FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating Title/Year Author
The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019) Peter Rainer The performances are strong and it has a creepy, ominous way of moving along the story that is effective. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
Otherhood (2019) Amy Nicholson What makes it feel slightly heftier is that each of these actresses are terrific. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
L'homme fidèle (2018) Peter Rainer This is a very French movie... It's a fun movie. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
The Nightingale (2018) Amy Nicholson The pleasure of this movie is slowly watching [Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr] find their common ground, and Jennifer Kent doesn't make it easy for either of them in any step of the way. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
Them That Follow (2019) Peter Rainer It does grip you because of the inherent nature of the story itself. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
Luce (2019) Amy Nicholson I enjoyed this a lot -- I'm excited for people to argue about it when they leave [the theater]. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
Love, Antosha (2019) Peter Rainer It's very powerful and also very sad. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) Amy Nicholson Mostly, the movie just putters along on two jokes: The Rock is very, very big, and Jason Statham compared to him (and not anybody else) is small. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2019
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018) Justin Chang What I like about it especially is that it captures this fleeting moment of almost innocence near the time of the dawn of cinema when directing was not automatically assumed to be a man's job and where women directing a film was no big deal. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018) Charles Solomon I think this is a fascinating story, although it's only an interesting account of it...The interviews they found with her are fascinating. She's charming, she's articulate, she's witty, and you wish there were more of them. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Low Low (2019) Wade Major [The plot's dilemma] is treated here with seriousness, maturity, insight, and some really, really good performances. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
The Amazing Johnathan Documentary (2019) Amy Nicholson I think people's mileage with this documentary will depend on how charming you think Benjamin Berman is... I didn't find him incredibly charming. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Driven (2018) Wade Major It's very competently made. It doesn't really do anything remarkable, but I will say that Lee Pace is amazing as John DeLorean. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Jay Myself (2018) Wade Major You fall in love with everyone in this movie. It is just such a wonderful trip. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas (2018) Charles Solomon I was surprisingly charmed by it -- that it was just so off the wall and something we're not used to people doing in animation. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Cold Case Hammarskjöld (2019) Wade Major It's a really terrifying documentary. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
American Factory (2019) Amy Nicholson It's really terrific and really relevant. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Ready or Not (2019) Amy Nicholson It's predictable and sometimes a little bit unsteady... but it was fun. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Blinded by the Light (2019) Wade Major It's earnest, it's heartfelt, and it takes place right in the middle of Thatcher-era England, and it's able to make commentary on that without the characters being lost. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Good Boys (2019) Amy Nicholson This might be my favorite studio comedy of the year. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) Charles Solomon Much of the film is so on the nose that for the last half hour I was giving the dialogue with the characters before they started speaking. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) Wade Major The characters are so affirming. It doesn't have that Hollywood cynicism that we're so accustomed to. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
Ode to Joy (2019) Tim Cogshell This movie is so charming, smart, and funny... This movie full of quirky people ultimately got me. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
After the Wedding (2019) Christy Lemire It's okay, but given all who is in it, you'd have reason to have high expectations. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
One Child Nation (2019) Christy Lemire It's stunning, it's sickening, it's heartbreaking. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) Christy Lemire It is lovely, funny, and never condescending. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
This Changes Everything (2018) Tim Cogshell It really is a very important film. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019) Christy Lemire I feel like this device probably works a lot better on the page... It is so mawkish, smothered in cloying anthropomorphism from start to finish. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
Brian Banks (2018) Tim Cogshell This is a perfectly serviceable movie -- it's a drama, it's well-acted, it's well-written. It's working, generally speaking. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
The Kitchen (2019) Tim Cogshell Look, this movie is a mess. It absolutely is a mess. The ladies are really restraining themselves -- Tiffany Haddish and Melissa McCarthy particularly -- to not tell jokes. You can tell that they're dying to tell jokes. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019) Tim Cogshell [Isabela Moner] is just fantastic. She's just wonderful in every possible way. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) Tim Cogshell A serviceable film for the older horror filmgoer, too... It's an amalgamation of [director André Øvredal and writer-producer Guillerm Del Toro's] styles. EDIT
Posted Aug 12, 2019
3.0 Skin (2018) Tim Cogshell A powerful - if somewhat repetitive - film, with a riveting performance at its center. And it's based on a true story where the good guys win. EDIT
Posted Jul 30, 2019
2 Dark Phoenix (2019) Tim Cogshell A middlin' X-men effort that cheats the saga of its past, present and future, messing with the story-line in unacceptable ways. Plus, it looks big and cheap - but mostly cheap. EDIT
Posted Jul 5, 2019
4 The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) Tim Cogshell The restoration is vivid, rendering the film even more striking than it was in 1982. The narrative still puts on on the edge of ones seat. Depardieu and Baye at their best. EDIT
Posted Jul 5, 2019