Philip Kennicott
Philip Kennicott's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Washington Post
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010) |
Ultimately, it becomes a Rorschach test of the viewer's cynicism: Does it shock you? You must not live in Washington, read the newspaper or follow politics. Are you horrified? Congratulations, and now wise up. - Washington Post
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| Posted May 07, 2010
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New York, I Love You (2009) |
The characters are all more or less useless, inhabiting the frivolous tippy-top of Maslow's pyramid of needs, with little sense that there's anyone essential at the bottom. It's fun, but decadent. - Washington Post
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| Posted Oct 16, 2009
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The Cove (2009) |
It is filmmaking not just in the service of the environment, but in the service of a victim, and while that victim may have flippers and fins, it is straight from central casting. - Washington Post
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| Posted Aug 07, 2009
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Shrink (2009) |
Shrink is no worse than the average Hollywood comedy. But it shows, more obviously than most, the bankruptcy of standard-issue American pop narrative, circa 2009. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jul 31, 2009
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In the Loop (2009) |
Film should do more than television. In the Loop is tremendous fun at times, especially in its vicious power plays and betrayals. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jul 23, 2009
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Tokyo Sonata (2008) |
Kurosawa is the rare director who simply lets his film dissolve into music, allowing the plot to take the film naturally to a musical conclusion. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jul 17, 2009
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Herb and Dorothy (2008) |
You can't hate the film anymore than you can hate Herb and Dorothy. But this is lazy work. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jul 02, 2009
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Departures (2008) |
It is as polished as it is heavy-handed, and it leaves one under a spell. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jun 19, 2009
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The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) |
Like most of Scott's recent films, this one ends in self-indulgent silliness. You end up asking yourself, how do the few fun bits of the film manage to survive in the midst of so much lousy filmmaking? - Washington Post
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| Posted Jun 12, 2009
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The Garden (2008) |
A good documentary leaves the viewer wanting more. A problematic one leaves the viewer needing more. - Washington Post
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| Posted May 15, 2009
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Is Anybody There? (2008) |
Caine is magnificent, and the film is worth a look for his contribution alone. - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 30, 2009
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Lemon Tree (2008) |
Riklis has made a powerful film, but can a powerful film change anything about the fatalistic culture of powerlessness that is felt throughout Palestine and Israel? - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 30, 2009
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Tokyo! (2008) |
All three films deal with things hidden, or disappearing, or suppressed. But Tokyo, if anything, becomes more of a mystery after Tokyo! than it was before. - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 09, 2009
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Amarcord (1973) |
Orthodox Fellini lovers will give primacy to La Strada or La Dolce Vita, but Amarcord has its fans, and it's easy to see why. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 13, 2009
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Watchmen (2009) |
Sad to say, the much-anticipated adaptation of the world's most celebrated graphic novel is long, dull and sinks under the weight of its reverence for the original. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 05, 2009
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Donkey Punch (2008) |
Donkey Punch is almost humorless, and there's no wink and nudge behind the mayhem to absolve us of taking its ugly, class-obsessed subtext seriously. - Washington Post
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| Posted Feb 12, 2009
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Marley & Me (2008) |
Not every book has a movie lurking in it. - Washington Post
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| Posted Dec 29, 2008
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Valkyrie (2008) |
Valkyrie is a brutally efficient bit of storytelling, and it makes no unforced errors. - Washington Post
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| Posted Dec 29, 2008
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Frost/Nixon (2008) |
It isn't Shakespeare, but it is drama at a level one doesn't often get in movies. - Washington Post
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| Posted Dec 12, 2008
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Nobel Son (2007) |
It's all wildly implausible and occasionally fun, but it could be so much better if director Randall Miller had thrown in a little more character development and excised a half-dozen crazy plot twists. - Washington Post
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| Posted Dec 05, 2008
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Synecdoche, New York (2008) |
The acting is magnificent, especially Hoffman's anguished, distracted, solipsistic portrayal of Cotard. - Washington Post
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| Posted Nov 07, 2008
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The Women (2008) |
In the end, English just wants to make a nice chick flick with some sassy lines. Genuine nastiness has been eliminated, while not-very-funny banter is retained. - Washington Post
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| Posted Sep 12, 2008
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A Jihad for Love (2007) |
[Director Sharma's] focus on religion and this particular religion's all but certain hostility to same-sex love means there can be no answers to the spiritual searching of many of his characters. - Washington Post
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| Posted Sep 04, 2008
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Traitor (2008) |
Traitor traffics in the cliches of the terrorist chase film -- including the usual stereotypes of Muslims -- while trying not to succumb to outright bigotry. - Washington Post
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| Posted Aug 27, 2008
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Hamlet 2 (2008) |
[A] dazzling little comedy. - Washington Post
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| Posted Aug 22, 2008
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Death Race (2008) |
If a movie could drag its knuckles on the ground, Death Race would leave eight little tracks in the sand. - Washington Post
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| Posted Aug 21, 2008
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Henry Poole Is Here (2008) |
A few smart turns in a forest of stupid doesn't make a film smart. - Washington Post
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| Posted Aug 14, 2008
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My Winnipeg (2007) |
An unhinged, utterly delightful 'documentary'. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jun 26, 2008
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Diva (1981) |
Diva, as a lifestyle, a fantasy, a model for alienation and solipsism and eccentricity, has gone deep into all of us. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jan 24, 2008
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Send a Bullet (2007) |
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), a documentary about corruption, crime and human adaptation during difficult circumstances, is a slick, sly and beautifully shot documentary. - Washington Post
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| Posted Sep 27, 2007
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12:08 East of Bucharest (2006) |
It's easy to end a film with the idea that life goes on. It's extremely difficult to make the cliche the only possible, necessary and satisfying ending. Porumboiu's film does that. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jul 19, 2007
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ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway (2005) |
It is filled with neurotic people in greasepaint, some charming, most amusing, and by the time you've spent an hour and a half with them, you're more than invested in their lives and cares. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jun 21, 2007
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La môme (2007) |
Olivier Dahan's film is both faithful to and freewheeling with the facts of Piaf's life. Much is left out, but the essentials are there. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jun 14, 2007
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In the Pit (2006) |
Like the highway these men are building, Rulfo's film sails above the larger context that would actually bring emotional meaning to the lives he wants to celebrate. - Washington Post
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| Posted Apr 23, 2007
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The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (2006) |
The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, a documentary with a tiny cast of characters and a modest budget, is a microscopic view of a big and ugly war. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 22, 2007
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Hurricane on the Bayou (2006) |
The narrative is built one happy cliche at a time until the story of Katrina ceases to be about appalling environmental neglect, or the colossal failure of the federal government to manage a disaster. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 22, 2007
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This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) |
For a film with this much argument in it, This Film is remarkably entertaining. - Washington Post
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| Posted Sep 15, 2006
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Time to Leave (2005) |
Sumptuously filmed but rather distant. - Washington Post
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| Posted Aug 17, 2006
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The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005) |
A tour de force of cinema verite with astonishing performances by a huge cast of small players. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jul 13, 2006
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Sketches of Frank Gehry (2005) |
The parameters of Gehry's genius, as suggested by Pollack, are essentially the same as those captured in generations of cliched artist biopics. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jun 02, 2006
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Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) |
Doesn't advance the Barney oeuvre an inch past where he left it with his massive, megalomaniacal opus known as the Cremaster series. - Washington Post
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| Posted May 25, 2006
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Duma (2005) |
Visually panoramic, a film that revels in making the expanse of a beautiful place palpable. - Washington Post
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| Posted Mar 30, 2006
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Manderlay (2005) |
Even the basic look of the film -- it was filmed on a stage with every shot set against a bleak, dark backdrop -- underscores the filmmaker's position as master manipulator, in a laboratory, looking down at his mice running through his maze. - Washington Post
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| Posted Feb 16, 2006
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Music From the Inside Out (2004) |
Among the dull passages there are moving stories, and a very loving sympathy for the people it profiles. - Washington Post
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| Posted Feb 02, 2006
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3-Iron (2004) |
Kim works with the barest of materials but returns the viewer's attention to the pure visual pleasure of filmmaking. - Washington Post
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| Posted May 20, 2005
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The Merchant of Venice (2004) |
For lovers of the play's language ... the losses will hurt. But as cinematic storytelling, it works. - Washington Post
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| Posted Jan 28, 2005
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Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004) |
A case study in cultural analysis that aims at too much and achieves too little. - Washington Post
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| Posted Dec 31, 2004
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The Phantom of the Opera (2004) |
The movie version of Lloyd Webber's smash hit does to the music what the music did to the words and story: It distracts the mind and cajoles the eyes to the point that one doesn't really care that everything the ears are hearing is pure nonsense. - Washington Post
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| Posted Dec 22, 2004
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Callas Forever (2002) |
Goes far deeper into one man's opera-diva fetish than most people will want to follow. - Washington Post
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| Posted Nov 29, 2004
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Celsius 41.11 (2004) |
There's really nothing more here than you can find watching dreadful political advertisements and dreadful political talk shows. - Washington Post
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| Posted Oct 22, 2004
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