The Reader (Omaha, NE) - Rotten Tomatoes

The Reader (Omaha, NE)

The Reader (Omaha, NE) is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Ryan Syrek
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
C
Belfast (2021)

Ryan Syrek

A thoroughly middling affair, it's also basically a very long Van Morrison music video, so tell your dad. It's going to win 1100 awards.
Posted Jan 21, 2022
2
A
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Squinting isn't necessary to see modern reflections in a delusional fascist ruler encouraged by prophetic messages to violently secure power. Witches cackling predictions about forests that walk wouldn't make a top 10 list of Most Bonkers QAnon Forecasts.
Posted Jan 15, 2022
3
A
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

Ryan Syrek

It's a rabid defense of romanticism that retroactively makes stuff in the earlier films better. It is purposefully funny, acknowledging its self-seriousness. It is thoughtful, despite its obviousness. It is an epic that is brisk, breezy, and beautiful.
Posted Dec 23, 2021
4
A
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Spider-Man is the patron saint of the futile effort, the mascot of trying to save everyone, even if they hate you. No Way Home is a treatise on not giving up on people, even when it hurts. Poo-poo Peter's parable all you want, but it's what I needed.
Posted Dec 17, 2021
5
C-
Don't Look Up (2021)

Ryan Syrek

It's an Iannucci film in need of dentures, Don Quixote from the point of view of the windmill. The cleverness isn't slight of hands but a middle finger.
Posted Dec 10, 2021
6
D+
House of Gucci (2021)

Ryan Syrek

As empty as a pleather knockoff clutch and as pointless as a pasta pencil, The House of Gucci is a silly charade that makes Chef Boyardee and the Super Mario Brothers seem like nuanced Italian characters.
Posted Dec 3, 2021
7
C+
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Whether "Who you gonna call?" could have been worked into any script in a clever fashion is a question for philosophers. What is settled fact is that nothing clever happens here.
Posted Nov 26, 2021
8
A
The Harder They Fall (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Even if it's a bit heavy on the flair and light on substance, there's nothing wrong with being "All hat, no cattle" when the hat looks cute AF and red meat is bad for you.
Posted Nov 12, 2021
9
C+
Eternals (2021)

Ryan Syrek

An amazingly talented cast - playing surprisingly nuanced characters - is forced to dial every performance to "I can't believe Tide got the stain out!" levels. It's Shakespeare by Cliff's Notes, a Kidz Bop Nirvana cover, a musical episode of The Wire.
Posted Nov 5, 2021
10
D-
Last Night in Soho (2021)

Ryan Syrek

The "big reveal" in Last Night in Soho is the single most unintentionally hilarious film moment of 2021. That's a bad accomplishment in a normal year. It's apocalyptically bad in a year that also features an M. Night Shyamalan movie.
Posted Oct 29, 2021
11
B
Dune (2021)

Ryan Syrek

The lame "hero's journey" riff that Villeneuve so gracefully subverted and destroyed in his Blade Runner 2049 is laughably disinteresting right now. Who wants to watch space Elon Musk figure out he should be nice to oppressed minorities?
Posted Oct 22, 2021
12
D
The Last Duel (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Like Rashomon by way of Law & Order: Medieval SVU, The Last Duel should be remembered most for finally giving Matt Damon and Ben Affleck the haircuts their personalities have long demanded.
Posted Oct 15, 2021
13
D
No Time To Die (2021)

Ryan Syrek

The only reason this isn't the most embarrassing thing Rami Malek has ever done is because he won an Oscar for a Bryan Singer movie.
Posted Oct 8, 2021
14
C+
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Ryan Syrek

It's impossibly difficult to recommend, irresistibly discussable, and inevitably bringing Jessica Chastain her first Oscar. Outside of tepid racism, the Academy loves nothing more than a B+ impression, especially if it requires prosthetic cheeks.
Posted Sep 24, 2021
15
F
Malignant (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Malignant is bad, both intentionally and accidentally. The Happening was a better time, which is the first film fight that turd ever won. If campy is your thing, pitch a tent elsewhere.
Posted Sep 17, 2021
16
B
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Packed with a ton to like but little to love (or hate), audiences will leave Chi with frosting on their lips while cinema aficionados once more bemoan nothing substantial on their hips.
Posted Sep 3, 2021
17
A-
Candyman (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Even if eating a whole bag of chocolaty treats is preferable, a fun-sized candy bar is still mighty tasty. Candyman is almost-transcendent, quasi-brilliant, and fully confirmation that DaCosta is a profound talent.
Posted Aug 27, 2021
18
D
Cryptozoo (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Featuring a genuinely upsetting amount of cartoon scrotums, the film feels like a stoner's bonkers animal doodles set into motion with a story about how, like, owning living things is bad man.
Posted Aug 20, 2021
19
A-
The Suicide Squad (2021)

Ryan Syrek

If billionaires wanna set their money on fire by using computers to animate the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) staring down a several-skyscraper-sized creature named Starro, that is almost certainly less evil than whatever else they were going to do with it.
Posted Aug 13, 2021
20
A
The Green Knight (2021)

Ryan Syrek

For those so inclined, The Green Knight is divine, literally and figuratively. It is a triumphant, boldly serious, carefully modernized take on an archaic but still relevant ode to not being a dickweed. English majors, rejoice responsibly.
Posted Jul 30, 2021
21
D
Old (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Some of the material stuffed between the ham-fisted intro and gag-inducing epilogue is borderline good. But if the bread is made from doody, a sandwich's filling is wholly irrelevant.
Posted Jul 23, 2021
22
F
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Is it neat to see this quasi-retrospective of Bourdain's rise from bad-boy chef to self-deputized American ambassador? Sure. There's also, like, hundreds of hours of him doing that outside of this ill-conceived endeavor.
Posted Jul 16, 2021
23
B+
Black Widow (2021)

Ryan Syrek

If you want people to think you're good at something, don't have Florence Pugh do the same thing right next to you.
Posted Jul 9, 2021
24
A
Zola (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Sinisterly (almost sneakily) hilarious and meaningfully stylish, Zola is the single best piece of evidence to suggest that the creation Twitter wasn't a profound mistake.
Posted Jul 2, 2021
25
C-
F9 (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Fools give a mouse a cookie. Maniacs give Vin Diesel a global megafranchise.
Posted Jun 26, 2021
26
D-
The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021)

Ryan Syrek

As clever as a copied-and-pasted Facebook joke, as original as an email forward from your grandfather's AOL account, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard is a joyless turd that makes for a great sedative, despite everyone screaming every single line of dialogue.
Posted Jun 18, 2021
27
B+
In the Heights (2021)

Ryan Syrek

In the Heights is a vibrant romp through a very specific set of memories that unfurls against a hyperactive playlist, assembled by someone way cooler than me. It is a powerful, profound, prideful parade of Latinx joy, sorrow, and struggle.
Posted Jun 11, 2021
28
A+
Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)

Ryan Syrek

In terms of capturing this specific zeitgeist, maybe we just cram Bo Burnham: Inside into the time capsule and get back to pretending that posting about mental health on social media is the same as doing the work of therapy?
Posted Jun 4, 2021
29
B-
A Quiet Place Part II (2021)

Ryan Syrek

To be clear, as far as "oh sh*t, lookout!" goes, A Quiet Place Part II puts the capital F from "F that" in fun. Things only collapse if you think logically at any point for any reason, even briefly.
Posted May 28, 2021
30
B
The Last Blockbuster (2020)

Ryan Syrek

You should watch it if you were ever taught that your kindness was inextricably tied to your rewindness.
Posted May 21, 2021
31
B-
WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Essentially a cult documentary about a business, this look at the ascent and decline of a company I still do not quite understand feels like those dueling Fyre Festival documentaries.
Posted May 21, 2021
32
B-
Oxygen (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Director Alexandre Aja's latest is a sci-fi thriller that takes place entirely inside a broken cryogenic chamber. Who hasn't had that problem, am I right, Walt Disney?
Posted May 21, 2021
33
B+
The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021)

Ryan Syrek

The use of Maya Rudolph and Danny McBride certainly help straddle the generation gap, and various readings of the film by non-neurotypical viewers have elevated what I dismissed as simply a busy, noisy thing to put children in front of for a while.
Posted May 21, 2021
34
A+
About Endlessness (Om det Oändliga) (2020)

Ryan Syrek

Writer/director Roy Andersson's collection of vignettes feels like power walking through a museum or speed reading a book of poetry.
Posted May 21, 2021
35
A-
Saint Maud (2020)

Ryan Syrek

In the nicest way possible, Saint Maud seems like the type of movie that would have been lambasted and protested by conservative Christian critics in the past.
Posted May 14, 2021
36
A-
Golden Arm (2020)

Ryan Syrek

Honestly, if the whole thing had been the two leads (Mary Holland and Betsy Sodaro) "remember the time"-ing their way through a cross-country drive, thumbs would still be up like Roger Ebert-brand Viagra.
Posted May 7, 2021
37
D
Mortal Kombat (2021)

Ryan Syrek

While some fighters get to shoot lasers from their eyes or create murder icicles our hero...grows a hard-shelled long-sleeved shirt and gets sticks on his hands? He's not given a cool codename, but he should probably be called something like "Under Armor."
Posted Apr 30, 2021
38
B-
Stowaway (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Stowaway is bit less Apollo 13 or Gravity and a bit more "moral quandary," albeit one that not-so-nimbly sidesteps thornier philosophical implications in favor of gratuitous astronaut crying. In space, no one can hear you emote.
Posted Apr 23, 2021
39
B
Nobody (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Like Liam Neeson who was Taken before him, Bob Odenkirk has surprisingly joined the list of violent cinema daddies who would rather catch a body than buy a boat to assuage their quiet discontentment with life.
Posted Apr 16, 2021
40
A
The Father (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Watching it is like playing "Would You Rather: The Adult Responsibility Edition." Oh, and it ends on a scene that will haunt your brain like you had the word "Amityville" tattooed on your hippocampus. Sounds fun, right?!
Posted Apr 9, 2021
41
A+
Minari (2020)

Ryan Syrek

People can have a weirdly upsetting reaction to things that are excessively adorable or beautiful. It is a phenomenon known as "cuteness aggression." If you are prone to this condition, maybe watch Minari by yourself?
Posted Mar 26, 2021
42
C-
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Deciding between the two versions of Justice League is like asking if you'd rather get hit in the face pretty hard for 2 hours or merely get slapped in the face for four hours.
Posted Mar 19, 2021
43
B
Nomadland (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Nomadland has no plot or subplot, no character or narrative arc, no easily discernible thesis or moral. It just kind of "is." It's The Grapes of Wrath without the wrath. So, you know, grapes... But grapes are good, I guess?
Posted Mar 12, 2021
44
B+
The Dark and the Wicked (2020)

Ryan Syrek

Not to detassel these children of the corn, but expectations should be reasonably set going in. This is neither "the scariest movie in years" nor deceptively profound. It is just an icky bit of rural terror, well planted.
Posted Mar 5, 2021
45
A
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Cinema-as-education is a solution so imperfect, only America would turn to it. Still, Black Messiah works as a history lesson and as a tense betrayal opus where the only thing whiter than the federal agents conspiring to murder are the audience's knuckles
Posted Feb 26, 2021
46
D-
A Glitch in the Matrix (2021)

Ryan Syrek

A Glitch in the Matrix feels like the worst party you've ever attended. It tackles the fascinating-and potentially dangerous-theory that we all live in a giant computer simulation. It does so in the dullest, most irresponsible ways possible.
Posted Feb 26, 2021
47
A-
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)

Ryan Syrek

In the before times, a certain kind of moron was harmlessly endearing and not treasonously dangerous. Barb (Annie Mumolo) and Star (Kristen Wiig) are that type of moron. They have been sorely missed.
Posted Feb 12, 2021
48
C-
The Little Things (2021)

Ryan Syrek

Jared Leto plays Albert Sparma, a handyman who walks like he has a mechanical bull where his couch should be. He's supposed to be as smart but also talks as though he is constantly slowly gargling marbles. This, according to Leto, is "acting."
Posted Feb 5, 2021
49
A
I Blame Society (2020)

Ryan Syrek

Writer/director/actress/mischievous malcontent Gillian Wallace Horvat's I Blame Society is a wry, anarchic mockumentary that will almost immediately turn some people all the way the hell off. Pity those poor, incorrect fools.
Posted Jan 22, 2021
50
A-
Queer Japan (2020)

Ryan Syrek

Like a big, consensual hug from a nonbinary person dressed in a sheep costume, Queer Japan is the very best kind of documentary: the kind that leaves you feeling very intimately connected to its subjects.
Posted Jan 19, 2021