Kathleen Sachs
Kathleen Sachs's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Chicago Reader
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Godland (2022) |
Maria von Hausswolff’s cinematography astounds, though the gimmickry of the image framing—soft, rounded edges, like those of an old photograph—mirrors the superfluous avidity of Pálmason’s direction. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin (2023) |
Shyamalan dazzles here with his gift for taking the kinds of ideas that once comprised the plots of pulp magazine stories, anthology television, and B movies and turning them into high art. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 17, 2023
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See You Friday, Robinson (2022) |
The documentary footage of the filmmakers is both edifying and endearing... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 11, 2023
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The Brick and the Mirror (1965) |
Brick and Mirror offers a prescient glimpse of prerevolutionary Iran with all its seemingly modern zeal, beneath which festers troubles portending future conflict. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 11, 2023
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World War III (2022) |
The questions it raises—as to what’s going on, who’s telling the truth, and the degree to which parallels between the movie in the film and Shakib’s dilemma are intentional—certainly account for a heightened level of ambiguity. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 11, 2023
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Without Her (2022) |
[It] recalls Hitchcock by way of Brian De Palma. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 11, 2023
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Subtraction (2022) |
Less specifically, the film speaks to an almost otherworldly sensation of having to accept and live with something out of the ordinary—something that Iranians are more familiar with than most. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 11, 2023
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The 400 Blows (1959) |
Jean-Pierre Léaud’s revelatory turn... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 11, 2023
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The Runner (1984) |
His gleeful entreaty is open for interpretation: is he merely seeking attention from the enviable explorers within, or do they represent a yearning for a sort of liberation? - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 11, 2023
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All That Jazz (1979) |
Even thinking about it still brings tears to my eyes. That, that is what I’m seeking when I go to the movies. All that jazz. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) |
What if Jesus had thwarted crucifixion? What if Peggy Sue could go back in time and not marry her adulterous husband? The same predicament, really. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) |
...shockingly potent, leaving me in tears... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) |
It also demands to be seen on the big screen, where the walls and ceiling of the cinema become the confines of Dielman’s domiciliary rituals... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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In the Cut (2003) |
Campion’s In the Cut is a criminally neglected masterpiece... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Beneath the Skin (1981) |
Beneath the Skin considers domestic violence with chimerical self-possession... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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The Sex Demons (1972) |
It exceeded my wildest expectations (because, as it turns out, I don't have the capacity to amuse expectations this wild)... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Dr. Broadway (1942) |
Mann, with the help of German-born cinematographer Theodor Sparkuhl, contributes meticulous compositions and dramatic lighting to the otherwise satisfyingly pot-boiler-esque proceedings. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Drylongso (1998) |
Smith’s independent masterpiece... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Simone Barbes or Virtue (1979) |
Treilhou's direction is as assured as the film's unflappable protagonist, with whom we careen through an anything-but-ordinary Parisian eventide. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Dawn of the Dead (1978) |
Dawn of the Dead is arguably Romero’s best zombie film, and its stark social satire (it takes place in a mall, where the excesses of capitalism help to sustain survivors of the zombie apocalypse) will wake you up figuratively if not literally. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Tomorrow and Again Tomorrow (1998) |
Overall her work connects the personal with the social, depicting how someone’s intimate life is influenced by (and sometimes even influences) what’s happening outside it. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) |
The detours into her associations with such writers and artists as Cookie Mueller and David Wojnarowicz are similarly illuminating and heartbreaking... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 23, 2022
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Blonde (2022) |
Other choices, like the frequent shifts in aspect ratio, are ambitious but not as affecting. Some are outright disastrous... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Oct 01, 2022
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The African Desperate (2022) |
Syms’s work—which ranges from performance art to gallery installations to this more straightforward narrative endeavor—is compelled by a preternaturally propulsive energy that sustains its momentum even as she explores various forms of expression. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Oct 01, 2022
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The Silent Twins (2022) |
Smoczyńska's idiosyncratic vision distinguishes what otherwise might have been an overly literal telling of their story, and of their own stories. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 24, 2022
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Fire of Love (2022) |
It succeeds in highlighting this tenet of their work, making it a valuable introduction not just to their unique lives and groundbreaking studies, but also to their own singular artistry. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Aug 01, 2022
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Beba (2021) |
In her debut documentary writer-director Rebeca Huntt examines the details of her Afro Latina heritage to provocative effect.
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| Posted Jul 01, 2022
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Apples (2020) |
What this surreal microcosm ends up conveying about the human experience extends past the frame and into viewers’ hearts and minds. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jul 01, 2022
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Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) |
Is this in any way, shape, or form defensible as meaningful art? Certainly not. Is it really cute? Yup. Aggressively so? Sure, but in our current political hellscape, there are certainly worse things to be affronted by. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jul 01, 2022
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Benediction (2021) |
The recountal is tinged with documentary footage and nigh-experimental scintilla attempting to visualize the stuff of poetry that hint at this being something exceptional from a master's intellect. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 14, 2022
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Happening (2021) |
The no-holds-barred approach to the abortion procedure and its aftermath is the kind of interpretation of real life that great cinema does best. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 14, 2022
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Memoria (2021) |
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest is more elusive and even more enveloping than his other beguiling films. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 22, 2022
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Cow (2021) |
The documentary from British writer-director Andrea Arnold conveys something similar to the splendor that radiates from the best of silent cinema. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 09, 2022
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Try Harder! (2021) |
Set at a top-ranked public high school in San Francisco, the film explores such issues as the stress put on students during said process and the intersectionality of how this affects kids from different backgrounds, including the children of immigrants... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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Marvelous and the Black Hole (2020) |
A charming coming-of-age story... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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Free Chol Soo Lee (2022) |
The documentary details the plight of the Korean immigrant who, in 1973, was wrongfully convicted of murder in part because white tourists were unable to distinguish one Asian person’s features from another... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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Atlantis (2019) |
Naturally the film has emerged as one to watch during the present-day turbulence; such timeliness is eclipsed only by its visual splendor, further reflecting the ability of art to transmit by way of form in addition to content. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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The Earth Is Blue as an Orange (2020) |
The resilient family in The Earth Is Blue as an Orange likewise turn to film as a means of representation—and also catharsis... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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Maidan (2014) |
Loznitsa opts for long, static wide shots that wholly embody the gradations of the conflict at hand. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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The Man With a Movie Camera (1929) |
Just a little over an hour, it nevertheless towers over film history as an example par excellence of cinema’s ability to communicate in unique and transgressive ways. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future (2022) |
Not surrealistic so much as it is magical realist in its consideration of ecological issues vis-à-vis its central narrative focused on a dysfunctional family. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 07, 2022
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Buñuel: A Surrealist Filmmaker (2021) |
Cinephiles will especially enjoy Javier Espada’s documentary Buñuel, a Surrealist Filmmaker... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 07, 2022
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Medusa (2021) |
Hallucinatory visuals reminiscent of Dario Argento meet plot mechanics similar to those in Carrie, with musical elements also thrown into the mix, resulting in a transgressive blend that targets outdated mores. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 07, 2022
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La Guerra Civil (2022) |
[It] makes the case that, more than any other sport, boxing confronts aspects of the athletes’ heritage, here focusing on the contentious dynamic between the Los Angeles-born De La Hoya and the Mexican-born Chávez... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 07, 2022
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Mothering Sunday (2021) |
There’s a Malickian quality to the film that’s cheesy at moments, and the disjointed chronology is more aggravating than affecting. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 07, 2022
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A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) |
It’s rather distracting and almost makes the occurrences seem fictitious. In this overmodulated way, the film also purports to be an homage to cinema itself... - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 23, 2022
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Introduction (2021) |
There's very little substance, with only a meager bit of exposition providing any kind of throughline, yet the film confounds in its modest ambitions. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 28, 2022
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France (2021) |
Dumont's signature inscrutability remains intriguing but perhaps more frivolous here; Seydoux's inspired performance helps to ground it. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 15, 2022
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Parallel Mothers (2021) |
Each part of the film is consequential on its own, but when put together, the results feel almost like an afterthought. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 08, 2022
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Red Rocket (2021) |
What it dispenses in salaciousness fails to account for the lack of any meaningful undercurrent that might make the vulgarity interesting. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Dec 18, 2021
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