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44/100
|
The Reckoning
(2021)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Imagine a downbeat cross between historical romance, rape-revenge thriller and what's become known as folk horror and you'll have a pretty good idea of the overall mood.
Posted Feb 05, 2021
|
|
75/100
|
Knocking
(2021)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
A threadbare narrative that's gorgeously shot, beautifully performed and spooky as hell.
Posted Jan 31, 2021
|
|
54/100
|
Censor
(2021)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
It runs a bare 84 minutes and yet manages to feel draggy in its slow-moving first hour and rushed in its eventful climactic segment.
Posted Jan 30, 2021
|
|
95/100
|
Possessor: Uncut
(2020)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
A horrifying but finely observed thriller about psychology, cyberintelligence, and that old chestnut, the duality of mind and body.
Posted Jan 28, 2021
|
|
C+
|
The Owners
(2020)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Diverting if overly familiar crime drama with horror-movie undertones comes to life when Sylvester McCoy and Rita Tushingham arrive.
Posted Sep 02, 2020
|
|
B+
|
Zatoichi
(2003)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
A gorgeous and evocative piece of entertainment that takes a deliberately playful approach to its genre.
Posted Aug 13, 2020
|
|
46/100
|
We Summon the Darkness
(2019)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Simply can't wring suspense from a scenario that ends up isolating the murderers from their murderees on either side of a locked door for a long, dull section of the film.
Posted Apr 08, 2020
|
|
C+
|
Bad Boys for Life
(2020)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
In quieter moments, Martin Lawrence turns in a genuinely touching performance as a man torn between duties to his family and his friend, but Smith is more reliant on a constant feed of mild one-liners.
Posted Jan 17, 2020
|
|
B-
|
Knives and Skin
(2019)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
The film's style can be frustratingly mannered, but Reeder's teenaged characters have some heart and soul.
Posted Dec 06, 2019
|
|
B-
|
Piercing
(2018)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Dark, contrasty imagery complements increasingly uncomfortable action on-screen, as Piercing settles into an entertainingly twisted groove and a compelling rhythm of give and take.
Posted Jan 31, 2019
|
|
B
|
Disobedience
(2017)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Director Sebastián Lelio's portrayal of the orthodox community is exceptionally even-handed; he doesn't soft-pedal its stifling and anachronistic nature, but neither does he present it as hopelessly cruel or unyielding.
Posted Aug 09, 2018
|
|
C
|
Brimstone
(2016)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
It's Gaspar Noe without the freaky-deaky audacity and grandiose concern for the human condition or, maybe more to the point, Lars Von Trier without the formal elegance.
Posted Mar 10, 2017
|
|
B
|
Elle
(2016)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Elle is as entertaining as any film Verhoeven has made, which might seem like an odd thing to say about a film that conjures a brutal rape scene abruptly and repeatedly.
Posted Sep 26, 2016
|
|
B-
|
Vlees (Meat)
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
A pretty good example of a 21st-century grindhouse film. Think Luis Buuel crossed with Jrg Buttgereit.
Posted Sep 19, 2016
|
|
61/100
|
The Neon Demon
(2016)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Part tragedy and part comedy, but also part horror movie and part pornography.
Posted Jun 23, 2016
|
|
|
Sherlock, Jr.
(1924)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Buster Keaton's artistic breakthrough remains to this day absolutely the funniest film ever made.
Posted May 29, 2015
|
|
58/100
|
A Most Violent Year
(2014)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
The compelling moral dimension is matched in a couple of places by fairly riveting action, but the film lacks any commanding narrative insight into its milieu.
Posted Dec 29, 2014
|
|
84/100
|
Boyhood
(2014)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Director Richard Linklater approached this decade-spanning project with a novelist's ambition and patient determination -- it's unique in its rhythms.
Posted Jun 17, 2014
|
|
94/100
|
Under the Skin
(2013)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
As avant garde in execution as any narrative film I can think of.
Posted Apr 13, 2014
|
|
C+
|
300: Rise of an Empire
(2014)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
More than any other element, Eva Green's performance singlehandedly elevates the film from the doldrums of its hermetic conception and execution.
Posted Mar 14, 2014
|
|
88/100
|
Inside Llewyn Davis
(2013)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Maybe the first Coen Bros. film that seems to settle into sampler territory. But it sure sticks with you.
Posted Dec 05, 2013
|
|
61/100
|
You're Next
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
You're Next is pretty satisfying as a semi-horror film, sparring gamely with genre conventions rather than embracing or spoofing them outright.
Posted Sep 11, 2013
|
|
B-
|
Inserts
(1975)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
A self-reflexive text (and dark satire) on the movie industry's depiction of sex on screen in the early years of the MPAA ratings system.
Posted Sep 09, 2013
|
|
B
|
Turn Me On, Dammit!
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Its even-handed treatment of imperfect characters compares quite favorably with mainstream Hollywood stuff like Easy A.
Posted Mar 30, 2012
|
|
C-
|
Silent House
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Despite spending too much screen time sobbing, shrieking, or putting on a game face as the camera peers down her shirt, Elizabeth Olsen comes out ahead.
Posted Mar 11, 2012
|
|
B-
|
Haywire
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Soderbergh's approach is a little too stripped-down - when you're making a conventional genre movie, the absence of conventional genre elements becomes distracting in itself.
Posted Jan 23, 2012
|
|
B-
|
The Artist
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
The Artist plays less like an original take on the early sound era than as fan fiction set in the world of Singin' in the Rain.
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
C+
|
A Dangerous Method
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Scenes built on line after line of historically accurate but awkward, overly mannered dialogue distract and eventually grate.
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
B+
|
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
You get the sense Blomkvist and Salander might march with Occupy Sweden protesters; in its way The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is another movie about the 99 percent.
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
B
|
Pina
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
It's not an overview of Bausch's career or a statement on her art, but a celebration of her work and the dancers who bring it to life.
Posted Jan 10, 2012
|
|
B-
|
The Dead
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
You get used to the sight of the slow-moving undead swaying against the film's natural landscapes like half-imagined phantoms, and somehow that makes them more unnerving.
Posted Oct 07, 2011
|
|
B
|
Tabloid
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
First-tier documentarian Errol Morris finds himself slumming a bit with Tabloid.
Posted Jul 15, 2011
|
|
B
|
X-Men: First Class
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
I'm generally sick of remakes and relaunches and reboots, but this revamped X-Men origin story is kind of fun.
Posted Jun 08, 2011
|
|
A-
|
The Tree of Life
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Terrence Malick is hardly the first filmmaker to show us characters who cry out at the silence of God, but he is perhaps the most unquestionably American.
Posted Jun 01, 2011
|
|
C
|
Hall Pass
(2011)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Sporadically funny, but it wastes a lot of time on dreary clichés.
Posted Feb 25, 2011
|
|
B+
|
The Social Network
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
There's a real mischievousness to David Fincher's approach.
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
C+
|
Death of a Snowman
(1978)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Gives off a subtle but unusual vibe that's somehow suggestive of the rifts in South African culture.
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
A+
|
The Maltese Falcon
(1941)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Immaculately designed, evocatively photographed, and easy to watch but also spiky, morally complex, and ultimately unsettling.
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
C
|
Repo Chick
(2009)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
It shouldn't even be watchable, but writer-director Alex Cox manages to keep the cheese factor low.
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
B+
|
The Housemaid
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
The perverse thing is that the film goes down so easily and elegantly, like a fine chocolate and a swig of merlot.
Posted Jan 19, 2011
|
|
C+
|
Black Swan
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Robert Altman's paean to this behind-the-scenes process was affectionately dubbed The Company. Aronofsky's may as well be titled Army of One.
Posted Dec 06, 2010
|
|
A
|
Certified Copy
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
This is one of the great films about film, a master class in performance and character and narrative.
Posted Sep 30, 2010
|
|
A-
|
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Uncle Boonmee is less a case study in death by degrees than it is a magical and baffling tone poem on the idea of reincarnation.
Posted Sep 25, 2010
|
|
B-
|
Enter the Void
(2009)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Full of stimulating, often challenging imagery that's rooted in a kind of sentimentality.
Posted Sep 23, 2010
|
|
B+
|
Buried
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Cleverly written and staged with plenty of wound-up energy, plus a climax that sucks the air out of the theater.
Posted Sep 23, 2010
|
|
B
|
The Town
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
The Town has showcase heist sequences and car chases that avoid the usual pitfalls of over-the-top silliness and/or incoherence.
Posted Sep 17, 2010
|
|
C+
|
Easy A
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
The whole affair is PG-13 toothless and TV slick - I kept feeling that the movie was insisting on its own embraceability, and I resisted.
Posted Sep 17, 2010
|
|
B+
|
Dogtooth
(2009)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Director Giorgos Lanthimos may be influenced by Michael Haneke's clinical approach as well as by David Lynch's affection for the weird.
Posted Jul 15, 2010
|
|
B-
|
Inception
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
Christopher Nolan's films are things of beauty, precisely constructed and expertly executed. But you wouldn't want to live there.
Posted Jul 15, 2010
|
|
B+
|
The Killer Inside Me
(2010)
|
Bryant Frazer
|
In this terrific, magnetic performance, Affleck is a bit charismatic, somewhat awkward, and utterly despicable, all at the same time
Posted Jun 17, 2010
|
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