Slate

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating Title/Year Author
Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones (2019) Inkoo Kang Like dropping in on a rascally uncle who doesn't know, or doesn't care, how much he's disappointing you. EDIT
Posted Aug 27, 2019
Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) Dana Stevens For all this movie's faults, I can't wait to take my own middle-school-aged daughter to see it; it's rare to find a movie about mothers and daughters that neither sentimentalizes nor oversimplifies that too often idealized relationship. EDIT
Posted Aug 14, 2019
Cold Case Hammarskjöld (2019) Joshua Keating Of all the new questions raised by this film, the hardest to answer may be "What was the point?" EDIT
Posted Aug 14, 2019
Blinded by the Light (2019) Inkoo Kang An old-fashioned blast in the best way: a smart crowd-pleaser that embraces both sweetness and complexity. EDIT
Posted Aug 13, 2019
One Child Nation (2019) Inkoo Kang Its directness and intimacy lend an indelibility that encyclopedic framing could never approximate. The one-child policy haunts Wang, and she wants it to haunt the viewer, too. EDIT
Posted Aug 9, 2019
The Kitchen (2019) Inkoo Kang A joyless and exhausting movie that squanders the talents of a dream trio: McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss. EDIT
Posted Aug 8, 2019
Ferrell Takes The Field (2015) Jeremy Stahl The HBO special has more laugh lines per joke than the mediocre-but-beloved Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, more heart than the funny-but-formulaic Blades of Glory, and more potential staying power than the crude and forgettable Semi Pro. EDIT
Posted Aug 6, 2019
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) Keith Phipps A bittersweet, complex, conversation-starting look back at the film business at the close of a tumultuous decade, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also works as a strong argument for why it's too soon for Tarantino to pack it in. EDIT
Posted Aug 5, 2019
The Nightingale (2018) Inkoo Kang It may not always be easy to sit through, but we're nonetheless lucky to witness it. EDIT
Posted Aug 1, 2019
Amy Schumer: Live From the Apollo (2015) Willa Paskin A pretty good set that, in this Schumer-saturated year, feels disappointing: decent, funny, inessential. EDIT
Posted Jul 31, 2019
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) Sam Adams It's a movie that does what it needs to do but rarely does more than that, like a replacement part that fits just where it's supposed to go. EDIT
Posted Jul 31, 2019
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) Dana Stevens It's dispiriting to suspect that part of why Tarantino wanted to stage a Manson-adjacent story was because the accoutrements-the period cars and costumes and neon signs, the glowering barefoot hippie girls, the acid-laced cigarettes-were just so cool. EDIT
Posted Jul 30, 2019
The Lion King (2019) Sam Adams Even if you somehow made it into the new Lion King without knowing its origins, you might start to wonder if there was another version of it that made more sense... EDIT
Posted Jul 30, 2019
Share (2019) Inkoo Kang Share's ascetic dismissal of concrete details renders the film alienating, even off-putting. EDIT
Posted Jul 29, 2019
The Unicorn Store (2017) Natalia Winkelman You can practically see the gears of Larson's earnest intentions straining to churn out an earned resolution for her heroine, but it's tainted by the botched coming-of-age lesson we all have to endure to get there. EDIT
Posted Jul 25, 2019
Crawl (2019) Keith Phipps Crawl would look pretty good in just about any season. In this one it positively glows. EDIT
Posted Jul 13, 2019
The Lion King (2019) Dana Stevens Pairing off romantically to produce a legitimate heir to the throne is nice and all, but it's getting destroyed by the minions of your own venal ambition that's the real circle of life. EDIT
Posted Jul 11, 2019
The Farewell (2019) Inkoo Kang The Farewell makes it hard to say goodbye. EDIT
Posted Jul 11, 2019
Aziz Ansari: Right Now (2019) Inkoo Kang [T]his is still the work of a comedy veteran who channels righteous fed-up-ness and critiques obliviousness with relatable flair. EDIT
Posted Jul 10, 2019
Midsommar (2019) Sam Adams You laugh at its audacity, or maybe just to keep from losing your own grip on reality. EDIT
Posted Jul 3, 2019
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) Sam Adams There's more suspense in Peter and MJ's awkward flirtation than there is in whether Spider-Man will emerge victorious, and that's exactly as it should be. EDIT
Posted Jun 27, 2019
Anima (2019) Sam Adams Anima... turns from a pensive comment on dehumanization into something approaching a silent comedy. EDIT
Posted Jun 27, 2019
Toy Story 4 (2019) Dana Stevens It will send you out of the theater laughing, crying, and thinking all at once, an appropriate mix of responses for what I hope, out of love, will be our last minutes with a franchise that's given us so much. EDIT
Posted Jun 17, 2019
Men in Black: International (2019) Inkoo Kang It's unfair to expect the franchise-launching chemistry between Smith and Jones, but the mere adequacy of Hemsworth and Thompson disappoints nonetheless. EDIT
Posted Jun 13, 2019
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019) Sam Adams An ingenious hybrid of fact and fiction that embodies the vital, slipshod, thrilling, confounding essence of the Rolling Thunder Revue itself. EDIT
Posted Jun 13, 2019
Dark Phoenix (2019) Stephanie Burt The movie's weaknesses make more glaring the movie's hollowness where the storyline's feminism once was. EDIT
Posted Jun 11, 2019
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) Inkoo Kang This magnificent debut often feels like something utterly new. EDIT
Posted Jun 4, 2019
Rocketman (2019) Jeffrey Bloomer Rocketman never quite finds the wild momentum its characters seem to chase around in all those musical numbers. EDIT
Posted May 31, 2019
Deadwood: The Movie (2019) Sam Adams Deadwood ends too quickly, and not just because I was reluctant to leave its world behind once more. Watching it, I could imagine a universe in which the show ran for years more, enough to more fully explore characters... EDIT
Posted May 31, 2019
Always Be My Maybe (2019) Inkoo Kang Moving, thoughtful, tender, and hysterical. EDIT
Posted May 30, 2019
Ma (2019) Sam Adams Ma isn't a bad movie, and it's sure as hell not trying to be a good one, but it scratches a particular itch that neither noble failures nor cranked-out hackwork can touch. EDIT
Posted May 29, 2019
This One's for the Ladies (2018) Nichole Perkins You'll go into the film ready to see some shiny, rippling flesh, and you will not be disappointed, but you'll leave thinking about community and justice. EDIT
Posted May 28, 2019
Booksmart (2019) Dana Stevens Booksmart is a teen sex romp well suited for the summer of 2019: feminist but not preachy, raunchy but not nasty, emotionally intelligent but not sentimental. EDIT
Posted May 24, 2019
Aladdin (2019) Inkoo Kang The new Aladdin doesn't quite add up to a whole new world, but the update derives some small wisdom from having been more places. EDIT
Posted May 23, 2019
John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum (2019) Sam Adams The best way to watch isn't with oohs and aahhs. It's with laughter, savoring the beauty and the absurdity of each elaborate spectacle. Each movement is a joke, and death is the ultimate punchline. EDIT
Posted May 16, 2019
The Souvenir (2019) Dana Stevens The Souvenir treats the painful events at its center with a kind of remoteness, as if handling a fragile long-lost object while wearing thick gloves. EDIT
Posted May 16, 2019
Wine Country (2019) Inkoo Kang A waste of talent that makes Wine Country even more forgettable than its jokes. EDIT
Posted May 10, 2019
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) Sam Adams In a world packed full of franchise-extending would-be blockbusters, there's something strangely appealing about its patchiness. EDIT
Posted May 8, 2019
Long Shot (2019) Inkoo Kang Rogen is as funny as he's ever been, but it's Theron who's the standout. EDIT
Posted May 2, 2019
Knock Down the House (2019) Sam Adams After watching Ocasio-Cortez and the other women in Knock Down the House pound the pavement and knock on doors, you can see that they're the ones working hard, and that for them, getting their hands dirty is nothing new. EDIT
Posted Apr 30, 2019
Avengers: Endgame (2019) Dana Stevens Endgame consists almost entirely of the downtime scenes that were always secretly everyone's favorite parts of these movies anyway. EDIT
Posted Apr 26, 2019
Under the Silver Lake (2018) Inkoo Kang It doesn't help that the plot is tortuous, and the resolution is an inarguable letdown. And yet! Mitchell's ambitions, observations, and moods make the picture a dippy blast... EDIT
Posted Apr 19, 2019
Guava Island (2019) Matthew Dessem Murai's "This Is America" video made Glover's music sharper and more specific; Guava Island glops up the same music with a half-baked allegory that dulls every note. Steer clear. EDIT
Posted Apr 14, 2019
The House That Jack Built (2018) Emma Stefansky Von Trier may be a provocateur, but his brand of provocation seems to be growing stale. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
The Best of Enemies (2019) Inkoo Kang It's impossible to ignore that the film is yet another Hollywood narrative of racial reconciliation centered on a white protagonist-and worse, it's one that seems much more interested in the Klan's white targets than its black ones. EDIT
Posted Apr 5, 2019
Shazam! (2019) Sam Adams Although it's technically about saving the world (again), Shazam! plays out at eye level, grounded by the belief that who people love and where they feel they belong is stakes enough. EDIT
Posted Apr 2, 2019
The Cell (2000) David Edelstein The Cell is pretty silly. But I admired its cinematic ambition until the final scenes. EDIT
Posted Mar 31, 2019
Dumbo (2019) Matthew Dessem There's a lot going on in the movie, none of it entirely coherent... EDIT
Posted Mar 28, 2019
But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) David Edelstein As it happens, I couldn't agree more with the point of view of But I'm a Cheerleader, but I couldn't like the movie less. EDIT
Posted Mar 27, 2019
Us (2019) Dana Stevens Peele is a born filmmaker who cares where the camera is placed, how a scene is lit and scored, what the props in the corner of the image suggest. EDIT
Posted Mar 20, 2019