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Wesley Morris
Tomatometer-approved critic
(Photo Credit: Michael Loccisano/ Staff/Getty Images Entertainment/ /Getty Images)
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Almost Famous (2000) |
Resistance to the euphoric swell is futile: suddenly, vintage Elton is unselfconsciously cool again. That's what Crowe can do at his best. He makes irony seem ridiculous, which itself is beautifully ironic for someone trying to keep rock alive. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Mar 26, 2024
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Glitter & Doom (2023) |
This is not a deep movie. A lot of it isn’t even good. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 07, 2024
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RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ (2023) |
We have before our eyes an entertainer at peak command of her art and therefore herself. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 02, 2023
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Saltburn (2023) |
“Saltburn” is the sort of embarrassment you’ll put up with for 75 minutes. But not for 127. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 16, 2023
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The Holdovers (2023) |
This is Payne’s first movie set in any kind of past — it’s using the old M.P.A.A. rating card and was shot, by Eigil Bryld, on cozy 35-millimeter. But it doesn’t feel stuck there. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR (2023) |
What is it we should expect from a concert movie? Cinema or fax? “Eras” is proof that an event took place and that the event was fun. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 13, 2023
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The Exorcist (1973) |
Where previously it was an appalling subversion of good taste, subtlety, exposure to Ouija boards and the Catholic stigma of divorce, it now seems clumsy and adolescent. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Wham! (2023) |
Nothing here’s overthought or pumped up. To invoke the words of a different beacon of catchiness, “Wham!” is a teenage dream. You could drink it from a coconut. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 05, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings (2023) |
I love a complete sentence for a title. Even better: a complete-sentence title that also describes a filmmaker’s chief concern. - New York Times
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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The Little Mermaid (2023) |
It reeks of obligation and noble intentions. Joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor, kink — they’re missing. The movie’s saying, “We tried!” Tried not to offend, appall, challenge, imagine. - New York Times
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| Posted May 24, 2023
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Fast X (2023) |
These movies used to know what about them was ridiculous. They’d give that to us until our hearts broke the speed limit. But I’ve already seen Diesel drive at a 90-degree angle before. The old bravado currently reeks of formula. The nerve is shot. - New York Times
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| Posted May 18, 2023
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The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons (2022) |
The title feels crucial to the aim of this movie, a sly, toasty, piquant consideration of Hammons’s conceptual art, the way it mocks and eludes easy ownership. - New York Times
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| Posted May 04, 2023
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Vengeance Is Mine (2021) |
An American movie executed with a French film’s interpersonal insouciance. - New York Times
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| Posted May 26, 2022
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The Cherry Bushido (2022) |
It’s all a mess of ideology and theology, of flowing robes, flying fists, karma, camp, cant and can’t: can’t act, can’t kick, can’t marshal any art. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 10, 2022
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The Desperate Hour (2021) |
The only thing I want less than a thriller about a school shooting is a thriller whose other main character is the main character’s iPhone. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 25, 2022
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Studio 666 (2022) |
The movie exudes real “Scooby-Doo”-meets-“The Shining” vibes that rope in Korean horror and extend to Grohl, who gives, if not his all, then at least his most charismatic “some.” - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 24, 2022
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The Automat (2021) |
The documentary Lisa Hurwitz has directed about Automats is shaggy and full of cutesy stuff, mostly involving Mel Brooks. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 17, 2022
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Taste (2021) |
I was taken with most of this movie. It’s got a firm sensualist grip. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 16, 2022
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Marry Me (2022) |
“Marry Me” is a sad tale that’s too busy leaping from plot point to plot point for Lopez to express anything close to real. It tells a lot and shows nothing. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 10, 2022
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Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021) |
The images, the music, the news, the reminiscences, the commentary often come at you at once. And with another director what you'd be left with is noise, with mess. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 24, 2021
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The Decalogue (1989) |
Kieslowski has modernized the 10 Commandments with the kind of ponderous, haunting, funny, lucid vision that makes no claims to grandiosity, epic spectacle or May sweeps stunt-casting. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted May 01, 2021
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Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square (2020) |
"Campy" is camp with a diploma and a martini. And "Christmas on the Square" is a drunk. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 23, 2020
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The King of Staten Island (2020) |
Apatow has left everything in. The scenes don't unfold or reveal personalities. They just pile up; they're long bits - parties and hangouts and meals. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 11, 2020
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Human Capital (2019) |
A character study that hasn't done its homework. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 19, 2020
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Sorry We Missed You (2019) |
This is a Loach movie, and along with being one of Earth's most venerable and venerated directors, he's almost without peer as a filmmaker formidably committed to exposing the sins of our wages. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 04, 2020
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Taylor Swift: Miss Americana (2020) |
"Miss Americana" is 85 minutes of translucence with Taylor Swift. There's more in it - and more to it - than you usually get with these pop superstar portraits. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 30, 2020
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The Amazing Johnathan Documentary (2019) |
Watching Berman persist is fascinating, embarrassing and undignified, like a politician on "Dancing With the Stars." Why, I wondered, is he doing this? - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 15, 2019
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Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) |
The filmmakers so want to maintain the joshing between Johnson and Statham that the movie's ostensible action label and the lust Shaw fears Hobbs has for his sister feel like pretexts for the romantic comedy "Hobbs & Shaw" virtually is. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 01, 2019
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Halston (2019) |
The pictures, footage, biography, news and gossip are the opposite of a Halston dress - unruly, busy, fussed over. But they come at you with an energy that feels substantial. - New York Times
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| Posted May 23, 2019
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Buddy (2018) |
The movie is warm, observant, mildly philosophical and deeply curious about the daily and inner lives of both the people and their four-legged assistants. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 19, 2019
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Babylon (1980) |
The movie is more interested in what feels real than what seems right. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 07, 2019
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To Dust (2018) |
You can see what this movie is after, something cockeyed but sincere, something in the neighborhood of Paul Mazursky, Elaine May or Alexander Payne. But the writing and filmmaking just aren't quick enough. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 07, 2019
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War Don Don (2010) |
[An] extremely well-made documentary. - Boston Globe
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| Posted Feb 04, 2019
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Serenity (2019) |
Instead of a caper with Kate Hudson, McConaughey has got a mess written and directed by Steven Knight. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 24, 2019
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Fyre (2019) |
"Fyre" hurls the swindle at its center like a bowling ball. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 16, 2019
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Fyre Fraud (2019) |
It has arguments to make about the insecurities of millennials and the perniciousness of social media. And the arguments don't feel like blather. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 16, 2019
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Second Act (2018) |
This is Jenny from the blah. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 19, 2018
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Aquaman (2018) |
It's just two and a half years of - sorry, two and a half hours - of oceanic screen savers and hair that won't stop undulating so we know when we're underwater. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 19, 2018
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The House That Jack Built (2018) |
It fails to make depravity an experience that either stimulates or appalls. If I wanted to leave von Trier's movie, it wasn't because I was nauseous. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 13, 2018
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Martyr (2017) |
The characters are sketches filled in by good acting. Khaled's not telling a story about them so much as tapping, obliquely, into an oppressive national mood... - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 13, 2018
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Amazing Grace (2018) |
You get both the most lovely gaze a professional camera's ever laid upon Aretha Franklin and some of the mightiest singing she's ever laid on you. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 06, 2018
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The Charmer (2017) |
It's impressive that Alami can put all this across - romance, suspense and, in the moving final act, a kind of tragedy - and maintain the movie's nimbleness. But he's a natural storyteller. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 04, 2018
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John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection (2018) |
The guy's wildly temperamental tennis would never be my first choice for such an acutely cinematic undertaking. But Mr. Faraut knows what he's doing. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 21, 2018
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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) |
Ms. Streep's near total absence leaves a hole Cher is expected to fill. It's too little, way too late, of course, and because it's Cher, it's also too much. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 18, 2018
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Whitney (2018) |
"Whitney" is too funereal to be a party, too sad, strange and dismaying to cheer. Yet, in its grim, guilt-inducing way, the film works, even on the occasions when it's working against itself. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 05, 2018
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Saving Brinton (2017) |
The movie's hands-off approach does often amount to something poignant. - New York Times
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| Posted May 17, 2018
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Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2017) |
The documentary is a feat of portraiture and a restoration of humanity. It's got the uncanny, the sublime, and, in many spots, a combination of both. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 12, 2018
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Mountains May Depart (2015) |
Another breakthrough by a director who has never stopped pushing either himself or his idea of what a Chinese movie can do and be. - Grantland
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| Posted Oct 24, 2016
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My King (2015) |
As a director, Mawenn is at her best with ensembles, using actors as instruments and harmonizing tones. - Grantland
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| Posted Aug 16, 2016
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Carol (2015) |
This is a slender movie that Haynes gives plenty of antique atmosphere. - Grantland
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| Posted Aug 16, 2016
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