Philip Kemp
Philip Kemp's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Sight & Sound
Total Film
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Renfield (2023) |
Renfield is played for laughs – though with no shortage of blood and violence. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jun 08, 2023
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Native (2016) |
An eye-catching, ideas-driven debut that turns its limited budget to its advantage, with shrewd lead performances. - Total Film
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| Posted Jun 05, 2023
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Down by Law (1986) |
Down by Law seems on occasion to be soliciting our approval. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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Strictly Ballroom (1992) |
...touching and disarmingly lyrical... - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Feb 06, 2020
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Everybody Wins (1990) |
As any gambler knows, the trouble with everybody winning is that you end up with a pretty unsatisfactory pay-out. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jan 16, 2020
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The Good Liar (2019) |
Unfortunately, Jeffrey Hatcher's script ties itself into ever more intricate knots and skids around several yawning plot holes. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Nov 14, 2019
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American Woman (2018) |
American Woman doesn't tie everything up neatly, but that's one of its strengths. And in its empathy and patience, it offers Miller the part this too often sidelined actor has long deserved; she seizes it superbly. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Oct 14, 2019
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The Favourite (2018) |
The Favourite gratifyingly proves that Lanthimos can put his mordantly idiosyncratic stamp on even the staidest of genres. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jan 01, 2019
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Night of Silence (2012) |
Ilyas Salman as Damat and Dilan Aksüt as Gelin both give nuanced performances that invite our sympathy without recourse to easy pathos. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 31, 2018
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Me and You (2012) |
Comes across as a stylish exercise in willed claustrophobia without a great deal to say. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 31, 2018
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Under the Bridges (1946) |
Neither the humour nor the pathos is overdone, and the details of the bargees' domestic life are filled in with affectionate care. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 10, 2018
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Police, Adjective (2009) |
Certainly there's little here to detain Michael Bay fans, but anyone who appreciates bone-dry deadpan humour and intelligently subversive film-making will find plenty to raise their interest - if not their adrenaline level. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 10, 2018
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Goodbye First Love (2011) |
Effectively extends the range of one of France's most notable young directors - besides reminding those of us who once suffered the pangs of teenage love that we're very well out of it. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 06, 2018
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Redoubtable (2017) |
there's a playful irreverence about the narrative treatment that keeps it watchable, and Garrel, often seen as a narcissistic actor, paradoxically gives perhaps his most likeable performance yet as a largely dislikeable character. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted May 11, 2018
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Lean on Pete (2017) |
For all its sometimes over-episodic structure, Haigh has crafted a quietly affecting coming-of-age journey tale sustained by a central performance that never feels forced or contrived. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted May 09, 2018
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La Grande Bouffe (1973) |
First released in 1973, the best-known movie from Italian director Marco Ferreri is an extravagantly bad-taste satire. - Total Film
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| Posted May 03, 2018
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Beast (2017) |
Beast maintains, at least until a comparative let-down of an ending, a compelling degree of sexual and psychological tension, for which its two lead performances - Buckley's in particular - can claim much of the credit. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Apr 26, 2018
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Sightseers (2012) |
Not only is Sightseers a relishable achievement for its devisers, Lowe and Oram, but it enhances Wheatley's reputation as currently the most refreshingly offbeat and unpredictable director of British crime movies. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Apr 09, 2018
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A Field in England (2013) |
Laurie Rose, Wheatley's regular DP, brings to the film the same charged feel for landscape he so potently demonstrated in Sightseers. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Apr 04, 2018
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Unsane (2018) |
Unsane ingeniously maps out fresh territory in a well-trodden field. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Mar 22, 2018
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Darkest Hour (2017) |
It's when Churchill is at his most beleaguered that Darkest Hour spirals off into the further realms of fantasy. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Mar 06, 2018
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(undefined) |
Overall, it might've worked better in a one-hour TV slot. - Total Film
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| Posted Feb 06, 2018
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Darkest Hour (2017) |
An Oscar-aimed turn from Gary Oldman anchors this WW2 portrait of Churchill at his most beleaguered. Just mind the gap... - Total Film
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| Posted Jan 09, 2018
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Hostiles (2017) |
If there's one major oversight in this film, for all its epic scope, it's that despite its sincerely felt subject matter, everything is seen throughout from the viewpoint of the white folks. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jan 04, 2018
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The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) |
The sets are detailed and charming, there are the usual lively, instantly forgettable songs, and several favourites (the Swedish Chef, Rowlf) show up in cheerful cameos. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Dec 20, 2017
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Lost in Paris (2016) |
From multi-talented Belgian/Canadian duo Dominique Abel and his partner Fiona Gordon comes a slice of light-hearted whimsy. - Total Film
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| Posted Nov 24, 2017
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Manifesto (2015) |
Impressive, sure, but ultimately stultifying. - Total Film
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| Posted Nov 24, 2017
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Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017) |
A real-life May-December romance, movingly told and acted. Bening and Bell give performances to cherish. - Total Film
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| Posted Nov 14, 2017
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Happy Death Day (2017) |
Happy Death Day isn't particularly scary, and clearly isn't meant to be - the pleasure lies in the games it plays with its basic storyline, along the way tossing in enough offbeat humour and whodunnit twists to keep us entertained. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Nov 09, 2017
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Félicité (2017) |
Gomis' film paints a lacerating picture of a raucous, dangerous city. - Total Film
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| Posted Nov 06, 2017
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The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) |
A step yet further into the deadpan weird from Yorgos Lanthimos. Disturbing and often distressing, but compulsively watchable. - Total Film
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| Posted Oct 30, 2017
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Blood Simple (1984) |
With their 1984 directorial debut, the Coen brothers showed the surefootedness with which they would ease themselves into one genre after another, reworking each to fit their deadpan vision. - Total Film
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| Posted Oct 03, 2017
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Home Again (2017) |
A diverting social comedy with a hint of depth from debut director Meyers-Shyer, with Witherspoon on top form. - Total Film
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| Posted Sep 26, 2017
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On Body and Soul (2017) |
Enyedi handles this hesitant, tentatively developing relationship with quiet subtlety, often depicting her solitary pair in their respective apartments with through-window night shots that recall the paintings of Edward Hopper. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Sep 25, 2017
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Kills on Wheels (2016) |
An entertaining, ingenious and above all wholly unpatronising take on an often mishandled subject. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Sep 14, 2017
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Kills on Wheels (2016) |
Paraplegic hitmen in wheelchairs - that's the offbeat concept behind Hungarian writer/director Attila Till's movie. - Total Film
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| Posted Sep 11, 2017
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Final Portrait (2017) |
A stellar performance from Geoffrey Rush centres this diverting glimpse into the chaotic life of a great artist. - Total Film
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| Posted Aug 14, 2017
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Dunkirk (2017) |
Dealing with a real-life event, Christopher Nolan has shifted out of cerebral overdrive and rediscovered a welcome directness and simplicity. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 21, 2017
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The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) |
Using a non-professional cast it demands patience, but stick with it and its warm, gentle humanism, plus Olmi's affection for his characters, soon become beguiling. - Total Film
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| Posted Jul 03, 2017
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The Graduate (1967) |
The dialogue's a joy and Nichols furnishes impeccable comic timing. Utterly of its period, yet timeless. - Total Film
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| Posted Jun 19, 2017
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A Good Day to Die, Hoka Hey (2016) |
We get to-camera footage from Howe himself, plus sympathetic testimony from his colleagues. Vivid and moving. - Total Film
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| Posted Jun 13, 2017
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Spaceship (2016) |
Channelling elements of Gregg Araki, Gaspar No and Harmony Korine, Taylor submerges all this in a wealth of saturated colour, melancholic poetry, an eclectic music track and vibrant visual effects. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted May 19, 2017
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La Strada (1954) |
The triangle plays out in Fellini's favourite key of bittersweet sentimentality, life as a tragicomic circus. - Total Film
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| Posted May 15, 2017
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Mindhorn (2016) |
Mindhorn is carried off with infectious gusto, and Barratt throws himself into the follies of the lead role with a lack of inhibition that suggests the reverse of the actorly conceit he's portraying. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted May 05, 2017
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Clash (2016) |
Mohamed Diab's tour de force is shot entirely within a police van as cops chuck some 20 people -- journalists, rioters from both sides and mere bystanders -- into the claustrophobic space. The sense of angry desperation overwhelms. - Total Film
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| Posted Apr 19, 2017
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The Olive Tree (2016) |
Will have you cheering. - Total Film
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| Posted Mar 16, 2017
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Elle (2016) |
A complex film that sidesteps every cliché. Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Huppert are at the top of their game. - Total Film
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| Posted Mar 06, 2017
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The Student (2016) |
Skvortsov gives a scarily grim-faced performance, with biology teacher Elena (Viktoriya Isakova) increasingly beleaguered as the only one resisting him. - Total Film
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| Posted Feb 27, 2017
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Denial (2016) |
The film's all but stolen by Spall, deploying a range of expressive snorts and pouts to rival his portrayal of J.M.W. Turner. - Total Film
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| Posted Jan 23, 2017
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The White King (2016) |
Co-directors Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel devise a convincingly scary dystopia crossing Nazi Germany with Stalin's Russia. Too bad Helfrecht's script lets it down. - Total Film
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| Posted Jan 23, 2017
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