High on Films - Rotten Tomatoes

High on Films

High on Films is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Shikhar Verma
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
4/5
Happening (2021)

Shikhar Verma

The director presents a sensitive, almost urgent look at the realities of a world that gets aggressively unfair when a person isn't allowed to take control over their own bodies.
Posted Feb 1, 2022
2
4/5
After Yang (2022)

Shikhar Verma

At once about grief and memories, this is a truly meditative and intimate look at the human condition and what really makes a family.
Posted Feb 1, 2022
3
3.5/5
Dual (2022)

Shikhar Verma

The fact that Sarah has to fight her own clone in order to survive, is an excellent critic of the capitalistic system that exploits and replaces us like cogs in the wheel.
Posted Jan 28, 2022
4
3/5
Girl Picture (2022)

Shikhar Verma

In only her second feature-length film, Haapsalo manages to capture the euphoria of a young generation, while also allowing them to understand their own comforts and likings.
Posted Jan 26, 2022
5
3/5
Brian and Charles (2022)

Shikhar Verma

For a 90 minutes long film, Brian and Charles feels a bit predictable. But the big smile on your face never sheds off, even when the credits start to roll.
Posted Jan 25, 2022
6
3.5/5
The Cathedral (2022)

Shikhar Verma

D'Ambrose's film creates a snapshot that feels almost Bressonian. And yet, truly unique on its own.
Posted Jan 23, 2022
7
3.5/5
Emergency (2022)

Shikhar Verma

Williams makes sure he maintains a pretty dopey, high-school night-gone-wrong vibe through and through, but also never holds back from taking a sharp, almost satirical look at the black experience in modern-day America.
Posted Jan 22, 2022
8
3/5
Fresh (2022)

Shikhar Verma

Thanks to a brilliant psychotic turn by Sebastian Stan and writer Lauryn Kahn's dry wit, Fresh feels like a horror film that is both urgent and entertaining.
Posted Jan 21, 2022
9
2/5
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Shikhar Verma

This gothic retelling, which basically strips the play to its bare essentials, never really wakes up.
Posted Jan 14, 2022
10
2.5/5
Imminent Threat (2015)

Shikhar Verma

[Imminent Threat] is an interesting audio-visual assemblage that too often hits familiar notes.
Posted Jan 7, 2022
11
Money, Fascism, and Some Sort of Acid (2020)

Shikhar Verma

Money, Fascism, and Some Sort of Acid is trying to uncover how people over the centuries have been manipulated and forced into believing things, rather than empathizing and giving them the agency to think for themselves.
Posted Dec 30, 2021
12
3/5
Swan Song (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Swan Song is above all a film about a man's grief for the loss of his presence in his family's life. A sort of futuristic endeavour that is grounded in a story that's told with sincerity.
Posted Dec 20, 2021
13
4/5
Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (2021)

Shikhar Verma

R.J. Cutler's documentary is an honest and frank documentation of a sensational young woman and her ability to withstand all the clutter to produce and connect to a generation of people through her voice.
Posted Dec 5, 2021
14
2.5/5
Look Away, Look Away (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Look Away, Look Away is asking privileged Americans to look beyond their fragile egos and associations with wrongful past, to lead and understand the diversity that defines the human race.
Posted Dec 4, 2021
15
3/5
7 Prisoners (7 prisioneiros) (2021)

Shikhar Verma

7 Prisoners is an honest drama about human trafficking and the cyclic nature of its psychological traumas.
Posted Nov 11, 2021
16
3/5
Finch (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Finch is a sweet post-apocalyptic road movie about the unforeseeable friendships we forge in a world that is aggressively going to the dumpster.
Posted Nov 6, 2021
17
The Shattering (2021)

Shikhar Verma

The Shattering relies heavily on these key players and the trauma they carry within themselves. Murisa Harba fails to capture the essence of this woman with a troubled mind.
Posted Nov 3, 2021
18
2.5/5
The Last Days of Capitalism (2020)

Shikhar Verma

[The Last Days of Capitalism] makes for a rather convincing portrait of the faux American dream and white privilege.
Posted Oct 31, 2021
19
3/5
Beastie Boys Story (2020)

Shikhar Verma

Structured under chapters that shout funny randomness (much like the sound that designed them as a band), Beastie Boys Story is a great homage to a band that never settled and constantly evolved.
Posted Oct 23, 2021
20
4/5
Sardar Udham (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Sardar Udham paints a vivid picture of oppression and imperialism. Sircar cleverly sets his tale in a way that the revenge at its centre is used as a basic plot point in the lure of giving the more palpable political context a contemporary treatment.
Posted Oct 19, 2021
21
2/5
Rashmi Rocket (2021)

Shikhar Verma

From the first frame to the last, director Khurana approaches the material in a rather basic and heavy-handed way.
Posted Oct 19, 2021
22
1/5
Needle in a Timestack (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Director John Ridley is obsessed with this juvenile idea of love; something that you would find in computer-generated web pages on the internet, and does nothing else to make his characters even remotely interesting.
Posted Oct 14, 2021
23
3/5
Fever Dream (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Fever Dream is a film that will keep you invested in its narrative with an unexplainable emptiness within. It's almost like looking at a puzzle from a distance and realizing that all the elements are already there.
Posted Oct 13, 2021
24
3/5
Seeding Change: The Power of Conscious Commerce (2021)

Shikhar Verma

It takes an inspiring look at businesses that have grown a conscience by dwelling on the ways in which they can succeed in the contemporary world without harming the already depleting consumption chain.
Posted Oct 11, 2021
25
3/5
No Time To Die (2021)

Shikhar Verma

The result is a big screen extravaganza that matches Bond's charisma with Craig's humanized approach to the character, to the best of its abilities.
Posted Oct 3, 2021
26
2/5
The Guilty (2021)

Shikhar Verma

The only high point here is Jake Gyllenhaals dedicated performance that almost salvages this unwarranted Americanization of a far superior Danish thriller.
Posted Oct 3, 2021
27
4/5
Titane (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Both a seriously unsettling & squeamish serial killer movie and a compassionate & searing look at acceptance, Titane is a one-of-a-kind representation for the gender-fluid generation.
Posted Oct 3, 2021
28
2/5
Sounds Like Love (2021)

Shikhar Verma

After a point, undermining conventions become tiresome and the overall flow of the film feels like it is looking for a redemptive arc that never comes.
Posted Sep 30, 2021
29
2.5/5
Cherry (2021)

Shikhar Verma

[Cherry] seriously suffers from tonal inconsistency; juggling a growing-up narrative with a half-baked anti-war message. Tom Holland tries his best to balance this stylish but inconsequential outing with a rather misguided but heartfelt performance.
Posted Sep 18, 2021
30
3/5
Dug Dug (2021)

Shikhar Verma

3 years in the making and bound to have a cult-like following, Ritwik Pareek's "Dug Dug" takes a satirical look at religious faith, myth-making, and the politics behind it all.
Posted Sep 13, 2021
31
3/5
Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Gunpowder milkshake is a frothy, delicious, candy-like female assassin movie that has a blast with the pulpy world it creates.
Posted Sep 12, 2021
32
1/5
Reminiscence (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Characters talk to each other with words that feel like sermons and the plot goes nowhere before finally tapping out.
Posted Sep 6, 2021
33
2/5
Vacation Friends (2021)

Shikhar Verma

With a total of 4 credited writers, Vacation Friends just feels like it is doing a 'classic circle sweep maneuver' with little to no focus on its ultimate aim.
Posted Aug 31, 2021
34
2/5
Greyhound (2020)

Shikhar Verma

It doesn't help that there is zero character build-up for Ernest Krause, making our care for him come from Hanks' dedicated performance and not a memorable mid-war maneuver.
Posted Aug 30, 2021
35
3.5/5
Pig (2021)

Shikhar Verma

[Pig] tells us to keep living, in spite of the losses that we face in the way.
Posted Aug 28, 2021
36
3/5
Ten Months (2020)

Shikhar Verma

Namkoong Sun's approach to the subject matter feels fresh in spite of revisiting familiar tropes and that is a feat on its own.
Posted Aug 12, 2021
37
3.5/5
The Story of Southern Islet (2020)

Shikhar Verma

Through incredible lightning and camera placements, debutant director Chong Keat Aun manages to conjure up an atmosphere that replicates a cursed sense of dread, while also producing tranquility in the lapses.
Posted Aug 7, 2021
38
3.5/5
John and the Hole (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Sisto, who is also a visual artist builds an incredible sense of The result is a black comedy and a dark coming-of-age film that also serves as an allegory for alienation faced by young people in the face of adult supervision.
Posted Aug 6, 2021
39
3/5
The Asian Angel (2021)

Shikhar Verma

In Yuya Ishii's "The Asian Angel" two families come together by chance. Of course, there's a divine connection here but director Ishii uses that for comedic relief in a film that brings people together, in spite of a multi-cultural milieu.
Posted Aug 5, 2021
40
4/5
Manta Ray (2018)

Shikhar Verma

Subtly filmed and mostly silent in its metaphorical look at societal displacement, Manta Ray is a film of truly artistic beauty.
Posted Aug 5, 2021
41
3.5/5
Mass (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Without taking sides, Kranz lets his set of characters play it out - leading up to an incredibly moving and cathartic experience for both the characters and the viewers.
Posted Aug 1, 2021
42
3/5
Sweat (2020)

Shikhar Verma

While von Horn's film is a wee bit thin and unfocused in what it really wants to convey, this is definitely a deeply unsettling and realistic portrayal of a life that is completely inhibited by being online.
Posted Jul 31, 2021
43
3/5
Meat Me Halfway (2021)

Shikhar Verma

While this feels like propaganda waiting to mislead a generation of people, the documentary provides a well-balanced look at how meat consumption, its reduction, and trudging towards a vegetable-based diet is the need of the hour.
Posted Jul 21, 2021
44
4/5
Flee (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Rasmussen's moving documentary uses gorgeous animation to tell a tale of survival and resilience and leads up to a moment of absolute, hopeful catharsis.
Posted Jul 7, 2021
45
4/5
The Fallout (2021)

Shikhar Verma

While being sensitive to the issues at hand, Park's film doesn't lead these kids to become some kind of matured version of themselves instantly.
Posted Jul 7, 2021
46
4/5
Passing (2021)

Shikhar Verma

Since its main focus doesn't lead you into racial tension of the times, the film becomes a singular, deeper, and mysterious enigma about desires and an inability to withstand what one becomes with time.
Posted Jul 7, 2021
47
2.5/5
Touch (2020)

Shikhar Verma

Though not entirely fulfilling after an exceptional first act, Szczepanowska's film is irresistible for how it delves into desire and the need for something that truly belongs to you.
Posted Jun 30, 2021
48
3/5
I Carry You with Me (2021)

Shikhar Verma

The eventual shot at the American dream is neither glorified, not undermined in the film. This somehow washes away some of the flaws that come with the conventionality it couldn't free itself from.
Posted Jun 26, 2021
49
2/5
False Positive (2021)

Shikhar Verma

The film tries to dabble into a few too many territories, only to get crushed under the weight of the classic horror film it wants to riff.
Posted Jun 24, 2021
50
3/5
Brighton 4th (2022)

Shikhar Verma

Full of sweet-natured humor and genuine characters with empathy, this is a familiar tale of survival in a land that doesn't feel like home.
Posted Jun 22, 2021