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Teo Bugbee
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Nowhere (2023) |
It’s hard to care about Mía’s efforts to survive when coincidence drives the plot, and the production looks and feels cheap. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 28, 2023
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Invisible Beauty (2023) |
At times, the film is hampered by the sheer amount of information there is to condense from across a 50-year career, but Hardison is never less than a fascinating subject — an artist whose medium is industrial disruption. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 14, 2023
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You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023) |
The young cast proves deft with the film’s clever script, by Alison Peck (based on the 2005 novel by Fiona Rosenbloom), and the director Sammi Cohen indulges the virgin-mojito passions of preteens while avoiding nostalgia, thankfully. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 25, 2023
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Mutt (2023) |
Features of city life feed a sense of realism, as does the film’s warmly-lit and intimately framed cinematography. But that realism here is exhausting, even if it is well-intentioned... - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 17, 2023
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Aurora's Sunrise (2022) |
The film’s coherence is a reflection of both the skill of the filmmaker, and the heroic efforts of Aurora herself to ensure that her view of history would not be forgotten. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 10, 2023
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KOKOMO CITY (2023) |
This is not a maudlin film; instead it is a movie with heroines who fight tooth and nail for their lives and their self-worth. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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Every Body (2023) |
The film benefits from its choice of subjects, as Wall, Gallo and Weigel are all endearing and deeply informed. Their candor animates the unimaginative talking head interview footage from the director Julie Cohen. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 29, 2023
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Blue Jean (2022) |
The film’s writer and director, Georgia Oakley, has made an accomplished movie in many ways. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 08, 2023
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We Might as Well Be Dead (2022) |
The images are artfully crafted, but the narrative lacks momentum. - New York Times
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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Monica (2022) |
Director Andrea Pallaoro doesn’t burden this delicate tale of reconciliation with long monologues or extensive back stories, and the performances are compelling in their restraint. - New York Times
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| Posted May 11, 2023
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Chile '76 (2022) |
Martelli’s film demonstrates remarkable skill in reconstructing he time period, giving consideration both to recreating the appearance of the era and its emotional tenor. - New York Times
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| Posted May 04, 2023
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T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (2022) |
Fiennes brings the fire, yet the air around him remains unmoved, even by his embers. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 27, 2023
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Twilight (1990) |
It’s a style so minimalist, it approaches maximalism — and this combination of pulp and precision creates an arresting and unique work of film noir. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 20, 2023
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On a Wing and a Prayer (2023) |
It’s a cynical view of faith, one which removes the mystery and terror from life’s unforeseen calamities, and instead frames survival as a matter of calling into the correct belief system. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 06, 2023
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I'm an Electric Lampshade (2021) |
The documentary hides the financial costs, physical tolls and even artistic philosophy, leaving only an exercise in ego. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 29, 2023
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Wildflower (2022) |
“Wildflower” is a nervy sit, a movie that eventually makes its way toward acceptance, but only after putting its disabled characters through the trial of dehumanizing questions. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 16, 2023
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The Year Between (2022) |
This lived-in quality to the filmmaking supports equally relaxed performances from both veteran and emerging actors, making for an even-keeled and easy viewing experience. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Lonesome (2022) |
“Lonesome” demonstrates a mature use of sex in cinema, a treatment that communicates narrative purpose without diminishing sex’s animalistic, physical side. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 16, 2023
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Sweetheart (2021) |
If “Sweetheart” shows its share of evergreen teenage turmoil, the writer and director Marley Morrison also cannily observes details that feel specific to young people today. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 09, 2023
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Body Parts (2022) |
Ironically, the film mirrors the callow cinematic dynamics it critiques: It titillates, even as it scolds. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Kompromat (2022) |
The politics confound the film’s sense of action; the camera sticks to the diplomats even after the protagonist has escaped from a back door. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Nostalgia (2022) |
Martone’s depiction of crime is at once expressive and economic, a world of danger boiled down to pregnant pauses and minute gestures. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 26, 2023
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The Seven Faces of Jane (2022) |
A movie that feels narratively scattered and stylistically inhibited. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 12, 2023
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Nelly & Nadine (2022) |
The film is moving for the intimacy it depicts, an archive as unlikely as the love story itself. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 15, 2022
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To the End (2022) |
Representative Ocasio-Cortez offers the best onscreen antidote to despair — she’s funny, a canny political strategy. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 08, 2022
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Framing Agnes (2022) |
Joynt’s scope as a researcher is admirably broad, but what his film lacks is a sense of purpose as a work of cinema. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 01, 2022
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Flaming Ears (1992) |
A vision of queer utopia: a world where limited audience appeal isn’t a barrier to an artist’s imagination. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 17, 2022
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Being Thunder (2021) |
The film [has] a pleasingly transient quality, a sense that the audience is watching life as it flows for the subjects. But the vérité feel often makes it hard to glean useful information... - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 10, 2022
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The Estate (2022) |
This is a comedy that takes a vicious, over-the-top look at family greed, and fortunately, the cast members are game to play their characters’ attempts at flattery in the most unflattering manner possible. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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Please Baby Please (2022) |
Riseborough offers a dynamite performance as Suze, leaning into a thick New York accent as she slouches and slinks through her character’s awakening. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 27, 2022
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My Policeman (2022) |
A film that buckles under the weight of purgatorial disappointment. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 20, 2022
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Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021) |
Harari chooses to create a psychological portrait of his central character, using images rather than explanations of ideology to tap into Onoda’s mind-set. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 06, 2022
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The Good House (2021) |
The trouble with this cinematic Trojan horse is that the superficial blandness dominates the frame. It’s hard to feel the story’s stakes when the images are always indicating no danger ahead. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 29, 2022
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Carmen (2022) |
In a movie where the central theme is a divorce from orthodoxy, the writer and director Valerie Buhagiar makes the wise decision to orient her film toward what’s pleasurable rather than what’s logical. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 22, 2022
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See How They Run (2022) |
With a sprightly wit and an all-star cast to bring it to life, the movie manages to be a loving parody of theater gossips, postwar London and Christie’s murder mysteries all at once. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 15, 2022
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The Book of Delights (2020) |
If this erotic drama doesn’t break new cinematic ground, it also doesn’t cede its conviction in portraying relationships as a matter of serious consideration. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 01, 2022
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Me Time (2022) |
There is a flatness that feels apparent in every shot — and not just because the movie is filmed in bright, low contrast lighting. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 26, 2022
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The Legend of Molly Johnson (2021) |
It’s an earnest film, one that glows with pride at Aboriginal resilience. But the impression it leaves is didactic, a saints and demons fable that meanders to foregone conclusions. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 18, 2022
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Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story (2022) |
The directors have made a compact film, but their footage packs a punch. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 11, 2022
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Luck (2022) |
It’s an engaging concept for a film, and the original screenplay by Kiel Murray shuffles familiar tropes for luck into a novel setting. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 04, 2022
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Hypochondriac (2022) |
The movie links cinematic thrill with real illness, tying movie monstrosity to specific psychiatric symptoms. Its armchair psychology makes for queasy viewing, a conflation of diagnosis and damnation. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 28, 2022
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Alone Together (2022) |
Its simplicity and lack of cinematic fancy strikes a tone of surprising relief. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 21, 2022
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Persuasion (2022) |
The contrast between the modernized dialogue and Austen’s period-appropriate language only makes both styles seem more mannered. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Love & Gelato (2022) |
The conscious callowness is agreeable, but it lacks freshness, like a midnight pasta reheated in the microwave. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 23, 2022
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Cocoon (2020) |
A balmy introduction to adult feelings of desire and belonging. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 16, 2022
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Tahara (2020) |
The Hebrew-school comedy “Tahara” mimics the zinging pleasure of overhearing teenagers chatter as they walk home from school: It’s gossipy, delicious and a tad cruel. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 09, 2022
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18 1/2 (2021) |
The film’s referential pleasures feel insubstantial, diminished by the direct comparison to more meaningful works of the period. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 02, 2022
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Fanny: The Right to Rock (2021) |
What the movie showcases best from its subjects... is the humor and ease of women who have survived a lifetime of setbacks and strife. - New York Times
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| Posted May 26, 2022
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Cane Fire (2020) |
The cinematography is often grainy, and occasionally Banua-Simon’s choice of interview subjects feels unfocused or repetitive. But there is tremendous educational and moral value in his overview of the history of Kauai. - New York Times
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| Posted May 19, 2022
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Diamond Hands: The Legend of WallStreetBets (2022) |
It’s a zippy, entertaining approach that offers a surprising degree of insight into the psychology that produced the GameStop phenomenon. - New York Times
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| Posted May 16, 2022
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