James Kendrick
Tomatometer-approved critic
James Kendrick is the film and video critic at QNetwork.com, where he has been writing reviews since 1998. From 1996 to 1998, he wrote reviews at his own, now defunct, web site, "Charle Don't Surf!" He is also an associate professor of film and digital media at Baylor University and the author of three books.
Current All-Time Top 10 (Chronological Order)
Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Play Time (Jacques Tati, 1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Waco, Texas
http://www.qnetwork.com
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Soft & Quiet (2022) |
writer/director Beth de Araújo builds the momentum so well and the performances are so insidiously effective that it works despite its obviousness - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Nov 14, 2022
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Halloween Ends (2022) |
commendable for its ambition, although said ambition is relentlessly stretched to the breaking point by shoddy plotting, confusing characters, and a general lack of focus - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Nov 02, 2022
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Don't Worry Darling (2022) |
finds enough intriguing and compelling means of dramatizing and turning its domestic horrors inside out that it remains engaging right up until the final frames - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Nov 02, 2022
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Cure (1997) |
an effective, deeply unsettling thriller that continues to perplex because it refuses the kinds of restorative satisfaction normally supplied by that genre - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Nov 01, 2022
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Smile (2022) |
an effective horror film that is both conventionally scary and engaging in its evocation of memory and trauma - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Nov 01, 2022
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Goodnight Mommy (2022) |
doesn’t have much that is unique or original to offer visually, but its dramatic conflict is potent enough to carry us through to the eventual revelation we may or may not see coming - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 17, 2022
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Exotica (1994) |
a master class in complex narrative design in the service of dramatizing the depths of human emotion - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 17, 2022
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Sound of Metal (2019) |
rich in subtlety and nuance, when it could have been overbearing and melodramatic - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 17, 2022
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Blonde (2022) |
a film that is so good and so bad in equal measure that it is hard to even begin to gauge it - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 17, 2022
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Good Guys Wear Black (1978) |
standard Norris action fare, but there is a distinct difference in how deep the cynicism runs regarding corruption in the government and military - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 02, 2022
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A Force of One (1979) |
piles on the dramatic slow motion to such an extensive degree that some action sequences that should be thrilling start to feel a bit ludicrous - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 02, 2022
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The Octagon (1980) |
notably more violent and cynical than Norris’s previous films, even though he plays the same type of taciturn, reluctant hero whose integrity is never—ever—in question - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 02, 2022
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God's Country (2022) |
as much as God’s Country is about conflict and our almost fatalistic collision course with each other, Higgins offers small glimpses of the possibility of connection - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 02, 2022
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Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) |
the humor is persistent and we can’t help but care for Gru and his nascent villainy - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Oct 02, 2022
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The Easy Life (1962) |
Risi proves to have a deft sense of managing the intertwined humor and drama of his incredibly complex characters. - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 28, 2022
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Barbarian (2022) |
a giddy-unnerving exercise in narrative whiplash - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Hôtel du nord (1938) |
ambiguity of illusion is key to the film’s effectiveness and why it rises above its relatively pedantic melodramatic narratives - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 16, 2022
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The Story of Film: A New Generation (2022) |
You won’t see everything, but you will see enough to create an impression of just how vibrant and alive to possibilities the cinema remains, and for that reason alone The Story of Film is worth the telling. - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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Thirteen Lives (2022) |
Howard manages to keep things tight and engaging, primarily by submerging us right along with the rescue team, engaging us viscerally in the cramped darkness. - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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Buck and the Preacher (1972) |
goes against the grain, rewriting one of Hollywood’s most storied genres—the Western—through the lens of neglected black history - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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Massacre at Central High (1976) |
even with its various flaws and shortcomings, it deserves more attention as a uniquely daring attempt to invigorate staid exploitation fare with an incisive social intelligence - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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Daddy Longlegs (2010) |
both humorous and harrowing, and even though it drags at times, its sense of repetition is crucial to its protagonist’s primary flaws - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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Bullet Train (2022) |
Unlike the best action-comedies, there is nothing breezy or light about the film; rather, it runs hard and heavy, constantly trying to impress you with its bloody mayhem. - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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Raging Bull (1980) |
Much has been made about De Niro’s physical transformation, but the real strength of his performance is in his eyes: his stare, which is unrelenting and eventually terrifying. - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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The Gray Man (2022) |
draws liberally from the Bond and Bourne playbooks, but lacks the well-established wit and panache of the former and the grit and verité intensity of the latter - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 28, 2022
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The Black Phone (2021) |
the supernatural ooga-booga is nicely balanced with the more socially realistic elements, particularly the harsh, Darwinian world of the junior high social strata - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 27, 2022
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Earthquake (1974) |
for all the bodies falling and crushed when “the big one” hits, there is never really anything at stake other than whether or not we are convinced by the effects - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 27, 2022
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Hustle (2022) |
manages its emotions and its message with such genuineness and lack of guile that it works, turning it into its its own against-the-odds success story - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 27, 2022
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True Romance (1993) |
wildly improbable and delightfully unpredictable, even when charging through some very familiar territory - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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The Forgiven (2021) |
its intrigue and drama plays largely as cover for its lack of true depth - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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Shaft (1971) |
both revolutionary black film with unprecedented imagery of a strong black protagonist and Hollywood product clearly shaped to appeal to both black and white audiences - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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Watcher (2022) |
a polished and engaging thriller that is assembled from a host of familiar bits and pieces from superior films, but still works in its own right - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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Top Gun: Maverick (2022) |
bears some residual traces of its predecessor, but it also shines in its own right, bringing to its title character a surprisingly effective sense of gravitas and emotional endurance - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jun 22, 2022
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Borrego (2022) |
humanizes an issue that is all too often discussed in shallow talking points and shrill hyperbole - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Jun 09, 2022
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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) |
Flamboyant, melodramatic, full of sound and fury and fire and lightning and blood and amniotic fluid, Kenneth Branagh’s film is a feverishly ambitious work - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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The Batman (2022) |
more procedural than action movie, a kind of DC Universe version of Seven (1995) - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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The Girl Can't Help It (1956) |
delightfully weird in trying to straddle multiple generations, genres, and tones - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939) |
The jokes are consistently effective, even as they veer wildly from slapstick to verbal wordplay - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 10, 2022
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Windfall (2022) |
while Windfall is opportunistic in a good way, it still isn’t quite good enough to overcome its intended limitations - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 10, 2022
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Miracle in Milan (1951) |
an uneasy mix that doesn’t entirely work, but you can’t fault De Sica for trying something different and unexpected while still maintaining his essential imperative of respecting the dignity of the everyday world through cinematic representation - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 10, 2022
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Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) |
hampered by lots of post-production editing and squabbling that renders chunks of the film incoherent without voice-over narration and results in a film that moves in awkward fits and starts, lurching from deranged near brilliance to simple clumsiness - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 10, 2022
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Master (2022) |
a deeply effective film, one in which black viewers will likely recognize a great deal of their own experience and one that white viewers should take to heart - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted May 10, 2022
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Tentacles (1977) |
Like so many films of its ilk, Tentacles feels cheap and lazy, belying its healthy budget. - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Apr 15, 2022
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Screams of a Winter Night (1979) |
undermined by both its ill-timed deployment of physical comedy and its murky cinematography - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Apr 09, 2022
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The Weekend Away (2022) |
even when the formula begins to show, you cant quite help but get sucked into it - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Apr 09, 2022
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Deep Water (2022) |
tricky territory that might have worked better and had a more profound and lasting effect had it been treated with more dramatic heft and less pulpy-erotic scheming - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Apr 09, 2022
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Drive My Car (2021) |
Pain and loss and grief and guilt are big emotions that the film manages to render small, which turns what should have been an emotionally engaging drama into a study in monotony. - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Apr 09, 2022
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Liar's Moon (1981) |
should have been a debacle, but it holds together just well enough to work if you give in to its nostalgic romanticism - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Apr 09, 2022
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Miller's Crossing (1990) |
like so many of the Coens best films, it is an enigma, a fleeting and gripping experience that offers itself up and pulls away from us at the same time - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Mar 17, 2022
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Wayne's World (1992) |
successfully expands the world created by the SNL skits, following the logic of the characters, but taking them out of the basement and giving them more depth and nuance without losing the traits that fans already loved - Q Network Film Desk
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| Posted Mar 14, 2022
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