Megan Burbank
Megan Burbank's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
Movies reviews only
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The Lure (2015) |
Agnieszka Smoczyska's debut is original and beautiful, and it showcases powerful, charismatic women. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Oct 15, 2022
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Flight (2012) |
Flight proves, in a bad way, that believable characters are essential for all good movies. - Bitch Media
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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Outside In (2017) |
It's a completely believable web of conflicting desires among people who lack the language and wherewithal to ask for what they want. But stick with it, and Outside In's relentless sadness gives way to something more gently hopeful... - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Apr 05, 2018
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Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017) |
We aren't accustomed to seeing older women partnered with younger men, which is, at least for its novelty, a more interesting and uncharted dynamic, and one elegantly captured in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Feb 07, 2018
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I, Tonya (2017) |
I, Tonya, is a solid attempt, largely thanks to Margot Robbie's portrayal of a very human, very sympathetic Tonya. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Jan 03, 2018
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The Snowman (2017) |
I liked The Snowman just fine-it's scary, and all the casual detective knitwear looked cozy-but I watch a lot of murder mysteries and have a high tolerance for even the category's most mediocre entries. This is certainly one of them. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2017
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Gerald's Game (2017) |
But against these bad odds, [Carla] Gugino totally sells her endurance piece of a role. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Oct 02, 2017
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Brad's Status (2017) |
I have a low tolerance for tales of privileged white guy ennui, so I'm pleased to tell you that Brad's Status, starring Ben Stiller as a dad with an existential crisis, is (twist!) one I actually liked! - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Sep 20, 2017
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The Midwife (2017) |
Not much happens-but under the surface, everything does, and [Catherine] Frot and [Catherine] Deneuve make it impossible to miss. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Sep 14, 2017
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Rebel in the Rye (2017) |
It's less of a tribute to Salinger than to the guy in your MFA who wouldn't know a realistic woman character if she was staring them in the face. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Sep 14, 2017
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Crown Heights (2017) |
The best storytelling accesses the universal through the personal and director Matt Ruskin's depersonalized approach to this story means he can't do it justice. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Sep 06, 2017
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The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2015) |
Of all the things in Insurgent-the second installment of the YA sci-fi action Divergent series-the lack of concern for Chicago winter is the most unbelievable. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Dark Places (2015) |
Dark Places has all the building blocks of a good feature-and then forces everyone in it to motormouth through heavy-handed dialogue, trying to cram a fairly complex novel into an uninspired two-hour crime drama. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Doctor Strange (2016) |
Doctor Strange might have a lot of baggage, but more than anything else, it's fun. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Papa: Hemingway in Cuba (2015) |
Papa just wallows in the haze of nostalgia. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Space Between Us (2017) |
The Space Between Us is terrible at explaining itself in any other way than 'Gary Oldman is a genius space inventor!' - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Eagle Huntress (2016) |
I went in pumped up to see a girl-power/girl-falconer documentary with plenty of big, cool-looking birds, and I was not disappointed. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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CHIPS (2017) |
What a stupid, beautiful movie. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Wonder Woman (2017) |
Wonder Woman is a thrilling start. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) |
Those of us who loved The Fifth Element will get exactly what we've been missing with Valerian. It's a delight. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Two Faces of January (2014) |
[Patricia Highsmith's] world is gloomy, but it's nuanced. It's fun. That's not the world in [The Two Faces of] January, which seems incapable of humor or irony. Which isn't to say it fails. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Age of Adaline (2015) |
It's a clunky, luminous mess that ultimately suggests that a person who has lived to be more than 100, raised a daughter, traveled the world, learned a ridiculous number of languages, and had a lot of adorable pets hasn't lived until she finds a man. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Water Diviner (2014) |
It's the cinematic equivalent of switching between 40 open tabs on your computer for two hours. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Selma (2014) |
Selma forces a kind of reckoning for its viewer. At these moments, you won't be able to look away. And you shouldn't. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) |
The film may open with Minnie's search for love and validation from other people, but it ends with the legitimizing, exhilarating discovery that her most important relationship is with herself. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Lila & Eve (2015) |
So okay, Lila & Eve is basically a Lifetime movie with better production values, or Fight Club starring middle-aged ladies (an improvement, if you ask me). But [Viola] Davis' performance just destroyed me. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Grandma (2015) |
You realize you're watching a movie-finally!-about a teenager who has an abortion and turns out fine, and it couldn't seem more honest. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Brooklyn (2015) |
It's refreshing to see this largely internal, cerebral journey of an introverted young woman play out onscreen. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Freeheld (2015) |
Maybe Just See the Documentary It's Based On? - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Sisters (2015) |
At the screening I attended, a man beside me, horrified, kept shouting, "Oh my GOD!" whenever [Amy] Poehler or [Tina] Fey said anything remotely crude. If that's not a resounding endorsement, I don't know what is. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 (2015) |
Now that we have this movie, you could skip Mockingjay 1 entirely and not miss anything but inessential pouting. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016) |
It's uneven. But what's utterly convincing is that somehow, this good-but-not-great movie has accurately captured that particular moment when a reporter discovers the ineffable joy of chasing a high-stakes story for the first time. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Marguerite (2015) |
[Catherine Frot's] so charismatic-and so brimming with commendable, borderline pathological self-regard-that this imaginary person made me want to retract every real, deservedly bad review I've ever written. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Jungle Book (2016) |
I'm not convinced remaking The Jungle Book was absolutely necessary, but Disney's latest navel-gazing foray into its own archives delivers everything it needs to. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Back Home (2015) |
Each moment here has weight, and each moment adds up to something greater than the sum of its parts. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Meddler (2015) |
It is the cinematic equivalent of an intrusive relative who asks you rude questions that don't make any sense until you realize that a desperate urge to connect underlies those inquiries. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Girl on the Train (2016) |
But when [the end] finally did arrive, it reduced me to jaw-dropped fetal-position sitting for the final portion of the film and made the boring lead-up totally worth it. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Swiss Army Man (2016) |
If you want your dreams to be weird for the rest of your life, see Swiss Army Man. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Allied (2016) |
You're much better off rewatching Inglourious Basterds. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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La La Land (2016) |
With its occasional forays into alternate realities and dreamy, keyed-up atmosphere, La La Land plays sort of like a cheerful Mulholland Dr., but shares none of that movie's cynicism. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Beware the Slenderman (2016) |
If you are a true-crime freak like me, you'll devour HBO's Beware the Slenderman. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Last Word (2017) |
The Last Word, ostensibly about women journalists and cranky old women, is a movie that could've paid homage to them. Instead, it just made me miss them-even more than usual. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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The Lovers (2017) |
The Lovers is a dispiriting parade through all of the worst parts of adulthood. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Lady Macbeth (2016) |
Lady Macbeth is an odd jumble of Gothic romance conventions, a storyline transplanted from a bleak Russian novella, and an attempt to address racial inequity that's too shallow to go beyond tokenism. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 22, 2017
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Landline (2017) |
A romantic comedy that soundly rejects the allure of charismatic assholes in favor of milquetoast romance; its platonic ideal is essentially the reading-while-your-boyfriend-plays-video-games phase in a relationship. - The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
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| Posted Aug 18, 2017
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