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Tom Ryan
Tom Ryan's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
The Age (Australia)
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Shadows and Fog (1992) |
Shadows and Fog will certainly surprise anyone who has settled comfortably into the view that films made in Hollywood are likely to be little more than sanitised, homogenised products packaged to please. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Aug 30, 2023
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White Men Can't Jump (1992) |
Shelton is an astute observer of the show-room mentality, of the codes underpinning male bonding, and of the obstacles they create for the "buddies"... He encourages us to like his flawed heroes, but he also makes us see their limitations. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Aug 30, 2023
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Licence to Kill (1989) |
It's helped by Sanchez, its wonderful villain, simultaneously sadistic and principled, played as Bond's opposite with a superbly sinister aloofness by Robert Davi. And the ending is suitably spectacular. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Jul 25, 2023
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Batman (1989) |
It's Nicholson the ham at his worst, though the lacklustre lines he has been given certainly haven't helped him. Batman is often stunning to look at. But, ultimately, it's a real disappointment. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Jul 25, 2023
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Mighty Aphrodite (1995) |
Full of wise-cracks and featuring a deliciously ironic denouement, Mighty Aphrodite is an amiable romantic farce which thumbs its nose at political correctness and smiles benignly at human foibles. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Jul 19, 2023
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La Haine (1995) |
There's nothing affable about La Haine, its agit-prop directness linking Kassovitz to a school of cinema which largely fell out of fashion with the greying of the New Wave. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Jul 19, 2023
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The Matrix (1999) |
Some of the best science fiction of recent times have convinced us that something important is at stake in what happens to the characters. But the Wachowskis' plot seems to be in the service of the special effects rather than the other way around. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Jul 12, 2023
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Magnolia (1999) |
A thoroughly engrossing and sometimes very funny story about families, fate and the ways in which the past pervades the present. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Jun 30, 2023
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Thelma & Louise (1991) |
Thelma & Louise, in its brilliant reshaping of the road movie, is dazzling in its dexterity. Astutely conceived, visually stunning and beautifully acted, it is the best American action film I have seen in ages. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 28, 2023
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Twilight (1998) |
It never reaches the heights of 1994's Nobody's Fool, Robert Benton's previous collaboration with Paul Newman and writer Richard Russo, but this gentle, low-key detective thriller features a great cast and goes its own whimsical way. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Three Minutes - A Lengthening (2021) |
Stigter’s memorable achievement here is not just a lengthening; it’s also a deepening and an emotionally enriching one. - Sydney Morning Herald
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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The Big Lebowski (1998) |
The Coens' characteristic quirkiness, kept in check when they're at their masterful best (as in Fargo and Miller's Crossing), here goes way out of control. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Jan 19, 2023
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Eve's Bayou (1997) |
It is not without its defects, but they're minor... The winding together of the personal and the historical makes this far more than your conventional domestic melodrama. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 10, 2023
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Gladiator (2000) |
Filled with several superbly choreographed action sequences as well as some very modern musings about the workings of democracy, Gladiator Is a real crowd-pleaser -- colorful, beautifully paced, exciting, and effortlessly Big. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Nov 01, 2022
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Peter's Friends (1992) |
There are some funny lines In Peter's Friends, but the film amounts to little more than a collection of broadly drawn sketches In search of a structure. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Apr 13, 2022
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Mississippi Masala (1991) |
Rich in detail and rigorously even-handed in its treatment of all of its characters, except for the group of young Indian men that gathers around Mina's spurned suitor, Mississippi Masala offers an affecting depiction of their journeys of the heart. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Apr 13, 2022
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The Silence of the Lambs (1991) |
Remarkably, for all its forensic detail, The Silence Of The Lambs is as much a film about a young woman's discoveries about herself as it is a "gruesome" thriller about tracking a serial killer. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Mar 22, 2022
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Titanic (1997) |
Essentially, James Cameron's Titanic is four loosely-connected movies squeezed into one, none of them entirely satisfactory, none totally disastrous. - The Sunday Age
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| Posted Mar 17, 2022
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The Watermelon Woman (1996) |
Cheryl Dunye's affecting and good-humored video film about a search for love, history and a sense of self pivots on her protagonist's identification with a (totally fictitious) '30s actress. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 22, 2022
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The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) |
What's wrong with The Hudsucker Proxy, though, is that, for all its craftsmanship it is an utterly soulless enterprise. The Coens wisely show no inclination to parody their sources here, but neither do they seem to have anything else in mind for them. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 22, 2021
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Chopper (2000) |
The film's strategic blend of comedy and cruelty is constantly unsettling, simultaneously inviting us to laugh at Read's antics and then rubbing our faces in their outcomes. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Aug 27, 2021
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The Net (1995) |
While there's suspense aplenty as she pits her computer skills and some old-fashioned ingenuity against the villains, Irwin Winkler's thriller is at best perfunctory in its treatment of character. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Mar 17, 2021
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Clueless (1995) |
A smartly written and immensely enjoyable comedy of teen manners set in and around Beverly Hills High School. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Mar 16, 2021
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The Artist (2011) |
The result is an irresistible delight. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 17, 2015
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A Few Best Men (2011) |
All I have to say to those who keep forking out good money for this junk is (to paraphrase my father): If you keep encouraging them, they'll just keep doing it. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 07, 2012
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Albert Nobbs (2011) |
It's an affecting tale about sexual identity and people pretending to be other than they are, not only in their everyday dealings but also in ways that go to the very core of their being. - Sydney Morning Herald
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| Posted Jan 05, 2012
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Burning Man (2011) |
Unfortunately, the answers to these questions turn out to be less involving than Teplitzky's methods in asking them. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Nov 17, 2011
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This Is Not a Film (2010) |
A masterpiece of allusion. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Nov 10, 2011
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The Cup (2011) |
Talk about product placement: there are times when The Cup resembles a feature-length advertisement for the race itself. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Oct 11, 2011
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The Hunter (2011) |
The result is intriguing and Nettheim succeeds in giving The Hunter an unsettling ambience but, finally, it seems rather hollow at the centre. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Oct 05, 2011
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Project Nim (2011) |
Marsh's film is as much a study of how we behave as a species as it is of what happens to Nim. And we don't come off particularly well. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 29, 2011
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The Eye of the Storm (2011) |
Schepisi's approach is detached, thoughtful and observant, mostly allowing the performances and the compositions to speak for themselves. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 12, 2011
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Beginners (2010) |
Beginners is perceptive, funny and moving. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Aug 25, 2011
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Sleeping Beauty (2011) |
Certainly intriguing, but it doesn't make for easy viewing and its misanthropy is deeply unsettling. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jun 22, 2011
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Sex and the City 2 (2010) |
Lock them all up and throw away the key is what I say. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jun 01, 2010
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Doubt (2008) |
The film fails to convince dramatically, not because of the performances -- the cast are all excellent -- but because the air has been sucked out of the characters. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 05, 2009
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) |
The energy on display is impressive, even if Spielberg's suggestion that a fifth Indie adventure is a distinct possibility is more a cause for concern than celebration. - The Age (Australia)
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| Posted Jun 07, 2008
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Little Fish (2005) |
A canny mixture of social drama and crime thriller. - Sydney Morning Herald
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| Posted Jan 17, 2006
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