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Rob Gonsalves
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Saltburn (2023) |
Unlike "Promising Young Woman," it doesn’t tap into the rage of its day. It’s just purposelessly unpleasant. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Dec 05, 2023
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The Holdovers (2023) |
Payne has put together a tonally satisfying fable in which people watch each other carefully and wait for them to reveal hidden layers. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Nov 28, 2023
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Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (2023) |
Reiner does a decent job of establishing why Brooks became what he did, a titan held in equal awe by Carson and Kubrick. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Nov 21, 2023
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The Killer (2023) |
Washed-out and callowly nihilistic as a narrative but tasty cinema. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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Sly (2023) |
There are no voices that challenge Stallone’s view of himself as the Hell’s Kitchen kid who didn’t quit. It’s the kind of amiable mythmaking that would’ve been right at home on a 1985 episode of Entertainment Tonight. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Nov 07, 2023
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Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (2022) |
"Radical Dreamer" can’t help but be Herzog 101, the film equivalent of one of those Very Short Introduction books. But he’s terrific company. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Oct 30, 2023
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Once Within a Time (2023) |
This time out, Reggio seems to acknowledge that the end of life as we know it doesn’t have to mean the end of life full stop, that there might be a next chapter only the youngest of us might read. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Oct 16, 2023
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The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) |
The medium close-ups of tormented faces dominate the proceedings, and Friedkin stays on those faces, knowing each one is its own mini-movie of fear and regret. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Oct 10, 2023
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) |
Those who eagerly await the newest American Empirical Picture will be entranced, as usual, by the toybox sets and the people standing stock still like toy figures inside immaculate compositions. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Oct 03, 2023
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No One Will Save You (2023) |
The filmmaking, proceeding by image and sound alone, is nicely accomplished pure cinema. There wouldn’t be much of a movie, though, if it didn’t have an expressive actor like Kaitlyn Dever at its center. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Oct 03, 2023
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Dazed and Confused (1993) |
The movie’s vibe is warm and good-natured, and we feel welcomed into the world of the cool older kids. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Sep 18, 2023
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Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023) |
More depressing than insightful or entertaining. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Sep 13, 2023
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The Boogeyman (2023) |
"The Boogeyman" isn’t scary, but it could have been. The source material was right there. David Dastmalchian was right there. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Sep 05, 2023
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Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) |
Acquires depth and emotional scope the more you dwell on it. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Aug 29, 2023
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The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) |
It’s a long wait between killings, and the killings are never very impressive or even distinct from each other. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Aug 22, 2023
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The Unknown Country (2022) |
I’ll remember Tana, such a kindly and welcoming presence, the sort we need more of everywhere. We need more of this sort of movie, too. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Aug 08, 2023
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Oppenheimer (2023) |
There’s one element worthy of unreserved praise here, and that’s Robert Downey Jr.’s welcome-home performance — his comeback, if you will, from his comeback, which kidnapped him into Marvel movies for eleven years - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Aug 02, 2023
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Barbie (2023) |
"Barbie" isn’t the satire some may have been hoping for, fangs dripping with pink blood; it’s a classic Horatian satire, tickling its target on the tummy instead of disemboweling it. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jul 24, 2023
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Asteroid City (2023) |
It offers far more than can be taken in at one viewing, and leaves itself wide open for interpretation. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jul 18, 2023
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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023) |
Warm and generous ... It deserves all the love, belated or otherwise, it can get. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jul 12, 2023
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) |
I’m sure Marvel won’t mind if you buy all the merchandise and comic books related to all those Spider-Folks, too. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jul 05, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) |
There’s not much here that’s overtly disappointing; it just never hits the giddy heights of the Spielberg films. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jul 05, 2023
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Master Gardener (2022) |
Compelling in that arid, immaculately composed late-Schrader mode, and is satisfying on a metaphorical level. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jun 13, 2023
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Renfield (2023) |
There are a few decent ideas in "Renfield," but they’re left to die of starvation while the plot gives us scene after scene in which gangsters have shootouts... - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jun 06, 2023
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The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023) |
A fine, wounding drama that occasionally puts on a Halloween costume and gets its hands gory. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted May 30, 2023
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023) |
It’s a cozy profile that invites empathy more than sympathy. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted May 23, 2023
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Evil Dead Rise (2023) |
You can no longer be guaranteed a rowdy good time with this franchise. It has become rancid, humorless, toxic. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted May 15, 2023
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Sisu (2022) |
The action is absorbing and easily readable; the kills are, almost without exception, fierce and gory. The carnage isn’t unpleasant, because it’s mostly visited upon Nazis. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted May 09, 2023
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Scream VI (2023) |
It’s just pausing on its way to becoming content on Paramount+, where it will submerge into the back catalog and seldom be heard from again. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted May 01, 2023
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The Pope's Exorcist (2023) |
It brings up tonal and thematic questions this frequently dumb movie doesn’t have the wherewithal to answer. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Apr 26, 2023
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Inside (2023) |
It’s conceivable you could enjoy the film just on the level of watching Dafoe move around, change his posture as Nemo starts losing his bearings, grunt and whistle. It’s a full, and fully physical, performance, and it deserves to be in a better film. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Apr 12, 2023
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Safety Last (1923) |
It goes like lightning and seems supercharged by creativity and by the comedy of physical logic particular to silent films. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Apr 05, 2023
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Leda (2021) |
Tressler goes a long way here on tone and visual/aural poetry. But some of the meanings seem still locked up in Tressler’s heart. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Mar 28, 2023
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Cocaine Bear (2023) |
The tone is a very tricky needle to thread, but Banks does it. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Mar 20, 2023
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Living (2022) |
It’s a very Kurosawa concern, and Ishiguro honors it: life is just people navigating their private sadness. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Mar 06, 2023
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The Whale (2022) |
Ultimately we come away from "The Whale" warmed by the openness of heart and spirit Fraser brings to it. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Mar 01, 2023
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Top Gun: Maverick (2022) |
There’s no reason in the world it should have worked, but it does. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Feb 21, 2023
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All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) |
Wants to be great but is only occasionally even good. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Feb 14, 2023
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Tár (2022) |
The movie is intelligent and artful. And we don’t finally give a damn about Lydia Tár or what happens to her. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Feb 06, 2023
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To Leslie (2022) |
Riseborough takes Leslie to almost rock-bottom and gradually lifts her again, without softening Leslie’s rage at those who gave up on her, including herself. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jan 31, 2023
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Terrifier 2 (2022) |
...some kind of ambitious work of art within the context of slasher sequels. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jan 19, 2023
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Terrifier (2016) |
Once you figure out there's not going to be anything to it aside from being a bloody calling card, you kind of just sigh and wait for it to be over. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jan 12, 2023
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
This franchise is shaping up to be a perfect delight. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jan 10, 2023
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The Menu (2022) |
A competently prepared dish that would like to be thought of, ultimately, as a well-made cheeseburger. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Jan 05, 2023
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Clerks III (2022) |
Smith does succeed in his apparent goal to make us longtime fans feel mournful and old -- but why did he want to make us feel that way? - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
It’s sad, it’s sardonic, it’s insightful on the subject of toxic masculinity and how it causes and is caused by the soul-death of depression. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Dec 20, 2022
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The Fabelmans (2022) |
It’s a generous, smoothly rendered work, among Spielberg’s best. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Dec 12, 2022
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Real Genius (1985) |
The mid-’80s were big on teen-oriented sci-coms (scientific comedies), so you may have overlooked this gem with a great early performance by Val Kilmer. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) |
A muddled empowerment fantasy. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Silverado (1985) |
Lawrence Kasdan at his most entertaining and energetic. - Rob's Movie Vault
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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