Rob Blackwelder
Tomatometer-approved critic
Once upon a time, Rob was the entertainment editor at a small community college with a kick-*** journalism program. One day he graduated and realized that he could not give up writing about movies, even if he had to hold a day job to do it. Through a friend he got a peanut-paying freelance gig at a podunk newspaper in an overgrown farm town in Northern California, writing one review a week. It wasn't pretty, but it kept him on the mailing lists at the publicity houses. Soon Rob started a web site called Movieolla and before long was being chased by lawyers for the people who make the Moviola editing equipment that is the film industry work horse for cutting and splicing. Hmm, thought Rob, splicing! And thus was born SPLICEDwire (http://www.splicedwire.com), the web site for SPLICEDwire Content Services, which provides movie reviews and features to newspapers, web sites, and other media outlets. Rob was named one of the 10 Best Film Critics of 2003 by the Critic Doctor (http://www.criticdoctor.com/toptenlists/2003.html).
RECENT #1 FILMS: 2003: "Lost in Translation" 2002: "Chicago" 2001: "Amelie" 2000: "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" 1999: "Run Lola Run" 1998: "Buffalo '66" 1997: "Titanic" 1996: "Breaking the Waves" 1995: "Othello" Robio's FAVORITES list:
Oakland, CA
http://www.splicedwire.com
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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The Portrait of a Lady (1996) |
Throughout Portrait there is a nagging sensation that makes one want to ask, "But where is all this going?" - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Oct 26, 2018
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Anna (1993) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Apr 04, 2011
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Ghost Rock (2003) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 23, 2006
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House of D (2004) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted May 27, 2006
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Don't Move (2004) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted May 27, 2006
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The Punisher (2004) |
Listless, lifeless, uninterestingly bleak and quite often ridiculous. - Combustible Celluloid
Read More
| Posted May 26, 2006
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Shark Tale (2004) |
The kind of flashy and colorful but insultingly trite Hollywood regurgitation that far too often gets a pass under the excuse that "it's just a kids' movie." - Combustible Celluloid
Read More
| Posted May 26, 2006
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A History of Violence (2005) |
David Cronenberg is out of his element in A History of Violence, and it shows. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 23, 2005
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Dear Wendy (2005) |
The film's last act almost completely self-destructs, falling into blind, metaphor-baiting machinations. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 22, 2005
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Roll Bounce (2005) |
Director Malcolm D. Lee has a gift for finding gold nuggets of personality and comedy in the tailings of over-mined plots. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 21, 2005
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Flightplan (2005) |
The third act begins with another twist - but this one is so arduous, absurd and out of character for the film that the entire plot, stretching back to Scene One, is sabotaged - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 21, 2005
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Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005) |
Blessed with memorably iconic characters and a creative, if fairly predictable plot, Corpse Bride is quick, droll, and destined to be a perennial Halloween favorite. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 21, 2005
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Just Like Heaven (2005) |
When it comes to romantic chemistry, they never quite mesh, no matter what twinkle effect Waters puts on the screen when Ruffalo's hand touches Witherspoon's ethereal plane. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 15, 2005
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Clueless (1995) |
The movie's simple yet spot-on characters and performances make the laughs timeless, no matter how firmly the film is set in 1995. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 09, 2005
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The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) |
Part spine-tingling horror movie, part unorthodox courtroom drama, Emily Rose runs into trouble because it's ironically more credible as the former than the latter. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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The Thing (1982) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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The Man (2005) |
A boring, all-you-can-regurgitate buffet of buddy-movie/cop-movie banality, it would collapse under the weight of its own generic stupidity (without) Jackson and Levy. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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The Candidate (1972) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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The Sting (1973) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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An Unfinished Life (2005) |
Another sleepy, sweeping soft-serve melodrama from director Lasse Hallstrom...the story arc seems to have been drawn on graph paper rather than written in a script. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 08, 2005
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Alice in Wonderland (1951) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 02, 2005
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The Alzheimer Affair (2003) |
The only thing that prevents The Memory of a Killer from seeming 100-percent Hollywood is the characters' speaking in subtitled Dutch. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 02, 2005
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A Sound of Thunder (2005) |
A catastrophe of bad acting, ludicrous science and conspicuously cheap special effects that can't even follow its own internal logic from one scene to the next. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Sep 01, 2005
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Transporter 2 (2005) |
Few bad movies are more aggravating than a sequel that betrays everything which made its predecessor entertaining. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 31, 2005
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The Constant Gardener (2005) |
A preachy but gripping socio-political thriller...directed by Fernando Meirelles with the same unblinking, sweaty, ground-level grittiness he brought to City of God. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 30, 2005
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Pretty Persuasion (2005) |
Puerile social satire, stinging only insomuch as its unsophisticated wit and overwhelming smugness are painful to sit through. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 26, 2005
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Undiscovered (2005) |
Can somebody tell me why we're supposed to care about these one-dimensional MTV-spawned caricatures? Writer John Galt and director Meiert Avis sure haven't offered any clues. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 26, 2005
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Congo (1995) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 25, 2005
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The Brothers Grimm (2005) |
A movie with a Terry Gilliam look and feel but without a Terry Gilliam soul. (The director) seems to have had his spirit broken by studio mandates and commercial constraints. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 24, 2005
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Elevator to the Gallows (1958) |
In backwards-thinking terms, Malle was the Tarantino of his day, giving French cinema a creative, influential shot in the arm that opened new horizons in directorial thinking. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 18, 2005
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Bride of Frankenstein (1935) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 17, 2005
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The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) |
Since the clever, off-kilter, off-color, surprisingly character-driven guffaws just keep coming and coming, the movie is side-splitting in spite of its fundamental flaws. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 17, 2005
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Asylum (2005) |
A mid-20th-century bodice-ripper about sexual obsession and questionable sanity, Asylum doesn't live up to its admirable pedigree. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 16, 2005
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Red Eye (2005) |
Wes Craven tries his hand at Hitchcockian suspense in Red-Eye, and turns in a modest B-movie thriller that's just as invigorating as it is easy to pick apart. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 15, 2005
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Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005) |
I did get through it without being overwhelmed by the urge strangle myself, so the movie has that going for it. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 12, 2005
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Four Brothers (2005) |
Singleton fills the screen with moody darkness (but) Four Brothers falls apart completely in the last act. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 12, 2005
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The Gold Rush (1925) |
Curiously melancholy yet packed with laughs, the picture's funniest moments aren't even the famous ones. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 11, 2005
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Junebug (2005) |
A dreary, stagnant story about people who make no effort to think or grow. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 11, 2005
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The Skeleton Key (2005) |
A first-rate concept for a spine-tingling tale...rendered impotent by bland, generic execution. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 10, 2005
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2046 (2004) |
Another achingly evocative and melancholy near-masterpiece from Wong Kar-Wai...blessed with vivid, visceral performances that burst at the seams with reserved passion. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2005
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Broken Flowers (2005) |
...has a bottomless poignancy that Jarmusch cements in quiet character moments, symbolic imagery and out-of-reach temptations that wiggle effectively into the subconscious. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2005
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The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) |
Too much blah-blah, not enough 'Yeeehawww!' - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Aug 02, 2005
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November (2004) |
Those who give themselves over to Harrison's compelling machinations will be rewarded with a superbly unnerving mystery. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 31, 2005
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The Maltese Falcon (1941) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 29, 2005
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Must Love Dogs (2005) |
The film's curdled aftertaste is so frustrating that it may be hard to remember why Must Love Dogs ever seemed so endearing and entertaining in the first place. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 28, 2005
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Sky High (2005) |
A clich-dependent Disney cheapy that aims no higher than the unsophisticated standards of its pre-adolescent target audience -- and somehow succeeds in spite of itself. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 28, 2005
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Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 26, 2005
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Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) |
- SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 26, 2005
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Stealth (2005) |
Daisy, Daisy I'll blow you out of the sky / I'm half crazy, seen Top Gun too many times...a plumb guilty pleasure. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 26, 2005
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A Sidewalk Astronomer (2005) |
If [i]A Sidewalk Astronomer[/i] can't turn you on to astronomy, I feel sorry for you. - SPLICEDWire
Read More
| Posted Jul 21, 2005
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