Cineaste Magazine

Cineaste Magazine is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Adam Nayman, Christopher Long, David Sterritt, Glenn Heath Jr., Graham Fuller, Maria Garcia, Robert Koehler

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Rating

Title/Year

Author

Quote

1

Phantom (1922)

Phantom is a fitting title for a story in which emotions are ruthless, motivations are slippery, and identity itself is dauntingly hard to pin down. This isn't exactly horror, but parts of it border on nightmare.

Posted Nov 11, 2021

2

Waxworks (1926)

[It] doesn't have quite as much élan nowadays as, say, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Murnau's spectacular Faust, but retains enormous power as an exemplar of German Expressionism at its spooky, rambunctious best.

Posted May 20, 2021

3

Ingagi (1930)

Politically, ethnographically, and cinematically incorrect, it's a cautionary specimen of exploitation film at its most shamelessly exploitative.

Posted Mar 4, 2021

4

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2020)

There are many reasons to praise Armando Iannucci's adaptation of Charles Dickens's The Personal History of David Copperfield...Iannucci's exuberant take on this classic Bildungsroman is doubly Dickensian...

Posted Nov 20, 2020

5

My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) (2017)

I mention Tavernier's varied background at the outset because his intimacy with every aspect of movie production, distribution, and exhibition shines through each installment of Journeys Through French Cinema.

Posted May 22, 2020

6

An Officer and a Spy (J'accuse) (2019)

The results are not just to thrust the past to the present, but to envelop the viewer in the thinking that defined that past.

Posted May 22, 2020

7

Parasite (Gisaengchung) (2019)

When the history of this moment in world cinema is written, Parasite will take its place as the movie that got the moment right.

Posted Feb 25, 2020

8

The Nightingale (2019)

... it amply demonstrates in microcosm the inherent barbarity of the colonizing of the island...

Posted Sep 5, 2019

9

Border (Gräns) (2018)

Darragh O'Donoghue

Border, therefore, is inevitably diminished on a second or informed first viewing. That said, it is still an impressive piece of work.

Posted Feb 27, 2019

10

The Favourite (2018)

The movie singlehandedly upends decades of unimaginative habits by British filmmakers who have generally treated history as well-behaved pageants with period-perfect costumes and lavish settings.

Posted Feb 27, 2019

11

Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018)

Jonathan Murray

A celluloid tribute to mid-twentieth-century jazz assumes jazzlike form itself, taking a title with powerful preexisting associations only to riff on and away from such things in highly individual and innovative ways.

Posted Nov 29, 2018

12

Angels Wear White (2018)

Angels adopts the gritty, documentary-style realism of Chinese independent cinema, using sharp, handheld images to depict the daily struggle of the underclass, but refuses to take women's fall from grace for granted.

Posted Sep 5, 2018

13

Chasing Madoff (2011)

Chasing Madoff takes ninety-one minutes and delivers nothing more than what it hopes to pass off as the story of an unsung, working-class hero.

Posted Aug 21, 2018

14

Young Adult (2011)

There is not much to admire in Young Adult in terms of originality in cinematography or production design.

Posted Aug 21, 2018

15

The House I Live In (2012)

What makes The House I Live In so potent is the filmmaker's sincerity. Despite a preference for sweeping statements and conclusions, he establishes palpable emotional connections to several of his subjects who are victims of the war on drugs.

Posted Aug 21, 2018

16

Phantom Thread (2018)

Phantom Thread does not flaunt an easily digestible, on-the nose heartwarming message. Highly allusive in its propensity to quote, or pay tribute to, film history, Anderson's approach... does not offer his audience predigested verities.

Posted Jun 8, 2018

17

Call Me by Your Name (2018)

Lawrence Garcia

Call Me By Your Name is made from small wonder, all the more impressive for being so seamlessly fused to an overall, unified vision.

Posted Dec 11, 2017

18

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Blade Runner 2049 offers the reassurance of the familiar. Not bad, just not enough.

Posted Nov 7, 2017

19

War Machine (2017)

Glenn Heath Jr.

He deftly explores how cycles of human delusion help fuel failing foreign policies and rampant governmental hubris.

Posted Nov 7, 2017

20

Okja (2017)

The film's emotional through line is simple, though the plot is convoluted.

Posted Aug 29, 2017

21

Baby Driver (2017)

Baby Driver is so poorly written on levels of plot, characterization and (especially) dialogue that Wright's typically first-rate craftsmanship fails to save it-and, in context, even becomes its own source of annoyance.

Posted Aug 29, 2017

22

Hell or High Water (2016)

The best Western since -- what? -- Unforgiven (1992)? Open Range (2003)? The elemental elements are all there, burnt into the film's hide like a brand, with no irony, no city slicker condescension

Posted Dec 27, 2016

23

American Honey (2016)

As it traverses the hinterland, providing windows into various social classes, each of which is fair game for Krystal, American Honey becomes a kind of bitter allegory of the American Dream.

Posted Dec 12, 2016

24

A Bigger Splash (2016)

Darragh O'Donoghue

[It's undone by] Guadagnino's would-be exhibitionist style; the narrative of A Bigger Splash hops tiresomely between the present drama and multiple "explanatory" flashbacks.

Posted Nov 15, 2016

25

The Neon Demon (2016)

That everything is intended in bad taste is one thing; that it's all finally more bland than bitter is another.

Posted Nov 8, 2016

26

The Academy of Muses (La academia de las musas) (2016)

The film's staged explorations of literature's effect on the psyche are ultimately revealing of the force held on the psyche by cinema, a medium with the power to preserve people as we once knew and possibly treasured them.

Posted Aug 30, 2016

27

Spotlight (2015)

In Spotlight, journalism is serious business. And -- not to bury the lede -- it plays less as a paean to a noble profession than an elegy to a set of practices that are as dead as the steam-powered printing press.

Posted Mar 2, 2016

28

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Fear not and have faith, the film assures us, television will do what the pathetic U.S. Constitution could not-put the malefactor on trial and render a just -- that is, guilty -- verdict, with the perp nailed in the witness chair.

Posted Dec 13, 2015

29

Carol (2015)

The movie's sensory evocation of falling in love, with all its joys and miseries, is gender-blind; its critique of patriarchal power-hoarding and bourgeois repressiveness -- the Sirkian theme Haynes previously explored in Far from Heaven -- is timeless.

Posted Dec 13, 2015

30

3/4

The Sorcerers (1967)

A truly chilling film.

Posted Dec 22, 2012

31

3/4

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Does Rises rise to the occasion? I'd say it depends on where you're invested, but it's pleasantly straightforward.

Posted Jul 19, 2012

32

3/4

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (2011)

An interview with Guillermo del Toro and Guy Pearce.

Posted Aug 30, 2011

33

3/4

Bellflower (2011)

One of the most intriguing movies around, at once knife-edged and tender, ablaze with flaming imagery and a thrashing soundtrack, and more ambitious than films with far greater resources at their disposal.

Posted Aug 1, 2011

34

2.5

Stake Land (2011)

Not bad but leaves its best ideas by the side of the road.

Posted May 10, 2011

35

4/4

Splice (2010)

More than the sum of its spare parts.

Posted Jan 24, 2011

36

8/10

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

Christopher Long

Iguanas aside, Cage's performance is the film's centerpiece. He starts at over the top and climbs ever higher...

Posted May 2, 2010

37

3/4

King Kong (2005)

Twas beauty killed the beast? No. Twas Silicon Graphics.

Posted Jun 18, 2008

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