Philip Marchand
Philip Marchand's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Toronto Star
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
The Rocker (2008) |
The Rocker is an amiable comedy, so efficiently constructed that you can practically see the computer software on how to write comedy screenplays at work. Nonetheless it is an enjoyable construction. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Aug 20, 2008
|
|
|
|
Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) |
If 3D is indeed the future of movies, we're going to need something more substantial than Journey to the Center of the Earth to convince us. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jul 11, 2008
|
|
|
|
Encounters at the End of the World (2007) |
In his latest documentary, Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog -- who warns the viewer at the outset not to expect any 'fluffy penguins' -- deals with the men and women who perform scientific research in Antarctica. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Promotion (2008) |
The Promotion works as a comedy because, in the depths of our dark hearts, we enjoy seeing the woes that beset our comic antagonists. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2008
|
|
|
|
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) |
Don't expect any serious debate here about God and evolution. This documentary is like watching a paranoiac making fun of a hysteric. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2008
|
|
|
|
Global Metal (2008) |
Dunn's movie is an indulgent presentation of metal and its devotees -- it even implies the world will be a better place when adolescents everywhere have a chance to bang their heads. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 20, 2008
|
|
|
|
Before the Rains (2007) |
India has rarely looked so beautiful onscreen. Against the anguish of his human characters, director Santosh Sivan juxtaposes a tranquil, green world in the hills of the southwestern state of Keralain 1937, 10 years before independence. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 20, 2008
|
|
|
|
Irina Palm (2007) |
A pleasingly sentimental British domestic drama. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 13, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Happening (2008) |
Shyamalan seems to have lost his sense of the fine line between the disturbingly grotesque and the outright ridiculous. The film even seems to be a parody of the scientific method. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 13, 2008
|
|
|
|
My Brother Is an Only Child (2007) |
The linkage in this movie between politics and family dynamics is a point well taken, but the movie -- whose sense of frenetic activity going nowhere is captured by Luchetti's buoyant camera -- does go on and on before anyone learns anything. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 06, 2008
|
|
|
|
Finn's Girl (2007) |
Score several political points for this cheaply manufactured romantic fantasy. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 06, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Children of Huang Shi (2008) |
It's a compelling story, with only a few jarring notes. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 06, 2008
|
|
|
|
You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008) |
There's a lot to be said for consumerism as a salve for historic wounds. Of course, there's also a drawback to our free market ways -- we get shoes made in China and movies like You Don't Mess with the Zohan. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Jun 06, 2008
|
|
|
|
Mister Lonely (2007) |
Korine has found an evocative subject, but he remains entirely too cavalier in this attitude towards narrative coherence. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 30, 2008
|
|
|
|
This Beautiful City (2007) |
A sense of coherence is not helped by an arty, handheld-camera feeling. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 23, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Edge of Heaven (2007) |
As a director [Akin] is clearly a humanist, championing the virtues of forgiveness and relying on strong narrative and deep sympathy for his characters to drive his movies. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 23, 2008
|
|
|
|
Flight of the Red Balloon (2007) |
The story of these people is certainly engaging. The conundrums of art and reality, of reflection and mirror images, presented by the movie are another matter - they seem at times gratuitous. But at least the movie does give us something to think about. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 16, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) |
Something human is missing here, amidst all the centaurs and talking bears and mobile trees. It's the art of storytelling, which knows when to allow characters time for heartfelt interaction, when to build suspense, when to mount a climax. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 16, 2008
|
|
|
|
A Previous Engagement (2008) |
This is a romantic comedy where the romance is too fraught with implications for a comedy, and the treatment of character is too flippant for a romance. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 09, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Stone Angel (2007) |
These elemental forces fuel a compelling narrative, but the second half of the movie starts to drift. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 09, 2008
|
|
|
|
Speed Racer (2008) |
The movie, unfortunately, doesn't make that leap from sensation to art, but it suggests fascinating possibilities for moviemakers interested in using the latest techniques seriously to explore the world -- the fairyland we have made with our technology. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 09, 2008
|
|
|
|
What Happens in Vegas (2008) |
Here's a romantic comedy that is goofy, highly implausible, sometimes over the top, often in bad taste, and resolutely empty-headed. In short, it's the best example of its genre to appear on the screen this year. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 09, 2008
|
|
|
|
Made of Honor (2008) |
Somewhere in the shades of Hollywood, the ghost of Cary Grant is shaking his head. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted May 02, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Visitor (2007) |
The story of Vale's revitalization and his grief is compelling but simple, free of any sentimentality, and marked by powerful performances from Jenkins and Hiam Abbass, who plays Mouna Khalil, Tarek's mother. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 25, 2008
|
|
|
|
War, Inc. (2008) |
It all adds up to a fast pace, lots of shooting, and a movie that, in its heart, is as corrupt as the politics it attempts to satirize. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 25, 2008
|
|
|
|
Deception (2008) |
The inevitable absurdities and coincidences of the plot are easy enough to accept along the way, except perhaps for the sex club, which is just a little too absurd to function as a plot device. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 25, 2008
|
|
|
|
London to Brighton (2006) |
Its tautness is satisfying. Not one line of dialogue is superfluous, not one take is a second too long. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 18, 2008
|
|
|
|
Emotional Arithmetic (2007) |
A piece of advice for Canadian filmmakers -- don't make movies out of dreary CanLit novels. They're easy enough to spot. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 18, 2008
|
|
|
|
Young at Heart (2007) |
One of the most remarkable scenes you will ever see in a documentary is the chorus of elderly men and women -- average age of 80 -- singing Bob Dylan's 'Forever Young' before convicts in a Massachusetts penitentiary. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 18, 2008
|
|
|
|
Chaos Theory (2007) |
Reynolds goes through his emotional paces with conviction and is developing a trademark wounded look that is quite effective. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 11, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Ruins (2008) |
Moral of the story: never visit an out-of-the-way Mexican ruin covered by vines and blood-red flowers that make a squeaking sound. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 07, 2008
|
|
|
|
Kenny (2006) |
The result is a minor masterpiece of tone in Kenny's portrayal of a character that is absurd, guileless and shrewd at the same time. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 04, 2008
|
|
|
|
Sex and Death 101 (2007) |
Why not simply admit this is cheeseball porn, assembled with a slightly higher brand of cheese and nuts? - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 04, 2008
|
|
|
|
Under the Same Moon (2007) |
The performances -- and the movie's sideways glance at the culture of illegal immigrants, including a funny song about Superman ('He has no social security and no green card') -- give the movie its nicely controlled vitality. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 04, 2008
|
|
|
|
Nim's Island (2008) |
The movie is not particularly rewarding for adults or children who believe that even a tale of fantastic events should be governed by plausibility. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Apr 04, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (2006) |
Director Cao Hamburger, a Brazilian of Italian and German descent, treats this development with a very light hand. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 28, 2008
|
|
|
|
Stop-Loss (2008) |
The movie is a gripping but very limited view of their lives. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 28, 2008
|
|
|
|
Shutter (2008) |
With Shutter, that nerve-tingling soundtrack gets heavy use almost from the beginning of the movie. It becomes tiresome. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 24, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Grand (2008) |
This failure of steely intention, combined with a not quite satisfactory resolution of the fates of the characters, keeps the movie just shy of being a first-rate comedy. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 21, 2008
|
|
|
|
Meet the Browns (2008) |
It would take a stony critic to dismiss entirely the movie's tribute to the virtues of perseverance and generosity. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 21, 2008
|
|
|
|
Doomsday (2008) |
If you can accept this farrago of nonsense, and enjoy simulated beheadings and lopped-off hands and massive spurts and splashes of blood, this may be the movie for you. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 17, 2008
|
|
|
|
CJ7 (2008) |
The presence of Xu Jiao, who never tips her gender for a moment, and is winsome without being cute, is enough to keep the audience watching. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 14, 2008
|
|
|
|
Never Back Down (2008) |
Tyler does not live on planet Earth, but planet Hollywood formula, where the storm clouds of Fight Club hang over the once charming but now seedy landscape of The Karate Kid. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 14, 2008
|
|
|
|
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) |
You can't criticize a soufflé for not being a side of beef. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 07, 2008
|
|
|
|
College Road Trip (2008) |
When all else fails, and the last faint possibility of comedy has vanished, the director turns on the sentiment. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Mar 07, 2008
|
|
|
|
City of Men (2007) |
This is an engrossing film, partly because the director pulls the camera back from time to time to mitigate the occasional effect of claustrophobia and to remind the audiencehow stunning the landscape is. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Feb 29, 2008
|
|
|
|
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) |
[A] vulgarized portrayal of the Tudor court. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Feb 29, 2008
|
|
|
|
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) |
The film certainly makes its case, tracing a chain of abuse from Bagram to the notorious Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, to the cells of Guantanamo. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Feb 22, 2008
|
|
|
|
War/Dance (2007) |
'The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places,' Hemingway wrote in A Farewell to Arms. That statement might stand as the summation of this documentary, which celebrates the strength of winsome, broken children. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Feb 22, 2008
|
|
|
|
Charlie Bartlett (2007) |
The characters remain halfway between genuine comic creations and realistic individuals, and the whole narrative feels artificial, stuck in the tension between being a morality play and a freewheeling comedy. - Toronto Star
Read More
| Posted Feb 22, 2008
|