017) |
The global lack of knowledge that's resulted from Turkey's denial campaign is more amnesia than ignorance. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted May 10, 2017
|
|
|
|
The Circle (2017) |
The film is a hokily melodramatic rise-fall-redemption story with a mostly unearned patina of greater significance. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 28, 2017
|
|
|
|
Manifesto (2015) |
The film's visceral pleasures often work at cross purposes with the cerebral message of the manifestos. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 22, 2017
|
|
|
|
Person to Person (2017) |
The uneven quality of Person to Person's stories and the inconsequential feel of much of what happens make the film feel a little like a stroll through the city. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2017
|
|
|
|
Happy Times Will Come Soon (2016) |
Alessandro Comodin's film is a mlange of gorgeous tiles that never quite comes together as a mosaic. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2017
|
|
|
|
Sexy Durga (2017) |
A couple's journey gone horribly awry comes to feel universal, an allegory about the violent misogyny that plagues India. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2017
|
|
|
|
Patti Cake$ (2017) |
The obstacles and opportunities that Patti encounters are often rote, but her struggles and triumphs are detailed with a gravity that honors and elucidates her feelings. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 05, 2017
|
|
|
|
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) |
The credit for bringing out their humanity goes partly to the cast, of course, but it starts with director and co-writer Iñárritu, who can now find humor as well as heartbreak in the hopes, fears, and ridiculous dreams that make us human. - Brooklyn Magazine
Read More
| Posted Feb 24, 2017
|
|
|
|
The Comedian (2016) |
Nearly everything in Taylor Hackford's tin-eared comedy is as ersatz as the Robert De Niro character's rage is real. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jan 30, 2017
|
|
|
|
Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America (2016) |
The film is a debater with some interesting points to make but no overall argument to contain them. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jan 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
Hidden Figures (2016) |
The central characters' dogged refusal to cede their places on a team that keeps trying to reject them is a moving display of heroism. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Dec 11, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Founder (2016) |
Michael Keaton's powerful performance in The Founder is marooned in a wishy-washy story. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Dec 07, 2016
|
|
|
|
Rules Don't Apply (2016) |
Warren Beatty's portrayal of Howard Hughes has the overly polished feel of an anecdote that's been told too often. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Nov 16, 2016
|
|
|
|
Gimme Danger (2016) |
The film reveals the erudition and shrewd self-awareness that Jim Osterberg drew on to become Iggy Pop. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Oct 24, 2016
|
|
|
|
Miss Hokusai (2015) |
It condenses everyday interactions, memories, and dreams into a potent mix of all the major ingredients of a well-lived life. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Oct 10, 2016
|
|
|
|
Uncle Howard (2016) |
It's too simplistic to provide much, if any, perspective-more Bloodhounds of Broadway than Burroughs: The Movie. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2016
|
|
|
|
I Called Him Morgan (2016) |
It pulls off the delicate maneuver of mourning Lee Morgan's early demise while celebrating the exhilarating love, liberty, and artistic brilliance that characterized most of his life. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2016
|
|
|
|
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016) |
Steve James displays his usual savvy for picking culturally resonant topics in his latest documentary. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2016
|
|
|
|
Masterminds (2016) |
Jared Hess's film turns out to be a succession of failed jokes punctuated by a few cathartic laughs. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Dressmaker (2015) |
The frequent contemptuousness the film displays toward its characters keeps the audience at arm's length. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Sep 09, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Hollars (2016) |
The film's ruefully honest tone is periodically drowned out by the blare of stagey coincidences. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Aug 25, 2016
|
|
|
|
Hands of Stone (2016) |
The Panamanian-born Roberto Duran's story has all the makings of a fascinating film, but Hands of Stone isn't it. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Aug 22, 2016
|
|
|
|
Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) |
The film champions coddling people like Florence Foster Jenkins and treats critical thinking as the enemy. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Aug 11, 2016
|
|
|
|
Tallulah (2016) |
Everyone's needs and neuroses fit together as neatly as puzzle pieces, en route to a happy ending that feels both inevitable and utterly unconvincing. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jul 25, 2016
|
|
|
|
Don't Blink -- Robert Frank (2015) |
Frank is delightful company, as emotionally transparent and offhandedly insightful in person as he is as his art. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jul 18, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Infiltrator (2016) |
Its clunky incidents of exposition leave us with no real understanding of what anyone is thinking or feeling. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jul 11, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Measure of a Man (2015) |
The Measure of a Man is a triumph of realistic cinema, and a dirge for a blue-collar European worker left stranded after a once-solid job has melted away. - Brooklyn Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jul 08, 2016
|
|
|
|
Timbuktu (2014) |
A haunting warning cry from a great North African director about the jihadi invasion of Mali, Timbuktu is a message the rest of the world can't afford to ignore. - Brooklyn Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jun 28, 2016
|
|
|
|
Nuts! (2016) |
Throughout, director Penny Lane strings together telling incidents and anecdotes with a light touch. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jun 21, 2016
|
|
|
|
Being Charlie (2015) |
Most of the film's characters are unconvincing, flattened out by Charlie's self-focused lens. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted May 02, 2016
|
|
|
|
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) |
It finds humor and love in a potentially grim situation without ever belittling or caricaturing the characters. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 20, 2016
|
|
|
|
I Saw the Light (2015) |
This carefully respectful, sensitively acted biopic sands all the edges off Hank Williams's story to create a frustratingly inert portrait. - Brooklyn Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 19, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Meddler (2015) |
Writer-director Lorene Scafaria's film is an unconvincing character study that plays like a painfully unfunny sitcom. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 19, 2016
|
|
|
|
Don't Think Twice (2016) |
A smart, affectionate take on the rivalry, love, ambition, and creative juices that fuel the lives of professional comedians. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 18, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Family Fang (2015) |
There's real texture and emotional heft to the central relationship between the siblings, but that's thanks more to the actors than the script. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 17, 2016
|
|
|
|
All This Panic (2016) |
There's plenty of life in this honest, impressionistic portrait of a cohort of 21st-century American girls. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 14, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Dark Horse (2014) |
Despite the occasional clich, this film mostly feels as messy as life, and as movingly complicated. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 28, 2016
|
|
|
|
Donald Cried (2016) |
Finding the drama and humor in everyday situations like these isn't easy, but Avedisian makes it look as natural as swinging on a vine. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 21, 2016
|
|
|
|
Under the Shadow (2016) |
The film's horror is spookily and movingly expressive of the tenuous position of women in 1980s Iran. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Confirmation (2016) |
The premise is undermined by the film's occasionally dubious ethics and its tendency to soft-pedal the dangerous situations it sets up. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2016
|
|
|
|
Miracles From Heaven (2016) |
The film, like the misattributed Albert Einstein quote that young Anna solemnly parrots throughout, is as hollow as the old tree in the Beams' backyard. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Brothers Grimsby (2016) |
The Brothers Grimsby doesn't do much to satirize the spy genre, instead using its flimsy plot mostly as a scaffolding for a barrage of jokes. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 10, 2016
|
|
|
|
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016) |
Its feminist perspective checkmates the frat-boy misogyny and machismo that too often mar films set in combat zones. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Mar 03, 2016
|
|
|
|
Race (2016) |
The film is a complication-smoothing take on Jesse Owens's elegant riposte to Hitler's racism at the 1936 Olympics. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Feb 18, 2016
|
|
|
|
Touched With Fire (2015) |
The film is a thinly dramatized series of arguments against, then ultimately in favor of the medication of bipolar disorder. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Feb 08, 2016
|
|
|
|
The Lady in the Van (2015) |
The film's annoying glibness is neatly summarized by the line: "In life, going downhill is an uphill job." - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Nov 30, 2015
|
|
|
|
Applesauce (2015) |
Applesauce mixes genres (here, a revenge fantasy meets a relationship drama) to create a brightly amusing catalogue of stupid human tricks that doesn't fit neatly into any niche. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Nov 23, 2015
|
|
|
|
Frame by Frame (2015) |
It's so easy to take images for granted in our media-saturated, selfie-happy culture, but that's a luxury the subjects of Frame by Frame can't indulge in. - Slant Magazine
Read More
| Posted Nov 16, 2015
|