Antagony & Ecstasy
Antagony & Ecstasy is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this
publication only count toward the Tomatometer when written by the following
Tomatometer-approved critic(s):
Tim Brayton
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
10/10
Lola (1961)
Intuited rather than explained & felt rather than understood.
Posted Mar 1, 2017
2
3/10
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Animated by a largely morbid revulsion at human beings that has disguised itself in a thick lacquer of outlandishly beautiful cinematography.
Posted Dec 30, 2016
3
6/10
Hidden Figures (2017)
Paint-by-numbers biopic about people who were almost beyond a shadow of a doubt more interesting than the film ever suggests.
Posted Dec 30, 2016
4
5/10
Captain Fantastic (2016)
Plays around with a lot of big words and famous leftist names, but it's strictly an affectation .
Posted Dec 30, 2016
5
8/10
Fences (2016)
If Fences was doomed to be made into an awards-season prestige picture, I really can't imagine how it could have turned out more satisfying than this.
Posted Dec 29, 2016
6
9/10
Paterson (2016)
7
8/10
I, Daniel Blake (2017)
A hectoring political op-ed about The State Of Britain Today, but when you've been hectored by Loach, you've been hectored by the very best.
Posted Dec 28, 2016
8
4/10
Collateral Beauty (2016)
There are, I'll bet, ways of making this work. Collateral Beauty doesn't find them.
Posted Dec 28, 2016
9
10/10
Toni Erdmann (2016)
The whole thing is, basically, perfect: impeccably-made cinema with a pair of smart messages hiding inside the driest, funniest movie of the year.
Posted Dec 26, 2016
10
9/10
Baraka (1993)
Among the most overwhelmingly gorgeous films ever made.
Posted Dec 26, 2016
11
9/10
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
A completely breathtaking film about humans in crisis, presented with a muted but still sharp-witted aesthetic.
Posted Dec 26, 2016
12
8/10
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
When Rogue One is good, it is VERY good. When it is bad, it is... well not prequel trilogy-bad, at least.
Posted Dec 22, 2016
13
6/10
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)
It isn't particularly good, but it is a considerable improvement over The Ewok Adventure.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
14
4/10
The Ewok Adventure (1984)
Nothing but a transparent attempt to keep the brand name alive and the marketing spigot open, and it really does not attempt to go above that horribly mediocre bar.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
15
7/10
The Love Witch (2016)
Mercilessly carve out a third of the running time, and suddenly we have one of 2016's best, most subversively smart and deliciously entertaining films.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
16
6/10
The Birth of a Nation (2016)
It's so very easy to look at this history and wish for so much more than we've gotten here.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
17
4/10
Free State of Jones (2016)
Absolutely nothing but a history lesson, presented in what feel like deliberately uncinematic terms.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
18
10/10
Laura (1944)
It's one of the smartest of all noirs, and thus among the most enticingly savage and dangerous.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
19
9/10
The Wailing (Goksung) (2016)
As great as any horror movie of the 2010s to date.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
20
10/10
It's one of the greater pleasures of the film that its surface-level plot is weird enough to watch it for the sheer joy of Surreal farce.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
21
7/10
A solid, self-contained piece of basic, honest blockbuster filmmaking.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
22
8/10
Diva (1981)
[An] enthusiastic celebration of consuming beautiful things because they are beautiful.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
23
8/10
Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
One of the most striking war pictures America has made in years: morally troubling and coolly jingoistic in more or less equal measure,
Posted Dec 17, 2016
24
7/10
Well-mounted juvenile spookiness.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
25
8/10
Arrival (2016)
A fun movie puzzle in addition to being an emotional gutpunch.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
26
9/10
13th (2016)
Though it is surely better as journalism than it is a cinema, is essential viewing and probably the most important movie made in America in 2016.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
27
9/10
American Honey (2016)
A perfect and sad summary of American life itself. It is a film that demands a lot, and which gives even more back.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
28
6/10
Doctor Strange (2016)
It's not a tremendously rewarding piece of storytelling... But it's dang cool.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
29
4/10
Michael Moore In TrumpLand (2016)
Barely-edited concert footage that could have been tossed on YouTube without losing much of its dignity and probably only increasing its overall impact.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
30
1/10
It's hard to conceive of how the film could make its argument any worse if D'Souza was deliberately attempting to overthrow the Republican Party from within.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
31
7/10
Trolls (2016)
Where the film really impresses, though, is in its creative use of the animation medium itself; no DreamWorks film has ever experimented so much in so many ways.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
32
5/10
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
Anytime it tries to be more than a vehicle for Tom Cruise to flash his charisma and say tough guy things, it grinds to a halt.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
33
8/10
The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi) (2016)
The ending doesn't live up to what precedes it, but while it's working, this is some of the most captivating and effective cinema of 2016, or indeed any of the last several years.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
34
5/10
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)
The happenings of the Gill Man, and how he comes to walk among us, are there more to flesh out the story of a toxic marriage than to serve as the main narrative thrust.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
35
6/10
The best of all the Madea films.
Posted Dec 17, 2016
36
4/10
Revenge of the Creature (1955)
It's impossible to overstate how utterly tedious the central stretch of Revenge of the Creature is.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
37
7/10
The Ring (2002)
A very strong movie in all the ways you need a horror movie to be strong. But it is a movie that could very obviously be better.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
38
9/10
The whole thing is ultimately just a '50s B-movie, but it's hard to imagine what they could have done to make it a better one.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
39
8/10
A simple film, and delicate, and abidingly good.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
40
7/10
Into the Inferno (2016)
Five wonderfully captivating documentaries that have been pressed together into one very weird shape.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
41
9/10
Battle Royale (2000)
You would never suspect that a 70-year-old man made this film: it positively hums with youthful lust and rage.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
42
8/10
Moonlight (2016)
The last third of Moonlight is certainly the most invigorating .
Posted Dec 11, 2016
43
1/10
The Room (2003)
One of the only films from the whole of the 21st Century to live up to every fragment of its hype.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
44
7/10
Café Society (2016)
Eisenberg is more than enough to make deeply overfamiliar material feel, if not "new", then at least thoroughly pleasant as a better-than-necessary diversion.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
45
9/10
Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2017)
A particularly high point for mid-2010's art cinema.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
46
6/10
The Accountant (2016)
While at 128 minutes, we cannot credit The Accountant with being efficient, it clips along at a good pace and true.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
47
7/10
Sieranevada (2016)
The thematic argument does not become inaccurate simply by virtue of being familiar.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
48
10/10
A collaborative act, with the young women deciding what story they want to tell about themselves, and how they want to use the film to communicate.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
49
8/10
It might not climb the mountainous heights of the '54 Godzilla or the 1964 Mothra vs. Godzilla, but it's right up there at the top of the franchise's second tier.
Posted Dec 11, 2016
50
4/10
The Girl on the Train (2016)
A tacky splat of exploitation.
Posted Dec 11, 2016