Film International - Rotten Tomatoes

Film International

Film International is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Anton Bitel, Elias Savada, Jessica Baxter, Matthew Sorrento
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
3.5/5
I Kill Giants (2018)

Elias Savada

There's a nice, intelligent air about this film, which offers up a well-crafted coping mechanism for dealing with childhood depression.
Posted Mar 27, 2018
2
1.5/5
Flower (2018)

Elias Savada

Here's a movie that might have worked with a female director and writer. Instead, it's a sad excuse for something contrived to creep you out.
Posted Mar 27, 2018
3
2/5
A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

Elias Savada

As a vehicle for self-worth and multiracial empowerment, A Wrinkle in Time scores points, but as a Disneyland ride it slides off the rails into a messy imitation of family fare.
Posted Mar 10, 2018
4
1/5
Kill Switch (2017)

Elias Savada

There is something fascinating in this film, but it can't make up for all that's wrong with it.
Posted Mar 4, 2018
5
1.5/5
The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One (2017)

Elias Savada

The Osiris Child plays as a derivative space western, with escalating excursions into gunfights that are just video game shoot-em-ups. Despite feeling this movie should work, it doesn't.
Posted Mar 4, 2018
6
3.5/5
Mayhem (2017)

Elias Savada

The tongue-in-check, over-the-top aspect of Mayhem, a looney tune of a film from director Joe Lynch, offers a steroid-infused day in the life of a really toxic office environment.
Posted Mar 4, 2018
7
1/5
7 Guardians of the Tomb (2018)

Elias Savada

For me, this film sucked. Big time. Kelsey Grammer's cheeky contribution to this silly, monotonous movie is one of those debt reduction efforts that actors use to pay off mortgages - for him or one of his seven children - and alimony expenses.
Posted Mar 4, 2018
8
2.5/5
They Remain (2018)

Elias Savada

They Remain offers little genuine action until the film's final minutes - hardly worth the wait for anyone who has sat through the film's first 90.
Posted Mar 4, 2018
9
4/5
2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation (2018)

Elias Savada

Finally, Negative Space.... is a joyful, inventive celebration about a son recalling how his father taught him the old school art of suitcase packing, the last of several standouts in this year's slate.
Posted Mar 3, 2018
10
4/5
2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Documentary (2018)

Elias Savada

The two programs for the longish (29-40 minutes each) Documentary Shorts straddle both lighter and darker fare.
Posted Mar 3, 2018
11
3/5
The Astronauts' Bodies (Die Körper der Austronauten) (2018)

Elias Savada

It's a provocative, poetic trip, and an excellent debut for an international talent.
Posted Feb 15, 2018
12
4/5
Closure (2018)

Elias Savada

...you might want to catch this whimsical gem - and make room for its sardonically witty fish-out-of-Midwestern-water tale on the Hollywood-as-another-planet list.
Posted Feb 15, 2018
13
2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation (2018)

Gary M. Kramer

The five animated shorts competing for this year's Academy Award are each satisfying for their clever narratives and visual storytelling.
Posted Feb 15, 2018
14
4/5
Knife Skills (2017)

Elias Savada

While the food battle line proves too intense for some (and for all the successes, it's real disheartening to see the few agonizing setbacks), but many end up being served fresh hope with a side of pride.
Posted Feb 8, 2018
15
3.5/5
DeKalb Elementary (2017)

Elias Savada

It's a harrowing character piece that examines the unlikely relationship between a calm-under-fire elementary school receptionist (Tarra Riggs) and a mentally-unstable man (Bo Mitchell)...
Posted Feb 8, 2018
16
3.5/5
The Insult (L'insulte) (2018)

Elias Savada

With the political landscape throughout the world so strained, whether referring to Lebanon or the United States, The Insult takes on a global relevance in its message.
Posted Feb 2, 2018
17
2.5/5
Christmas Dreams (2017)

Elias Savada

With irreverent nods to Busby Berkeley one minute and to Rocky Horror Picture Show the next, this is a truly strange and wondrous salute to Christmas.
Posted Feb 2, 2018
18
2/5
Mom and Dad (2018)

Elias Savada

All that grunting and groaning you hear during the film? A good deal of it is coming from the audience.
Posted Feb 2, 2018
19
1/5
Crazy Famous (2018)

Elias Savada

Yes, mark your calendars: January 9, 2018-the day to do anything but watch this film.
Posted Jan 5, 2018
20
10/10
Brain Damage (1995)

Matthew Sorrento

Traditional readings of the film see it as a commentary on the damning nature of chemical dependency. While the theme's presence is undeniable, the film also depicts the freeing and often empowering nature of stimulants.
Posted Dec 24, 2017
21
1.5/5
Wonder Wheel (2017)

Elias Savada

The actors work up a lather in trying to deal with the writer-director's various sour and neurotic characters, most of whom appear stuck in a bad high school production of a Tennessee Williams play.
Posted Dec 15, 2017
22
4.5/5
The Shape of Water (2017)

Elias Savada

...you have to admire del Toro for pressing full bore into his make-believe world with such nightmarish whimsy. The embittered, black Cold War coal he collects in The Shape of Water is somehow crushed into a diamond of a film.
Posted Dec 15, 2017
23
Sweet Virginia (2017)

Elias Savada

There is a deep sense of menacing anxiety that pervades this city-cat-vs.-town-mouse tale.
Posted Nov 15, 2017
24
4/5
78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene (2017)

Elias Savada

78/52 is a Hitchcock primer crafted with medical precision and heartfelt devotion. It's a quenching exploration of an unsettling scene that has transcended pop culture.
Posted Nov 2, 2017
25
3.5/5
Realive (2017)

Elias Savada

... Realive will push the emotional buttons on the ethical conundrums that will greet the newly reborn, adrift in a world different from the one they left behind decades earlier.
Posted Oct 16, 2017
26
1/5
Woodshock (2017)

Elias Savada

The answer to whether smoking kills lies beneath the surface of this abstract but ultimately empty-plotted first feature from sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, better known for having created the designer label Rodarte.
Posted Oct 9, 2017
27
4/5
Lucky (2017)

Elias Savada

It's a damn shame that Stanton won't be around for the accolades he'll receive for the luckiest role of his life.
Posted Oct 4, 2017
28
4.5/5
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Elias Savada

...Blade Runner 2049 arrives at our doorsteps clocking in at 2 hours and 44 minutes. I dare say that very few of its moments are wasted, and, yes, it has been worth the wait.
Posted Oct 4, 2017
29
3.5/5
School Life (2017)

Elias Savada

School Lifeserves as an intimate all-access pass to a rustic piece of Irish heaven. N Chianin and Rane offer a simple yet soothing salve which shows how an educational experience can provide worldly experience and confidence building.
Posted Oct 2, 2017
30
Anti Matter (2017)

Elias Savada

Anti Matter plays loose with science, but certainly entertains with a good, attractive cast.
Posted Sep 25, 2017
31
4/5
Marjorie Prime (2017)

Elias Savada

Marjorie Prime is an impressive accomplishment, especially when you factor in the meager 13-day shooting schedule.
Posted Sep 1, 2017
32
1/5
I Do... Until I Don't (2017)

Elias Savada

There are problems a-plenty in Vero Beach, Florida, and after watching them dribble forth in the lame ensemble comedy I Do...Until I Don't, I feel that this piece of sunshiny beach would be the last place on earth I'd want to live.
Posted Aug 30, 2017
33
2/5
The Trip to Spain (2017)

Elias Savada

Taken in tapas-size morsels, the original television episodes are probably fine samplings of cuisine and comedy, but when you push them all together into a 108-minute feature, the droll gluttony begins to set in.
Posted Aug 21, 2017
34
4/5
Dave Made a Maze (2017)

Elias Savada

I think it can best be paraphrased as a wildly fantastic funhouse retelling of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, staged in a grade school set of Doctor Who's TARDIS
Posted Aug 15, 2017
35
Lost in America (1985)

Jessica Baxter

Packed to the gills with Albert Brooks' signature dialog, and played to the hilt by both leads, Lost in America has a long set-up. But it's a testament to Brook's clever characterization.
Posted Aug 11, 2017
36
Phantom Boy (2016)

Jessica Baxter

Despite all its whimsy, Phantom Boy manages to cater entirely to children without feeling patronizing. What kid doesn't love the idea of a child hero?
Posted Aug 7, 2017
37
1/5
The Dark Tower (2017)

Elias Savada

The phrase "lump of coal" comes to mind after watching The Dark Tower, a lavish and most definitely lackluster CliffsNotes abridgment of a CliffsNotes adaptation of the Stephen King science fiction-fantasy-western magnum opus.
Posted Aug 5, 2017
38
3.5/5
Endless Poetry (Poesía Sin Fin) (2017)

Elias Savada

Endless Poetry offers a ribald and revelatory road to poetic nirvana.
Posted Aug 2, 2017
39
3/5
Landline (2017)

Elias Savada

Ultimately, Landline registers as a push me-pull me emotional drama about four members of a family that are spinning uncomfortable semi-comic, barely-tragic circles around one another.
Posted Jul 29, 2017
40
1/5
First Kill (2017)

Elias Savada

Sadly, for most of the cast, the script just throws them together willy-nilly and then has them take aim at one another. They should be killing the messenger.
Posted Jul 21, 2017
41
3.5/51
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography (2017)

Elias Savada

There is an elegant, simple beauty in documentarian Errol Morris's affectionate portrait of his friend, soft-spoken, 80-year-old Elsa Dorfman, in his new film.
Posted Jul 19, 2017
42
3.5/5
One Penny (2017)

Elias Savada

There's a great deal of control at work here and (Michael) DeVita and (David A.) Melendez have shown a great deal of creativity in this freshman study of homeless life in the streets.
Posted Jul 16, 2017
43
1.5/5
The Little Hours (2017)

Elias Savada

The flippant dialogue dismisses some of the more obvious inconsistencies (a problem if you're working without a script).
Posted Jul 10, 2017
44
4/5
Sami Blood (2017)

Elias Savada

Lene Cecilia Sparrok's performance is a showstopper.
Posted Jul 7, 2017
45
4.5/5
Baby Driver (2017)

Elias Savada

With an intensely supercharged soundtrack driving the frantic editing in this way-cool heist flick, there isn't much fat left to gnaw off the bones by the time the action hits the curb in the final act.
Posted Jun 30, 2017
46
4.5/5
Atomic Homefront (2017)

Elias Savada

If you're not screaming mad by the end of Atomic Homefront, you obviously believe the system works.
Posted Jun 19, 2017
47
4/5
Wakefield (2017)

Elias Savada

Cranston is extremely impressive as a damaged, resentful soul - a man second guessing his own worst fear. Himself.
Posted May 30, 2017
48
4/5
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (Hymyilevä mies) (2017)

Elias Savada

For Kuosmanen, The Happiest Day... is really a love story, and the low-key attitude is what makes it such a winning film.
Posted May 30, 2017
49
3.5/5
A Dark Song (2017)

Elias Savada

For a first feature, Gavin certainly provides plenty of anxiety-inducing moments.
Posted May 22, 2017
50
2.5/5
Alien: Covenant (2017)

Elias Savada

Sadly,Alien: Covenantfeels like warmed over gruel. The ending (as expected, you'll find more than one) won't provide much closure.
Posted May 22, 2017