Richard Porton
Richard Porton's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Chicago Reader
Film Journal International
The Daily Beast
Cinema Scope
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
True History of the Kelly Gang (2019) |
Despite Kurzel's rather hollow arsenal of filmic pyrotechnics, True History of the Kelly Gang is worth seeing for its star turns, particularly MacKay as the gaunt, epicene, and clean-shaven adult... - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Apr 30, 2020
|
|
|
|
The Painted Bird (2019) |
While The Painted Bird may not be the easiest film to sit through, it's certainly not an example of gratuitous sensationalism. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Sep 10, 2019
|
|
|
|
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) |
Heller's film is so besotted with Rogers that it's enough to turn the stomachs of the handful of misanthropes that don't view Rogers as a secular saint...I wasn't ultimately sucked in by Heller's attempts to avoid sentimentality... - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Sep 10, 2019
|
|
|
|
Just Mercy (2019) |
One suspects that it will be a long wait before Hollywood devotes a feature a film to, say, Black Lives Matter. In the meantime, we can be grateful that Warner Bros. and Cretton are, for once, invested it the fate of a black hero, not a white savior. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Sep 10, 2019
|
|
|
|
It Must Be Heaven (2019) |
In It Must Be Heaven, everybody's favourite Palestinian filmmaker tries so hard to enumerate universal truths that local knowledge becomes irretrievably lost. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Sep 05, 2019
|
|
|
|
Young Ahmed (2019) |
What's truly depressing about Young Ahmed is the filmmakers' capitulation to a schematic analysis of Islamism that is completely unedifying. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted May 21, 2019
|
|
|
|
A Hidden Life (2019) |
A Hidden Life demonstrates that a respect for beauty can itself function as a political act. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted May 20, 2019
|
|
|
|
The Dead Don't Die (2019) |
The Dead Don't Die, despite some sporadically enjoyable satirical interludes, suffers from Jarmusch's desire to pay homage to Romero's radical grittiness while winking at the audience. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted May 15, 2019
|
|
|
|
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) |
To a certain extent, Jenkins's adaptation of Beale Street embodies what is often termed the "blues aesthetic" in African-American culture-the catharsis that ensues from transforming the pain of the black experience into art. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Sep 11, 2018
|
|
|
|
Hotel Mumbai (2018) |
Despite the meticulous, and inevitably cringe-inducing, re-enactment of a massacre in which both humble employees and filthy-rich guests were gunned down like clay pigeons, it's difficult to empathize with the flimsily-drawn characters, - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Sep 10, 2018
|
|
|
|
Widows (2018) |
Even though Widows' critique of political skullduggery and male arrogance is pegged to a gimmicky plot device, it's still a rousing piece of entertainment. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Sep 10, 2018
|
|
|
|
Capernaum (2018) |
Such escapades will eventually fill undiscerning art-house patrons with a warm glow and leave them none the wiser concerning Beirut's mean streets. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Sep 06, 2018
|
|
|
|
Donbass (2018) |
At first glance, Sergei Loznitsa's new film...seems like a scattershot series of vignettes, but eventually, Donbass' near-Buñuelian episodic structure...acquires a cumulative power. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Sep 06, 2018
|
|
|
|
Phantom Thread (2017) |
Phantom Thread does not flaunt an easily digestible, on-the nose heartwarming message. Highly allusive in its propensity to quote, or pay tribute to, film history, Anderson's approach... does not offer his audience predigested verities. - Cineaste Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jun 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
BlacKkKlansman (2018) |
BlacKkKlansman combines absurdist satirical humor and earnest agitprop with mixed results. Despite its tonal shifts, however, it's a supremely personal project that assembles a virtual anthology of Spike Lee preoccupations. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted May 15, 2018
|
|
|
|
Sextape (A genoux les gars) (2018) |
From another perspective, however, Desrosires' paean to feminist rectitude is rather glib...there's something maddeningly schematic about how the heroine's dilemmas are resolved by the film's conclusion. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted May 11, 2018
|
|
|
|
America: Land of the Freeks (2018) |
Despite the failure of FreeKS' satirical treatment of documentary clichs to live up to this hype, there's something bracing about Lommel's efforts to breathe new life into the taboo-shattering spirit of Fassbinder and Warhol. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Feb 22, 2018
|
|
|
|
Isle of Dogs (2018) |
A certain cuteness, or preciousness, is what has made Anderson's films the object of scorn for some curmudgeonly critics. Nevertheless, the fantasy realm of a talking dog universe prevents trademark whimsy from congealing into sentimentality. - The Daily Beast
Read More
| Posted Feb 16, 2018
|
|
|
|
Melancholia (2011) |
The fact that the world ends with a pleasurable whimper in Melancholia is highly appropriate; even the final conflagration turns out to be an over-hyped non-event. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
Certified Copy (2010) |
In many respects, Certified Copy is every bit as elliptical and provocative as more transparently "experimental" films. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
The Lives of Others (2006) |
Cinematic smugness has a fatal impact on the delineation of Wiesler's quietly heroic political calisthenics and The Lives of Others' supposedly uplifting denouement. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) |
Happy-Go-Lucky, is, good intentions notwithstanding, a rather fraudulent and half-hearted enterprise. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
A Dangerous Method (2011) |
A Dangerous Method reveals the emotional violence that bubbles below the surface of Hampton's witty repartee. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
A Prophet (2009) |
Un prophète, despite near-universal critical acclaim, languishes in an aesthetic no man's land. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
The Past (2013) |
Connecting the political dots is a more or less futile task when dealing with a film that seems almost as clueless about private life as it is about the public realm. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
Manuscripts Don't Burn (2013) |
Unlike most thrillers, political or otherwise, there isn't a satisfyingly cathartic conclusion to Manuscripts Don't Burn. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
Omar (2013) |
Omar is a relatively undidactic take on the lives of ordinary Palestinians with no choice but to endure the indignities imposed by the constraints of Israel's "separation wall." - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 03, 2017
|
|
|
|
Ma'a al-Fidda (2014) |
Silvered Water invites us to immerse ourselves in the unimaginable while making us equally cognizant of our political impotence. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Sicario (2015) |
Far from being the cunningly ambiguous moral parable its champions claim it to be, Sicario actually hedges its bets in order to remain shamelessly crowd-pleasing. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Son of Saul (2015) |
If I'm honest, I'll admit that the film works on a purely visceral level. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
In the Shadow of Women (2015) |
In a casual, supremely non-didactic fashion, Garrel skewers male hubris. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Body (2015) |
Body creaks along to a disappointingly bland conclusion, the mini-narratives never quite coalescing into either a series of salient character studies or a coherent critique of contemporary Polish mores. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Dheepan (2015) |
The French critic Vincent Malausa recently assailed Dheepan as "arrogant and stupid." For some of us, it's merely banal and forgettable. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
A Flickering Truth (2015) |
Filmgoing is affirmed as a communal experience that can transform lives in dark, uncertain times. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
The Unknown Girl (2016) |
The film is rarely more than a somewhat rote exercise in liberal self-flagellation. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Two Lovers and a Bear (2016) |
In this movie's fanciful realm, mental illness, obsessive romanticism, and Arctic wildlife are all unbearably adorable. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Paterson (2016) |
What's compelling about Paterson is the tension-call it dialectical-between Jarmusch's highly stylized elegy for a once-vibrant industrial city in New Jersey and his self-conscious homage to a poetic sensibility. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Loving (2016) |
Despite this aesthetic morass, Edgerton and Negga's performances are brilliantly crafted, and nearly offset some of the film's more heavy-handed interludes. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
The Salesman (2016) |
[The Salesman] depicts a masterful chronicle of the Iranian middle class. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Hissein Habre, a Chadian Tragedy (2016) |
It is to Haroun's credit that he lets this statement stand alone, without any editorial embellishments. For the attentive viewer, there's no need for the director to connect the dots and invoke historical precedents. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
In the Fade (2017) |
As long as festival selection committees go on including films like In the Fade in their rosters and a certain segment of the public remains conned, Akin will continue to churn out more of these self-important turkeys. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
Loveless (2017) |
For many viewers, what will remain stuck in their minds is not Loveless' critique of Putinism, but rather its relentless misogyny. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2017
|
|
|
|
P.S. (2004) |
Even the always radiant Laura Linney can't save this misbegotten film. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|
|
|
|
Little Lili (2003) |
[La Petite Lili] remains a decidedly halfhearted attempt to rework the romantic entanglements of The Seagull. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|
|
|
|
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002) |
This uneven triptych features flawed female heroines whose woes are attributable to unstable or bland male partners and simple bad luck. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|
|
|
|
The Time We Killed (2004) |
Reeves's film is distinguished by its formal rigor-she makes beautiful use of an array of avant-garde techniques, including overexposed footage and an elliptical voice-over-and by its acute sensitivity to the way we all lived in Bush's America. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|
|
|
|
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003) |
The efforts of victims and victimizers to come to terms with historical trauma are admirable, but the film is too tough-minded to espouse a facile discourse of "healing" in the face of genocide driven by ideology run amok. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|
|
|
|
(undefined) |
Crude but fascinating, this harrowing 2002 Iranian film by Manijeh Hekmat uses the dejected inhabitants of a filthy jail-drug addicts, prostitutes, and lesbians-to expose the barely suppressed rage of women in the Islamic state. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|
|
|
|
Ici on noie les Algériens: 17 Octobre 1961 (Here We Drown Algerians: October 17th, 1961) (2011) |
This is a rather cautious docudrama that relies on stock melodramatic contrivances. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|
|
|
|
(undefined) |
The film has a lively visual style and some tartly funny moments, but too often succumbs to cloying folksiness and an overeagerness to please. - Chicago Reader
Read More
| Posted Sep 29, 2017
|