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James Poniewozik

Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications:

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Mountainhead (2025) 74% EDIT “Still, what “Mountainhead” lacks in depth, it makes up for in satirical daring. ” – New York Times Jun 3, 2025 Full Review Friends: The Reunion (2021) 67% EDIT “The special is better when it gets out of the cast's way and shows us what drew us to them, and them to each other.” – New York Times May 26, 2021 Full Review Cinema Verite (2011) 61% EDIT “While the film is well-made, it feels unnecessary. Perhaps from the need to fit the story into the confines of an hour-and-a-half feature, everyone ends up falling into types.” – TIME Magazine Jun 4, 2020 Full Review James Dean (2001) 93% EDIT “Sick of movie-star biopics? Then there's little to change your mind in this one... It's worth seeing, though, because James Franco uncannily channels the sulky, sexy, short-lived heartthrob.” – TIME Magazine May 11, 2020 Full Review After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News (2020) 100% EDIT “In other places "After Truth" plays more like a survey, something that might have made an hourlong feature on CNN. But its strongest animating idea is that fake news is not simply a political abstraction.” – New York Times Mar 19, 2020 Full Review Deadwood: The Movie (2019) 98% EDIT “It can't, in its abbreviated run, recreate the series's full glory, but it does offer that glory a wistful toast.” – New York Times May 29, 2019 Full Review Brexit (2019) 80% EDIT “Cumberbatch's tight-wired performance is the best thing in this brisk but mechanical retread of recent events.” – New York Times Jan 18, 2019 Full Review The Mayo Clinic: Faith - Hope - Science (2018) EDIT “The documentary's structure, jumping between history and contemporary patient stories, is a bit choppy, but the themes are timely.” – New York Times Sep 24, 2018 Full Review Sometimes in April (2005) EDIT “April was unsparing, without being gratuitous, in showing how horrific yet casual the violence was, and Idris Elba (The Wire) was stunning as a Rwandan officer who came to see the light too late to save his mixed-ethnicity family.” – TIME Magazine Sep 11, 2018 Full Review Recount (2008) 78% EDIT “If you have the slightest interest in politics and movie treatments thereof, I recommend it.” – TIME Magazine Jun 13, 2018 Full Review Fahrenheit 451 (2018) 31% EDIT “Mr. Jordan (Creed) puts flesh on Montag's conflict... But the script does little to give him inner life beyond some flashbacks. Mr. Shannon's imperious enforcer lacks the eccentric spark he brings to his best roles.” – New York Times May 16, 2018 Full Review Spielberg (2017) 91% EDIT “For all its sweep, Spielberg the documentary succeeds most distinctively where Mr. Spielberg the director has: accessing the child in its subject.” – New York Times Oct 5, 2017 Full Review You Don't Know Jack (2010) 83% EDIT “You Don't Know Jack may be a film about the case for making dying patients comfortable. But admirably, it recognizes that thinking about this, or watching, should be discomfiting.” – TIME Magazine Jun 7, 2017 Full Review Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015) 36% EDIT “In the end, Sharknado 3-like the CGI monsters that are its true stars-is the beast that it is: single-minded, greedy and ravenous. But for all that, it can still be a lovely creature.” – TIME Magazine Jul 22, 2015 Full Review Peter Pan Live! (2014) 56% EDIT “Technically and visually, Peter Pan Live! delivered. The smartest thing the production did was to be unashamedly stagey.” – TIME Magazine Dec 5, 2014 Full Review The Normal Heart (2014) 94% EDIT “Some 30 years later, this movie-strident, passionate, frenetic, and aching-is a reminder, as Memorial Day weekend begins the summer, of all those empty spots the plague left on the beach.” – TIME Magazine May 23, 2014 Full Review Mitt (2014) 83% EDIT “Anyone who followed the '08 and '12 elections will not be surprised by how Mitt's story plays out. But it's an interesting footnote, a spin-free picture of the personal cost of campaigning; I found it humanly sympathetic regardless of political sympathies.” – TIME Magazine Jan 24, 2014 Full Review Sharknado (2013) 77% EDIT “And it happens, and it happens, and it's an awesome, immersive thing.” – TIME Magazine Jul 26, 2013 Full Review The Loving Story (2011) 100% EDIT “A low-key but moving documentary about two low-key people and their moving struggle.” – TIME Magazine Jan 25, 2013 Full Review Crossfire Hurricane (2012) 89% EDIT “It's not a revelation, but it's an intimate story of the band, with performance sequences that show how five guys-in different lineups -- came together and made an entity of pure fire and sex.” – TIME Magazine Nov 16, 2012 Full Review George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) 87% EDIT “Perhaps all things must pass, but I would not pass this one up.” – TIME Magazine Aug 6, 2012 Full Review Game Change (2012) 67% EDIT “It all feels like piling on - the campaign movie as blooper reel.” – TIME Magazine Aug 3, 2012 Full Review
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