Piers Marchant
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) |
The film feels a good deal less inspired than in some of the series’ previous efforts. Instead, we get a sort of greatest hits medley, most of which feels pretty played out long before we finally reach the final, final, final confrontation. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) |
Quantumania is a lifeless, mirthless CGI saturnalia that dispenses almost entirely with the emotional core of its characters. In its place, Peyton Reed and his production team have resorted to the worst sort of empty spectacle filmmaking. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Skinamarink (2022) |
I don't expect such a peculiar film will be for everyone, but for those of us still stuck with a potent sense of childhood dread, it's a sort of horrific revelation. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings (2023) |
Collectively, these exquisitely rendered moments begin to form a much greater whole, creating a sense of the world for [Nicole Holofcener's] characters that somehow expands far beyond what we actually see of them. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Eileen (2023) |
Not everything works precisely, especially when the film takes its unexpected turn, but much of the groundwork is excellent, allowing it a wider than usual sort of berth. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Cat Person (2023) |
It moves from figurative to literal, in a way that actually reduces the tension, letting the audience off the hook, essentially, and dulling its resonance. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Magazine Dreams (2023) |
Watching the film is a bit like viewing a man barely holding onto a steel girder high off the ground, losing his grip finger by agonizing finger. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 03, 2023
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Fair Play (2023) |
Domont's film is about as pitiless as many of its characters, putting toxic masculinity under an unflinching microscope. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 03, 2023
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Infinity Pool (2023) |
A pretty chilling and clearcut condemnation of not just the super-rich, but also the human condition at large. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 03, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin (2023) |
Since the film is so bereft at portraying anything that feels genuine or realistic, the film loses any verite-type bite, and again galumphs into a kind of cartoonland, where the vast majority of the director's work ultimately resides. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Feb 03, 2023
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Missing (2023) |
As a storytelling device, it turns out our desktops can be surprisingly engaging, at least the way this franchise works it. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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Shayda (2023) |
It's not groundbreaking, exactly, but as a testament to female empowerment in a culture deadset against such movements, it does reverberate. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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The Longest Goodbye (2023) |
No easy answers or solutions, but Mizrahy's film asks important and intriguing questions about the physical cost of such a mission. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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The Pod Generation (2023) |
The film looks terrific and Clarke and Ejiofor do fine work together, but Barthes, whose previous film, an adaptation of Madame Bovary that came out almost a decade ago, seems content to craft a social satire without much actual story attached to it. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) |
It doesn't turn overly dramatic, to its credit, but it's not exactly earth-shattering either: It's the kind of film that turns a very small pebble into a subtle, gradual sort of ripple. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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Broker (2022) |
It's all well-done, with a kind of rollicking energy (never quite dipping into farce, but presenting a world in which most people seem basically decent and generous in nature), but it doesn't hit the more transcendent notes of some of his best work. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jan 26, 2023
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The Son (2022) |
Whiny, manipulative dreck from Florian Zeller, the director of the vastly superior The Father, this melodrama goes from middling slow burn to bubbling boil over in short order. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Babylon (2022) |
It's all too much, and too predictable to rise up as transcendentally as Chazelle clearly hopes it will. It's a lot of time, effort, and money to bring us a story that has already happened countless times before. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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The Fabelmans (2022) |
You can feel Spielberg struggle to make sure everyone is treated fairly but, then, if the divorce was so even-handed and well-received, why bother making a film about it in the first place? - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Nov 29, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
While it might not have quite the richly satisfying subtext of the original, that sense of nearly perfect coherency, there is still a tremendous amount of fun to be had. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Nov 29, 2022
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
McDonagh might well have set himself up with a considerably complex challenge, but -- as one critic who was decidedly not a fan of "Billboards" -- I'd have to say, in this case, he's more than met his mark. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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The Good Nurse (2022) |
Lindholm's film is soberly effective, if dramatically tamped down. That kind of focused severity limits the emotional register for Chastain and Redmayne to a degree, but it also encourages the pair of powerhouses to internalize their performances. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Oct 28, 2022
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Tár (2022) |
The reward for this approach is as rich as buttercream. Carrying nearly every frame of the film from stem to stern, Blanchett is absolutely brilliant, riveting in her portrayal of a woman empowered to rewrite her own history. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Oct 28, 2022
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Black Adam (2022) |
There are moments for DC aficionados to thrill and enough of Johnson's comic timing to keep the film from being total dreck, but there's not much to see here you haven't already endured many times before. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Catherine Called Birdy (2022) |
So much of the film is propelled by the effervescent Ramsey, with her fetching underbite and genuinely mischievous, toothy smile, any story shortcomings get pasted over with a dollop of mud and whinnying sort of giggle. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Oct 14, 2022
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Amsterdam (2022) |
With its overblown stylings, and wavy, melodramatic tone, it's as if we're watching the feature debut of Max Fischer, the precocious teenager from Wes Anderson's "Rushmore." That's not intended as a compliment. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Oct 07, 2022
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Sanctuary (2022) |
The script, from Micah Bloomberg, is sharp and salty as a broken pretzel rod; and the soundtrack, from composer Ariel Marx, ranging from atonal blurts, to driving low-end strings, connects all the disparate pieces perfectly. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 30, 2022
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The Eternal Daughter (2022) |
There is, of course, a point to all this subterfuge and apprehension, having to do with memory, and the creation of art, among other things, but it's largely a film of mood and ambience, at which Hogg has proved to be almost eerily adept. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 30, 2022
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Triangle of Sadness (2022) |
Östlund mostly dispenses with subtlety in favor of a raucous sort of precision, setting up his gilded pins for the inevitable bowling ball hurtling at them. One imagines it won the top prize at Cannes for its raw audacity as much as anything else. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 30, 2022
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Blonde (2022) |
[Director Andrew Dominik] has always been an inventive visual stylist. Along with his extremely talented cinematographer, Chayse Irvin, and a fantastic crew... has created a reverent, emotionally vibrant palette from which to paint his damning portrait. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 30, 2022
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Aftersun (2022) |
Wells' extraordinary film shows just enough without telling us anything directly, an incredibly potent way to register grief and loss, and to display how much we will still never know about the people we love dearest. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 16, 2022
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The Whale (2022) |
Even if it is often despite the script's more frilly flourishes, it offers a substantial emotional payload. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Bros (2022) |
Following many of the standard sorts of rom-com hurdles, it plays along predictably well-worn grooves. But it also has many clever satiric touches and enough of Eichner's clever pop-culture gags to keep the engine humming. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Decision to Leave (2022) |
It's a slower-moving film than some of Park's more high-octane stuff, but its determined deliberateness eventually yields up some third-act treasures that seem very much worth it. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Breaking (2022) |
The film's air of menace is well-crafted by Corbin and her team, dragging out the tension as Brown-Easley makes his case, both to the police, and to the media. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Sep 02, 2022
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A Love Song (2022) |
The chemistry between Dickey and Studi always palpable and subtly moving. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Aug 19, 2022
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Emily the Criminal (2022) |
John Patton Ford's Emily the Criminal, from his own screenplay, offers up another great turn from Plaza, who has fully embraced her indie-goddess status, starring in (and producing) low-budget pictures with a great deal of panache. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Bullet Train (2022) |
Fortunately, Pitt's engaging magnetism, along with the rest of the bouncy cast, is enough to grease the wheels just enough as the movie's consistent, propulsive energy carries us forward. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Don't Make Me Go (2022) |
It's like watching a "This Is Us" marathon where they take out the connective threads and just play the most weepy bits. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Fire of Love (2022) |
It's possible to admire their ability to simplify, even as we instinctively recoil from the tremendous risks they took in the process. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Nope (2022) |
It's the kind of film where loose ends, and visible unsightlinesses are part of the process, allowing the writer/director the creative freedom to engage with his muse without having to get caught up in the preciousness of perfection. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jul 22, 2022
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Spiderhead (2022) |
Whatever delicate mechanisms left from Saunders' story get tossed by the wayside in place of dumb and dumber plot beats that leave the film dunderingly insipid, and as thematically barren as a night at Olive Garden. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jul 15, 2022
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The Gray Man (2022) |
Like a box of Milk Duds, it might not stay with you long, but it's easy enough to gobble down. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jul 15, 2022
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Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) |
It can be rip-roaring fun, but it doesn't seem to sail anywhere in particular. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jul 08, 2022
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The Black Phone (2021) |
The pair of young leads playing siblings, Thames and McGraw, who take the moody atmospherics of Derrickson's grotty '70s nightmare, and turn it into something that feels considerably more lived in and compelling. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jun 24, 2022
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Elvis (2022) |
Something of a mess, filmwise... but something of that over-the-top style actually works to help explain how such a devout, modest little kid growing up dirt-poor in the south, could become the most famous entertainer in the world. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jun 24, 2022
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McEnroe (2022) |
For better, and oftentimes worse, McEnroe let you know exactly how he felt at any given time. In that, he makes for a solid documentary subject -- controversial, successful, and often painfully honest about his various shortcomings. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jun 17, 2022
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Rounding (2022) |
It has its interesting beats and imagery, but in the end it can't quite pull off its difficult agenda. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jun 17, 2022
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The Integrity of Joseph Chambers (2022) |
Not everything holds together exactly, storywise, but there remains more than enough filmmaking flair, and another strong, committed performance from Crawford, to anchor it down. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted Jun 17, 2022
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Men (2022) |
The film may have an abundance of interpersonal political venom about the imbalanced power dynamic between men and women, but its hiss is worse than its bite. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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| Posted May 20, 2022
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