Stephen Cole
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Gladiator (2000) |
At its best, which would be the opening 100 minutes and first two acts of Scott's two-and-a-half-hour tale of betrayal, martyrdom, and revenge, Gladiator more than satisfies our basest film-going desires. - National Post
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| Posted Nov 01, 2022
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Beloved (1998) |
One depressing development in '90s film-making has been Jonathan Demme's belated conversion to weighty, issue-oriented movies. - National Post
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| Posted Feb 02, 2022
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Juliet, Naked (2018) |
Grownup couples in need of a ticklish love story in an air-conditioned movie theatre could do worse than Juliet, Naked. Just skip buying the soundtrack; order a large soda instead. - National Post
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| Posted Aug 29, 2018
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Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) |
In his new work, Lucas often forgets his story to linger on sets. Perhaps more accurately, this is a film about sets and mythologies that come out of the cheesiest sci-fi tradition. - National Post
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| Posted Nov 16, 2015
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Alien (1979) |
Seen again a quarter-century later, we marvel at how the filmmaker generates so much tension and sweat with a bare minimum of moving parts. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jun 30, 2015
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Here Comes the Boom (2012) |
Here Comes the Boom will probably connect like a haymaker with most of its intended audience. The leads are likeable, and the plot, though beyond incredible, is at the very least distracting. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Oct 12, 2012
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The Bourne Legacy (2012) |
Bourne fans will find much to enjoy about The Bourne Legacy, even if they are forced to do without the title character. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Aug 10, 2012
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The Boss (2011) |
What could these women see in a dreary sack of mutton like Ricardo? - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jun 22, 2012
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Piranha 3DD (2012) |
Like so much adolescent, made-for-guys comedy-horror, Piranha 3DD is so weirdly uptight about women you figure exhibitors should hand out teen health guides as well as 3-D glasses. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jun 01, 2012
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The Intouchables (2011) |
The Intouchables works as a crowd-pleaser not because it's true, but because it's a plausible enchantment. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jun 01, 2012
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Jesus Henry Christ (2011) |
Watching Jesus Henry Christ sometimes feels like being trapped in a building with a faulty fire alarm. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted May 25, 2012
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Dark Shadows (2012) |
Dark Shadows' only meaningful relationship is between Depp and his audience. He's a persona now, no longer an actor. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted May 11, 2012
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Sound of My Voice (2011) |
A sharp little cult thriller with a do-it-yourself ending. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Apr 27, 2012
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My Way (2012) |
Adolescent boys will savour My Way's bombast and solemnity. Cringing adult audiences will more likely beat a retreat before final call. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Apr 20, 2012
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My Way (2011) |
The big-budget South Korean film is a mash-up of Chariots of Fire and Saving Private Ryan linked together with pounding orchestral swells. The film too often gets stuck in a shooter video game groove upon entering Spielberg domain, however. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Apr 20, 2012
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Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2011) |
A surprisingly tender look at San Diego Comic-Con... - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Apr 20, 2012
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The Three Stooges (2012) |
The Three Stooges weighs in at about 15 howlers over 90 minutes. Not bad, about the same ratio of hilarity to hokey as the Stooges' old shorts. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Apr 13, 2012
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Fightville (2011) |
If only there was more of Dustin and his colleagues' back story in Fightville, the fight film might have been a real knockout. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Apr 06, 2012
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American Reunion (2012) |
Confirms the perception that only losers attend high-school reunions. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Apr 06, 2012
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Off World (2010) |
It would be interesting to see what Guez, a director who clearly knows his way around a camera, might be able to do with a few charismatic actors. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Mar 16, 2012
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Family Portrait in Black and White (2011) |
Though only 85 minutes, the film captures an entire, bewilderingly extended family and way of life inside a sturdy frame. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Mar 02, 2012
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Donovan's Echo (2011) |
Greenwood is excellent, as always. And a carefully measured performance by Sonja Bennett as Maggie's confused, protective mother contributes to a sense of stampeding panic. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 24, 2012
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Goon (2011) |
What a disappointment. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 24, 2012
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Tyler Perry's Good Deeds (2012) |
Good Deeds is more proof that Perry is a crude dramatist. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 24, 2012
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Love (2012) |
Vince Vaughn is nowhere in sight, so you know it can't be a Valentine's Day offering from the Western world. It tries though. It tries. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 17, 2012
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Rampart (2011) |
Hallucinatory, elliptical, with dialogue as rich as chocolate cake, this is the self-proclaimed Demon Dog of American crime fiction at his fevered best. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 10, 2012
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Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) |
The Mysterious Island is everything a 12-year-old boy could want - endless adventure involving a reckless adolescent hero, with a pretty girl in a clinging T-shirt around to watch him struggle. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 10, 2012
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Moon Point (2011) |
Unfortunately, Moon Point's fresh, interesting ideas are compromised by an often mean and shallow script. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 03, 2012
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The Viral Factor (2012) |
Tediously overwrought and drably made, with scenes punctuated by synthesized drums out of eighties American TV drama. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jan 20, 2012
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Not Since You (2009) |
Some films need script doctors. A slow, unconvincing cable-TV movie, Not Since You requires script hospice workers. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jan 20, 2012
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Contraband (2012) |
Though it never quite has us by the lapels, the film is a solid, workmanlike action flick. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jan 13, 2012
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Dragonslayer (2011) |
Like many good documentary filmmakers, Tristan Patterson is a talented eavesdropper who lets characters articulate overriding themes. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Dec 16, 2011
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Surviving Progress (2011) |
Though often fascinating and beautiful to look at, Surviving Progress falls into the adapting-a-book-into-a-movie trap. Trying to do too much too fast. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Dec 02, 2011
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The Mill and the Cross (2011) |
The Mill and the Cross may thrill you. But be prepared for a fight. Twenty minutes in, your companion may throw up his or her arms and complain, "This is like watching a painting dry." - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Nov 11, 2011
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Margin Call (2011) |
Spacey is mesmerizing as Sam, a weary, aging lion losing his appetite for antelope. And Irons plays the villain with magisterial ease. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Nov 11, 2011
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Billy Bishop Goes To War (2011) |
Peterson's frantic, charismatic performance captures the giddy, hallucinatory velocity of war. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Nov 04, 2011
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The Skin I Live In (2011) |
Though beautiful to look at and graced with moments of ticklish camp, The Skin I Live In is also sluggish, arbitrarily conceived and, especially in its sagging middle, unaccountably dull. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Oct 28, 2011
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1911 (2011) |
The Revolution will not be televised, Gil Scott-Heron once sang. Nor should it be filmed, we might add -- at least not as a costume drama with stirring speeches, an inspirational love story and gloriously heroic military charges. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Oct 07, 2011
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Trespass (2011) |
Though hardly indispensable, Trespass is an agreeable time-waster distinguished by one good performance and enough clever twists to keep you, if not on the edge of your seat, at least happily alert, guessing along with the plot. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Oct 07, 2011
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French Immersion (2011) |
Funny in both official languages, French Immersion is the story of career-conscious English Canadians who flock to a small Quebec town to meet a Tremblay and learn French. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Oct 07, 2011
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A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt (2011) |
A Matter of Taste does an admirable job demonstrating how much body and soul go into a good restaurant. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 30, 2011
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We Were Here (2011) |
The most gripping war movie you'll see this year, We Were Here tells first-hand the story of how AIDS attacked San Francisco, killing more than 15,000. Whole peer groups were happy, healthy, and then dead in months. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 30, 2011
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Limelight (2011) |
Gatien's story is worth telling. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that director Billy Corben presents it in such a methodical fashion. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 23, 2011
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Straw Dogs (2011) |
A routine, if rather gruesome thriller with attractive leads ducking in and out of danger. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 23, 2011
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Starbuck (2011) |
An ingratiating comedy based on the premise that it takes a village to raise an adult. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 23, 2011
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Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010) |
Detective Dee is the action flick of the year, a two-hour epic that blows the Pirates of the Caribbean to the Bermuda Triangle. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 23, 2011
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Gainsbourg (2010) |
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life accepts its subject on his own terms. And the compromise feels like capitulation before its hero's last record spins to a close. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 16, 2011
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Contagion (2011) |
It's the dark comic moments and the film's sci-fi, B-movie, race-to-develop-a-vaccine subplot that prevent Contagion from being a gloomy two hours in the dark. That and Soderbergh's delight in characters. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 09, 2011
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Warrior (2011) |
Warrior is a weirdly affecting hybrid, a 100-proof melodrama that's two-thirds Sylvester Stallone and one-third Eugene O'Neill. Think Rocky's Long Day's Journey into Night. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 09, 2011
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Wound (2010) |
Continuously shocking and often painful to watch, the New Zealand horror film Wound should challenge its audience, many of whom believe the genre is best enjoyed as camp entertainment. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Sep 02, 2011
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