The ARTery

The ARTery is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Sean Burns, Tom Meek
Rating Title/Year Author
Les misérables (2019) Sean Burns A lot of the genre beats may be familiar to crime story aficionados, but the textures are what feel fresh. EDIT
Posted Jan 17, 2020
The Thing (1982) Sean Burns The sheer nastiness of it all had an imprinting effect on a generation of budding cinema buffs. It's one of the first films I can recall seeing that felt like it was trying to hurt you. EDIT
Posted Jan 9, 2020
1917 (2019) Sean Burns It's cinema as a VR headset, with all the expressive qualities of the art replaced by a dull literal-mindedness, a quote-unquote immersive trip into unconvincing verisimilitude that makes a lousy substitute for drama. EDIT
Posted Jan 8, 2020
Invisible Life (2019) Sean Burns This is one swarthy, full-throated, four-hanky tear-jerker. EDIT
Posted Jan 3, 2020
Bombshell (2019) Sean Burns Much as you'd expect from a #MeToo movie made by men, 'Bombshell' wants to take down the designated misogynist villain while ignoring the structures and paradigms that allowed him to flourish in the first place. EDIT
Posted Dec 19, 2019
Sátántangó (1994) Sean Burns The cinephile's Mount Everest. Between the temporal dislocation and durational excesses, the film feels like it's rewiring your brain while you're watching it. EDIT
Posted Dec 19, 2019
Richard Jewell (2019) Sean Burns Mid-tier Eastwood. A classically crafted, crowd-pleasing character study that suffers from one dumb decision threatening to derail the whole thing. EDIT
Posted Dec 12, 2019
63 Up (2019) Sean Burns The cumulative emotional impact of the films naturally grows more pronounced with each installment, but especially hits home during this one. EDIT
Posted Dec 12, 2019
Atlantics (2019) Sean Burns A slippery, spellbinding debut thick with atmosphere and longing. EDIT
Posted Dec 6, 2019
Knives Out (2019) Sean Burns The kind of movie they say they don't make anymore, it's a smashing, old fashioned entertainment with a saucy, contemporary edge. EDIT
Posted Nov 26, 2019
Marriage Story (2019) Sean Burns Like most Baumbach movies, this one's way overwritten and a touch too pleased with itself, but also contains some fine performances and bitter truths. EDIT
Posted Nov 23, 2019
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) Sean Burns There's a reason 'Citizen Kane' didn't devote half the movie to the home life of the reporter investigating Rosebud. EDIT
Posted Nov 23, 2019
The Report (2019) Sean Burns Burns keeps the pace percolating with the jittery handheld energy and slinky synthesizer sounds associated with Soderbergh, if not his mentor's gift for indelible images. EDIT
Posted Nov 15, 2019
The Irishman (2019) Sean Burns A career capstone for its creators, summing up 40-odd years of movies about masculinity in crisis and the wages of sin. EDIT
Posted Nov 15, 2019
Doctor Sleep (2019) Sean Burns A doggedly prosaic sequel to a movie that defies understanding. EDIT
Posted Nov 8, 2019
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019) Sean Burns It's not a movie concerned with gizmos and gadgets so much as it is fascinated by the way these tools are used to elicit feelings from people sitting out there in the dark. EDIT
Posted Nov 1, 2019
Dolemite Is My Name (2019) Sean Burns A bawdy, big-hearted romp. It's hard to think of the last time I saw a movie made with such a spirit of generosity. EDIT
Posted Oct 24, 2019
The Lighthouse (2019) Sean Burns All the rib-nudging phallic imagery makes 'The Lighthouse' feel like the world's most elaborate penis joke, cackling at the erect, elongated title structure and the seamen stuck inside, ready to blow. EDIT
Posted Oct 23, 2019
Parasite (2019) Sean Burns Bong Joon Ho makes genre movies about ideas. His films turn ideology into action, and every shot in 'Parasite' is some sort of argument. EDIT
Posted Oct 23, 2019
Dolor y gloria (2019) Sean Burns A triumph for Banderas. It's the kind of performance that makes you feel like you're seeing a familiar face for the first time. EDIT
Posted Oct 23, 2019
The Laundromat (2019) Sean Burns Weirdly half-baked and under-realized, the most slapdash of the director's efforts since his 2002 'Full Frontal.' EDIT
Posted Oct 10, 2019
Joker (2019) Sean Burns The movie wobbles under the weight of its own self-importance, carrying on as if imparting some sort of serious social commentary while being extremely careful not to actually say anything at all. EDIT
Posted Oct 3, 2019
First Love (2019) Sean Burns The movie doesn't have a thing on its mind besides mayhem and I enjoyed it enormously. EDIT
Posted Oct 3, 2019
Monos (2019) Sean Burns 'Monos' has a trippy, hypnotic energy that calls to mind such rumbles in the jungle as 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God.' EDIT
Posted Oct 3, 2019
Rambo: Last Blood (2019) Sean Burns A reactionary crock even by the standards of this series, and the dullest of all the Rambo movies by several measures. EDIT
Posted Sep 20, 2019
Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017) Sean Burns A heightened, harrowing children's adventure spiked with moments of pure terror, great sadness and pointed politics if you're listening for them. This is one hell of a movie. EDIT
Posted Sep 20, 2019
It: Chapter Two (2019) Sean Burns Just because King makes fun of himself for not being able to write a decent finish doesn't mean we should let him off the hook for this one. EDIT
Posted Sep 5, 2019
La dolce vita (1960) Sean Burns Seven nights become seven mornings, with episodic interludes intentionally echoing one another in provocative, sometimes blasphemous ways, the scared alternating with the profane. EDIT
Posted Aug 29, 2019
Esto no es Berlín (2019) Sean Burns Sama shoots this all as a swirl of sensation, with lots of dreamy, sexed-up montages and druggy interludes. The chronology isn't always entirely clear but what comes through is an intensity of feeling. EDIT
Posted Aug 29, 2019
Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) Sean Burns It's the kind of movie that sends you out afterward wanting to read the book, if only to figure out what they were all trying to get at here. EDIT
Posted Aug 14, 2019
Blinded by the Light (2019) Sean Burns I spent at least half of the running time rolling my eyes, but every once in a while it won me over. EDIT
Posted Aug 14, 2019
Heat (1995) Sean Burns The most meticulously designed of Mann's features, with careful compositions positioning the characters against bustling cityscapes and empty expanses that externalize their interior lives. EDIT
Posted Aug 14, 2019
The Nightingale (2018) Sean Burns Kent's gaze is steady in a manner that reminded me of Ingmar Bergman's 'The Virgin Spring' in its unblinking absence of affect, leaving room for the evil to shock us with its flatness and banality. EDIT
Posted Aug 14, 2019
Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (2019) Sean Burns Tarantino's warmest film since 'Jackie Brown,' and his funniest since 'Pulp Fiction.' EDIT
Posted Jul 25, 2019
The Lion King (2019) Sean Burns Every aesthetic choice here has been made to tone down the material, making it less vivid, less expressive, less animated. EDIT
Posted Jul 18, 2019
Aladdin (2019) Sean Burns A spectacularly tedious and unimaginative film. EDIT
Posted Jul 18, 2019
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) Sean Burns Above all, it is the ineffable, broken sadness of the haunted alien at its center that registers most powerfully. EDIT
Posted Jul 18, 2019
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019) Sean Burns It feels tacky and ungallant of Broomfield to be parading his old relationship around like this. EDIT
Posted Jul 13, 2019
Under the Silver Lake (2018) Sean Burns A millennial, movie-mad hall of mirrors that's designed to drive you a little bit crazy, containing elements both witheringly astute and shockingly lame. EDIT
Posted Jul 6, 2019
Midsommar (2019) Sean Burns A droll comedy of manners, an irresistible revenge fantasy and a warning to bad boyfriends everywhere. It's the best breakup movie I've seen in ages. EDIT
Posted Jul 1, 2019
The Spy Behind Home Plate (2019) Sean Burns There's an overreliance on familiar stock footage and the kind of chintzy production music you hear in industrial videos. It feels like something you'd be forced to watch in school. EDIT
Posted Jun 26, 2019
Toy Story 4 (2019) Sean Burns Mildly amusing and profoundly unnecessary, it's got everything you're looking for except for anything new. EDIT
Posted Jun 20, 2019
Titanic (1997) Sean Burns In recent years I've come around to thinking that a more nuanced version of the tale with better-rounded characters wouldn't resonate as powerfully as Cameron's shamelessly bold, sometimes silly strokes. EDIT
Posted Jun 20, 2019
The Dead Don't Die (2019) Sean Burns This is the first Jarmusch film that feels behind the curve instead of ahead of it. EDIT
Posted Jun 12, 2019
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019) Sean Burns A raucous, wildly entertaining collage that spends at least 30% of its screen time pulling your leg. EDIT
Posted Jun 11, 2019
Deadwood: The Movie (2019) Sean Burns The fact that "Deadwood: The Movie" even exists at all is a logistical miracle. That it turned out to be this terrific is cause for celebration. EDIT
Posted May 30, 2019
Purple Rain (1984) Sean Burns At once atrocious and awesome, featuring musical performances so sublime you instantly forgive that the rest is so ridiculous. EDIT
Posted May 30, 2019
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982) Sean Burns Teasing their knee-jerk nihilism while taking just as many potshots at the band's detractors, the movie never really figures out if it's come to praise our proto-riot grrrls or to bury them. EDIT
Posted May 30, 2019
Babylon (1980) Sean Burns Rosso's rough-and-tumble portrait of immigrant life in the slums of Thatcher's England arrives in American theaters 39 years late and depressingly right on time. EDIT
Posted May 20, 2019
Double Lives (2018) Sean Burns It's like a TED Talk in which everybody's screwing and I loved it. EDIT
Posted May 16, 2019