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Robert Davis

Tomatometer-approved critic
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Reviews

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Observe and Report (2009) 51% EDIT “Second-rate Taxi Driver.” – Paste Magazine Apr 10, 2019 Full Review Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (2009) 92% 6.8/10 EDIT “The story's world is stacked against Precious, and the movie's marketing engine is stacked against Sidibe, but in some ways those structures explain why we're hearing about this young woman in the first place.” – Paste Magazine Apr 4, 2011 Full Review The September Issue (2009) 83% 76/100 EDIT “Filmmaker R.J. Cutler demonstrates once again that he -- as well as anybody -- can capture the interpersonal dynamics that drive a team of headstrong individuals. Or at least make us think he has.” – Paste Magazine Sep 1, 2009 Full Review Big Fan (2009) 85% 69/100 EDIT “A stronger director could have turned this material and its complex themes into a taut, ironic thriller.” – Paste Magazine Sep 1, 2009 Full Review The Headless Woman (2008) 77% 85/100 EDIT “This subtle and compact short story affirms that the hovering hands and exquisitely layered sound design of her previous film weren't accidents but the unusually precise creations of an exciting new filmmaker.” – Paste Magazine Sep 1, 2009 Full Review Inglourious Basterds (2009) 89% 88/100 EDIT “Quentin Tarantino's dual loves of vengeance and cinema have never had a purer expression than the face of a Jewish cinematheque owner projected Oz-like onto the smoke of Nazis aflame.” – Paste Magazine Aug 21, 2009 Full Review It Might Get Loud (2008) 79% 69/100 EDIT “The film is a nice chronicle of each guitarist's rise to fame, but the much touted jam summit itself is the disappointing part, lackluster enough to function mostly as mortar between the bricks.” – Paste Magazine Aug 14, 2009 Full Review District 9 (2009) 90% 65/100 EDIT “For 85 minutes, District 9 is a thinking creature's action film, but its final brain-numbing half hour sacrifices most of that logic for loud blasts and unconvincing sentiment.” – Paste Magazine Aug 14, 2009 Full Review Lorna's Silence (2008) 85% 87/100 EDIT “Lorna's Silence is the fifth excellent film in a row from the remarkably consistent Dardennes.” – Paste Magazine Aug 11, 2009 Full Review Cold Souls (2009) 75% 60/100 EDIT “Giamatti gives one of his best performances, and writer-director Sophie Barthes intriguingly turns his loss of soul into a clinical, observable event. But each fertile idea gets only a few shallow iterations.” – Paste Magazine Aug 7, 2009 Full Review Beeswax (2009) 77% EDIT “Beeswax is probably Bujalski's best film to date, and curiously it feels both spontaneous and carefully guided, deviously tilting the audience in favor of one of its characters while it subtly builds an equal and opposite critique.” – Paste Magazine Aug 7, 2009 Full Review Humpday (2009) 79% 65/100 EDIT “Shelton often seems hemmed in by the high concept, but she manages to worm her way out so expertly that when it's over, the whole thing feels like it was built backwards, starting not with the premise but with the final, observant conversation.” – Paste Magazine Jul 23, 2009 Full Review (500) Days of Summer (2009) 86% 51/100 EDIT “The film bounces between the relationship's winning uplslope and its mopey descent, and the intercutting eventually kills the momentum, even though the film's rousing final minute reclaims some of the early spunk.” – Paste Magazine Jul 16, 2009 Full Review Soul Power (2008) 85% 60/100 EDIT “James Brown and B.B. King anchor this footnote in boxing history, but the film peaks near the midpoint with Bill Withers' truly soulful performance of "Hope She'll Be Happier."” – Paste Magazine Jul 10, 2009 Full Review Brüno (2009) 68% 79/100 EDIT “Those who last beyond the first few minutes will be treated to a film that's more focused than Borat, with more jokes, less fluff, and enough social awareness to step on some toes. And it saves the best stunt for last.” – Paste Magazine Jul 10, 2009 Full Review Public Enemies (2009) 68% 85/100 EDIT “The story of the visually curious Michael Mann film Public Enemies has been told before in movies more exciting but rarely more thoughtful than this one.” – Paste Magazine Jul 2, 2009 Full Review The Hurt Locker (2008) 96% 73/100 EDIT “These men live, barely, on a cocktail of adrenaline and testosterone, and yet The Hurt Locker hones in on the fatalistic psychology of the Iraqi war zone more convincingly than any other recent film about soldiers on the battlefield.” – Paste Magazine Jun 26, 2009 Full Review Séraphine (2008) 88% 69/100 EDIT “During the film I craved energy, but by the end I realized that I just wanted a story that stood a bit closer to its interesting, well-played title character and a bit further from the time-marking events of historical drama.” – Paste Magazine Jun 19, 2009 Full Review Whatever Works (2009) 50% 49/100 EDIT “Some may observe that two of every three jokes fall flat, but I'm a little bit amazed that Allen would toss that one good third into such a sloppy story, like a fistful of prized truffles whisked quickly into a pan of Tuna Helper.” – Paste Magazine Jun 19, 2009 Full Review Treeless Mountain (2008) 86% 80/100 EDIT “Relying on the essentially inert performances of child actors, So Yong Kim draws on a deep understanding of how movies work but also taps into her own experiences. That's a potent combination.” – Paste Magazine Jun 13, 2009 Full Review Food, Inc. (2008) 95% 69/100 EDIT “At times I feel like I'm being guided by someone who not only doesn't have time to explore so many complex issues but also doesn't understand them deeply enough to know or admit when he's making dissonant compromises.” – Paste Magazine Jun 13, 2009 Full Review The Hangover (2009) 79% 56/100 EDIT “While I'm not ready to call the film a triumph, its approach to humor is smart enough to benefit greatly from low expectations. Which is to say, it's an enjoyable piece of trash.” – Paste Magazine Jun 5, 2009 Full Review Forbidden Lies (2007) 91% 85/100 EDIT “Thankfully, both filmmaker and subject approach the film as a duel. Broinowski thrusts, Khouri parries. Finding out what, if anything, is true about Khouri's story is simply the Macguffin for a filmmaker more thrilled by the hunt.” – Paste Magazine Jun 5, 2009 Full Review Away We Go (2009) 67% 78/100 EDIT “Away We Go breathes. Its affectless, tossed-off quality tells a lumpy story built out of a few scenes that fizzle but also a few that transcend, in part because they arrive unexpectedly from an untidy little comedy.” – Paste Magazine Jun 5, 2009 Full Review Pontypool (2008) 83% 80/100 EDIT “It's perfectly modulated horror of the imagination, à la Orson Welles' adaptation of The War of the Worlds, with potent ideas about what corrupts, inspires, subverts, and engages us.” – Paste Magazine Jun 5, 2009 Full Review
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