Film Freak Central
Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
.5/4
The 355 (2022)
There's no world in which the picture would have been a success.
Posted Jan 20, 2022
2
3.5/4
Scream (2022)
Scream 5 is on par with the original and perhaps just a half-step back from the second in that it challenges how one approaches horror movies not as mythology but as metatext.
Posted Jan 20, 2022
3
2.5/4
A Hero (2022)
What's good about A Hero is what's good about all of Farhadi's work.
Posted Jan 7, 2022
4
3.5/4
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
A haunted interpretation of Shakespeare that underscores my belief that the Coen Brothers - in this case, just Joel - are/is among our finest literary critics.
Posted Dec 29, 2021
5
.5/4
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
The plot of Matrix 4 is essentially that conversation with the guy who's way too stoned who has this great idea for a Matrix sequel.
Posted Dec 21, 2021
6
4
The Novice (2021)
7
2/4
Being the Ricardos (2021)
8
2.5/4
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
9
4/4
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021)
[Ryusuke] Hamaguchi's movies are a form of communion--that is to say, a connection that touches on profundity.
Posted Dec 13, 2021
10
West Side Story (2021)
11
2.5/4
In Front of Your Face (2021)
I never regret watching a Hong Sang-soo movie. I guess I just like his company.
Posted Nov 29, 2021
12
2/4
Introduction (2021)
13
3.5/4
Benedetta (2021)
Can I get a hallelujah?
Posted Nov 29, 2021
14
3/4
House of Gucci (2021)
Like a Nagel painting come to life: gaudy affectations of glamour and art for the bawdiest appreciators of unintentional camp.
Posted Nov 29, 2021
15
2.5/4
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
The picture is ultimately too awkward and formula-bound to be great, but damned if it isn't breezy and heartfelt...
Posted Nov 29, 2021
16
1.5/4
Licorice Pizza (2021)
17
4/4
No Time To Die (2021)
The best one since Peter Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service and for many of the same reasons.
Posted Nov 19, 2021
18
2/4
tick, tick...Boom! (2021)
19
4/4
Drive My Car (2021)
It's incredible and incredibly rewarding.
Posted Nov 12, 2021
20
1.5/5
Finch (2021)
It's a nominal tearjerker playing on the emotions of the type of people who leave a lot of money when they die to their dogs and nothing to those ungrateful children.
Posted Nov 12, 2021
21
2.5/4
7 Days (2022)
7 Days shows real chops, real intelligence, sharp timing, and lovely and compelling chemistry between its leads.
Posted Nov 12, 2021
22
3.5/4
Catch the Fair One (2022)
It's a stunning debut for [Kali] Reis, who is never anything but completely credible in her grief, fear, intelligence, and determination.
Posted Nov 12, 2021
23
1/4
Eternals (2021)
it's pretty clear that Zhao's empathy for unaffected performers rambling in lingering magic-hour landscapes has won the day.
Posted Oct 28, 2021
24
2.5/4
25
3/4
Titane (2021)
It's not perfect, but that works for a film about imperfection. I'm interested to see how she follows this one up.
Posted Oct 22, 2021
26
1/4
The Manor (2021)
The Manor is terrible by almost every standard measure of quality.
Posted Oct 21, 2021
27
2/4
Bergman Island (2021)
It's like those Russian nesting dolls where most if not all of the point is to reveal that there's another doll inside of this doll.
Posted Oct 15, 2021
28
1/4
Needle in a Timestack (2021)
John Ridley's Needle in a Timestack is this year's Serenity: a film so intensely invested in its adolescent feelings that it's headed towards a specific state of camp immortality.
Posted Oct 15, 2021
29
4/4
Mad God (2021)
30
3/4
Frank & Zed (2020)
There's profundity in Jesse Blanchard's Frank & Zed... a rod-puppet adventure hewing closer to community puppet theatre than to The Dark Crystal while sharing DNA with both.
Posted Oct 13, 2021
31
2/4
Encounter (2021)
Encounter is a terrible disappointment, though Ahmed is a treasure. I'll hold onto that when the red tide rises.
Posted Oct 1, 2021
32
2/4
The Guilty (2021)
33
3/4
Night Raiders (2021)
For all its strengths in world-building, it hasn't quite worked out some of the complexities of its dystopia.
Posted Sep 23, 2021
34
3.5/4
Earwig (2021)
As visually and aurally arresting as it is inscrutable.
Posted Sep 23, 2021
35
2/4
Copshop (2021)
36
.5/4
Lady of the Manor (2021)
[A] self-satisfied, high-concept comedy that apes Neil Jordan's High Spirits and Jared and Jerusha Hess's Austenland while entirely wasting Melanie Lynskey and Judy Greer.
Posted Sep 22, 2021
37
4/4
The Lost Daughter (2021)
38
2.5/4
Flee (2021)
A high-concept work of creative nonfiction whose unconventional style promises an immersiveness it can't really deliver.... [Flee] is intermittently moving and insightful.
Posted Sep 22, 2021
39
4/4
Dune (2021)
40
0/4
Dear Evan Hansen (2021)
41
2.5/4
Scarborough (2021)
42
3.5/4
Benediction (2021)
A luxurious and achingly blue profile of First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon.
Posted Sep 17, 2021
43
4/4
The Power of the Dog (2021)
44
3/4
C'mon C'mon (2021)
Although I didn't like C'mon C'mon, I do respect it. It's trying to do something very difficult. It made me unhappy and uncomfortable, but it's not supposed to be easy.
Posted Sep 13, 2021
45
3.5/4
Malignant (2021)
In a field of films carefully measured and screen-tested to a lumpen grey sameness, Malignant pulls no punches.
Posted Sep 13, 2021
46
3.5/5
Cyrano (2022)
47
3.5/5
Spencer (2021)
Spencer is, like The Last of England, not subtle, though it does manage in the end a kind of sublimity.
Posted Sep 8, 2021
48
The French Dispatch (2021)
The French Dispatch, save fleeting if powerful hints of humanity, left me irritated, bored, and ultimately cold.
Posted Sep 7, 2021
49
0/4
King Richard (2021)
As the film exists with the fulsome blessing of the Williams family, expect a hagiography. And a hagiography you shall receive.
Posted Sep 7, 2021
50
4/4
Pig (2021)