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Lisa Alspector
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Starship Troopers (1997) |
Director Paul Verhoeven blends the conflicting elements of intentional camp and perverse sincerity into a single tone—and he doesn’t resort to simple irony. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 16, 2023
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Down in the Delta (1998) |
Maya Angelou's very deliberate blocking of the actors charges each movement and line of dialogue with emotion, and the expressive combinations of colors and textures in the settings convey a palpable sense of the environments. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 09, 2023
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My Giant (1998) |
My Giant becomes strikingly incongruous with the circumstances of its making; in real life Muresan has racked up a high-profile screen credit. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 16, 2022
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Kissed (1996) |
Though Stopkewich has astutely recognized the contradictions in our uneasy relationship to the dead, she doesn’t seem to have examined her own uneasy relationship to the story she tells. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 15, 2022
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Beloved (1998) |
Using overwhelmingly potent performances, audacious static close-ups, assertive lighting, and a rigorous yet lyrical interweaving of events... this terrifyingly beautiful movie blends metaphor and stark social commentary to achieve a spontaneous grace. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 02, 2022
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Perfect Blue (1997) |
This engrossing animated thriller somehow displays realist gore, nudity, and sexual violence in a tone not too far from that of a children's adventure; its innocence stems in part from the convincing naivete of the heroine. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Oct 08, 2021
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Meet Joe Black (1998) |
A savory, extralong feature whose obvious plotlines unfold with an almost painful slowness that somehow makes them deeper. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Oct 26, 2020
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Brassed Off (1996) |
Pete Postlethwaite is moving as the bandleader, whose dream of taking his players to compete at the Albert Hall nearly eclipses his appreciation of the dire issues they face. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 09, 2020
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Hardball (2001) |
The filmmakers realize that playing baseball isn't nearly enough to fix what's wrong in these kids' lives, which might have made a more provocative ending than what follows. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 13, 2020
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Committed (2000) |
Audaciously devised by writer-director Lisa Krueger, combines a gently surreal reverence for Americana with a serious examination of cultural values. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 30, 2020
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Mercury Rising (1998) |
The actors' serious faces are out of place in this hopelessly silly action conspiracy. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 21, 2020
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Prefontaine (1997) |
The result is both too earnest and too campy. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 25, 2020
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Aberdeen (2000) |
Its plot contrivances beautifully justified by its minimalism. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 13, 2020
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Aaron & the Book of Wonders (1995) |
The animation's no great shakes, and the songs are terrible. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 12, 2020
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Jurassic Park III (2001) |
[This] sequel isn't terribly frightening or gory, and at times it's even atmospheric. It also has a sense of humor: Tea Leoni's moony reaction shots intentionally send up the glossy idealism of the original. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 24, 2019
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Stepmom (1998) |
[Stepmom] offers some useful insights into how feelings of jealousy and betrayal can limit the potential of family relationships. But these ideas are more or less undermined by the movie's maddeningly typical glamorizing of illness. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 01, 2019
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But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) |
Lyonne blends hyperbole and sincerity in perfect proportions. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 31, 2019
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Wet Hot American Summer (2001) |
The title of this inventive absurdist comedy (2001) is meant to mislead-it's not a sex movie but a parody, and the loose feel is part of its genius. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 31, 2019
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Practical Magic (1998) |
Though its startling shifts in tone sometimes seem unmotivated, this dark yet syrupy 1998 romance has an adolescent charm. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 30, 2019
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I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) |
A poorly conceived 1997 thriller with plenty of empty references. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 28, 2019
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The Legend of 1900 (1998) |
...the nearly incessant camera movement suggests only the literal: the ship's progress across the ocean. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 06, 2019
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Deep Blue Sea (1999) |
The characters are sufficiently naive to get picked off one by one, but their ignorance doesn't extend to the genre conventions governing their behavior, making for some shockingly funny moments. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 11, 2019
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Deep Impact (1998) |
Unfortunately Morgan Freeman, the compassionate, helpless U.S. president, and Robert Duvall, an astronaut who finds he hasn't passed his prime, have less time on-screen than Tea Leoni, who's unconvincing as a journalist. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 25, 2018
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Boiling Point (1990) |
The allegory in this 1990 yakuza thriller eludes me, but writer-director Takeshi Kitano's handling of tones, which range from the grimly depressive to the irreverently hilarious, is amazing. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Nov 20, 2017
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Ronin (1998) |
Not even supercool Robert De Niro can enliven this boring tale. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Aug 18, 2017
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Spice World (1997) |
A promotional tool that establishes its superfluousness simply by existing, this clumsy, smirking movie has a bitter soul. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jun 21, 2016
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The Pillow Book (1996) |
One of the most accomplished chapters in Peter Greenaway's quest to turn movies into books, this may be the writer-director's metaphorical autobiography. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 02, 2016
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X-Men (2000) |
Exciting mainly because anything can happen and does, the movie drags a bit as it approaches a climax set on top of the Statue of Liberty. But once there it revives. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jul 15, 2015
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Flamenco, Flamenco (2010) |
This 1995 catalog of performances by various artists may represent the historical development of a rich and enthralling art form, but it's presented in such a clinical way it might as well be a list on a chalkboard. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 19, 2014
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Lost in Space (1998) |
Time-travel cliches... dialogue that's neither self-mocking nor serious, and an ostentatious though not particularly exciting production design keep the movie from taking off. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 17, 2014
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A Smile Like Yours (1997) |
Kooky Joan Cusack can't provide sufficient comic relief in this incredibly naive attempt at schmaltz. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jul 22, 2014
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Almost Heroes (1998) |
This 1998 comedy set in the early American west isn't unwatchable, just bad. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jul 15, 2014
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The Avengers (1998) |
Neither elegant nor macho nor elegant-and-macho, Fiennes is terribly cast; Thurman at least provides the equivalent of a dressmaker's dummy on which to hang neo-mod fashions. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jul 08, 2014
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Blast From the Past (1999) |
A stretched-out anecdote. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 21, 2014
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Wisconsin Death Trip (1999) |
Chillingly beautiful cinematography makes the state's landscapes appear timeless as it sets the stage for a grim history. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Mar 03, 2014
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Dream With the Fishes (1997) |
A harangue on how ironic it is that men often attack one another verbally and physically as a way to get close. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 13, 2014
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Ransom (1996) |
If Howard's direction were as stylized and self-aware as Corgan's music, Ransom might be something more than a shallow and unprovocative story of a vigilante with an Achilles' heel. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 22, 2014
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Chicken Run (2000) |
The finale and a scene set inside the pie-making machinery prove that the Rube Goldberg formula is infallible, and the puns -- another staple of crossover animation -- range from "fowl" to "poultry in motion." - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Aug 04, 2013
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The Boxer (1997) |
The screenplay of this 1997 feature, written by Sheridan and Terry George, demonizes one man to make some obvious points and allows Day-Lewis and Watson to talk up their characters' 14-year history more than demonstrate it. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 14, 2013
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Hugo Pool (1997) |
I groaned my way through this black -- and blue -- romantic comedy and then decided I liked it. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted May 01, 2013
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Kurt & Courtney (1998) |
This patchwork portrait is hard to look away from, partly because it exposes how one man rationalizes the dirty job of being a documentary filmmaker. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Jan 14, 2013
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42 Up (1998) |
Their largely negative or only superficially positive responses make me feel guilty about finding the series so fascinating -- and should make the filmmakers feel even guiltier. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Aug 14, 2012
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Hideous Kinky (1998) |
The fusion of dream sequences and evocative landscapes makes the characters' feverish sense of living at the edge of reality contagious. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 27, 2012
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Songcatcher (2001) |
Like the main character, it's stodgy and didactic -- and full of grace and surprises. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 24, 2012
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In & Out (1997) |
Fast-moving and very funny. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 11, 2012
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The Best Man (1999) |
Viewers who mistake the didacticism for stylistic weakness miss much of the point of this nicely toned movie. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 11, 2012
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Meet the Parents (2000) |
Scenes that should have been uproarious are weaker than many of the movie's smaller moments, whose everyday humor isn't specific to the plot or characters. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Apr 09, 2012
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Shrek (2001) |
This romantic fantasy complicates the roles of beauty and beast, making it hard to guess what form a sensitive resolution will take. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Feb 17, 2012
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Black Hawk Down (2001) |
I also don't know how well this 2001 drama represents the events of October 3 and 4, 1993, though I can see that it represents them in a realist vein, referring to other war movies without becoming frivolous. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Nov 08, 2011
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Requiem for a Dream (2000) |
A staccato narrative parallels the experiences and hallucinations of a woman on drugs with those of her son and his friends. - Chicago Reader
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| Posted Sep 20, 2011
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