Category Archives: movie reviews

movie reviews

Best Sources For Movie Reviews

Leave a comment

Reviewing The Reviewers

There are thousands of places to find movie reviews online, from obscure independent sites (like this one!) to giants like the MRQE (Movie Review Query Engine).

This is a short and extremely biased review of some of my favorite (and not so favorite) places to find movie reviews.

VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 2013

This is the largest print book of movie reviews you can find, and it gets updated every single year. I often wonder how they can keep putting it out each year and still include all the new movies that are released.

The partial answer is, as huge as it is, it’s not close to comprehensive. In fact, in the few editions of it I’ve owned, I’ve noticed that each one has more movies missing.

Still, it’s by far the best of its kind. This doesn’t mean I always agree with the reviews. Far from it. In some cases, the reviewers seem to try too hard to pander to mainstream and conventional tastes. Still, it’s a superb reference, especially if you want a hard copy movie review resource.

Movie Review Query Engine

This is not a movie review site per se, but a meta review site. That is, it lists reviews for any movie you look up. Once again, it’s not comprehensive. Many indie films you might find on Netflix, for example, can’t be found here. The focus is on mainstream movies that get reviewed by major reviewers -e.g. Variety, The New York Times, Roger Ebert, etc. For this, however, it’s a great resource.

IMDb

This is probably the most complete movie resource on the internet. It’s the one place you are almost certain to find any movie that’s been released, whether a TV movie, an obscure indie film or a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster.

That said, the reviews on this site are nothing special. They are simply reviews written by users of the site. The reviews are on a 10 star scale, which, in my opinion, is too many stars to be useful. Furthermore, many films are not reviewed at all. All in all, Imdb is better for looking up information, such as the year, cast or director of a film than reviews.

Netflix

Netflix is strange when it comes to reviews. The whole system has seemed very buggy over the last couple of years. For example, I’ve noticed that for many films, all reviews were rated 100% “helpful.” The whole “helpful” vs. “not helpful” system, which I believe started on Amazon is very dubious in itself, but as long as you’re going to use it, you may as well make it honest. And when all reviews are rated helpful, it renders the whole thing pointless.

As for the reviews themselves. Netflix customers on the whole tend to be a very mainstream and/or conservative bunch. You’ll find many reviewers, for example, objecting to curse words or the immoral values of a certain movie. This puritanical bent is quite common among Netflix reviewers, and can result in reviews that don’t really tell you much about the movie.

Amazon

Amazon.com reviews for movies are similar to their reviews for books (and everything else they sell), which means a very mixed bag. Overall, however, Amazon reviewers tend to be more sophisticated and educated than Netflix reviewers, probably because of the literary origins of Amazon.

The main limitation of Amazon for movie reviews is that you’ll only find movies that are available for sale in at least one format. This includes lots of movies, of course, but it also excludes some good ones.

My Amazon Reviews (this includes book reviews as well as movies)

Related Blogs

    indie films, movie reviews

    Stone -a Film With Psychological and Spiritual Depth

    Leave a comment

    Stone is a surprisingly complex and thought-provoking film from director John Curran. To describe the plot of this film -a probably sociopathic prison inmate (Edward Norton) schemes with his wife (Milla Jovovich) to manipulate his parole officer (Robert DeNiro) to win early release – makes it sound like a possibly interesting, but predictable crime drama. Yet the longer it goes on, the more nuanced and complicated things get.

    Robert DeNiro, of course, specializes in playing unhinged, or about-to-go-unhinged characters, and this is no exception. As Jack Mabry, an unhappily married parole officer about to retire, he listens to provocative religious talk radio on his way to work and has a cynicism, borne of long experience, towards his inmate “clients.” Norton, meanwhile, gives a great performance as Stone, a streetwise career criminal doing a long sentence for arson. When he pressures his beautiful wife Lucetta to contact his parole officer outside, it seems like a fairly straightforward set-up -Lucetta will try to seduce Mabry so they’ll have something on him, and Stone will go free.

    Yet mid-way through the film, Stone apparently has a spiritual awakening after reading a prison book that instructs him to repeat a certain mantra. Is this real, or part of his scheme? Much of the film involves conversations between Stone and Mabry. At first, Stone behaves like you might expect a violent convict, barely able to suppress his anger at Mabry having power over him. Yet after his “experience,” his personality is transforms, which only makes Mabry dislike and distrust him all the more.

    Meanwhile, Lucetta’s motives are not as clear cut as we first assume. A natural seductress, she doesn’t have much trouble getting to the repressed Stone, but we are soon left wondering whose side, if anyone’s, she’s really on. As for Mabry, it is revealed early on that he has a violent and unstable streak in him, and we’re not sure when he might become unravelled.

    There’s a certain ambiguity to Stone that will not please many viewers. Yet I was impressed with the psychological subtlety of it, and how it maintained its integrity by not devolving into a standard Hollywood climax. Highly recommended if you like character based stories that have some psychological, and even spiritual depth.

    Related Blogs

    Documentary, movie reviews

    Exit Through the Gift Shop

    2 Comments

    No one seems to know for sure if Exit Through the Gift Shop is a real documentary or a prank played by street artist Banksy. Either way, it’s a fascinating portrayal of both the street art movement, pop culture and the strange point where the two meet.

    The film starts out with Frenchman Thiery Guetta, the cousin of street artist Space Invader, filming various street artists in Paris, Los Angeles and other locations. Street art was the next phase of graffiti that became popular in the 1990s, and we see leading practitioners of this art, such as Shephard Fairey at work, painting their elaborate creations in prominent locations around cities. While some people label graffiti and street art simply as vandalism, and on one level it is -and I doubt that few street artists themselves would argue with this- much of it is also undeniably creative and original. While it’s sort of redundant to say it’s subversive, it may be one of the few statements that can be made nowadays that this could truly be said about, as there’s no commercial intent behind it. Or so it would seem.

    Yet Exit Through the Gift Shop ends up being more about the commercialization of art than street art per se. When Thiery finally meets the mysterious English street artist Banksy, we watch him leave his mark around Los Angeles, London and, most daringly, on the infamous wall in the West Bank, right under the noses of military patrols. When Banksy pressures Thiery to put together an actual documentary, however, the result is a disaster and it’s revealed that Thiery knows nothing about filmmaking, so Banksy takes over the project and the focus turns on Thiery. That’s at least the official story, which hasn’t been confirmed to this day.

    The denouement of the film comes when Thiery reinvents himself as Mister Brainwash and has a major opening in L.A. that turns him into a celebrity. At this point, a man who starts out as an amiable eccentric is transformed into a near megalomaniac who proclaims himself the next Andy Warhol. Indeed, many of his paintings are variations on Warhol’s themes, with lots of giant Campbell’s Soup cans, Elvis renditions and distortions of famous paintings. Despite the obviously derivative nature of his work, his opening is a huge success, and he goes on to design one of Madonna’s album covers. The people Thiery filmed earlier, from Fairey to Banksy are now less than enthralled with him, and the implication is that he is a sellout while the art critics and general public are gullible fools.

    Taken at face value, the film doesn’t quite add up. Why would the anarchic Banksy put his name behind the film if he truly despised the result? The fact that we see Banksy himself with a very public art opening earlier in the film proves he isn’t as adverse to publicity as he pretends. Still, whatever we might suspect about Banksy’s intentions or honesty, he undoubtedly has real talent. In a review in the English paper The Sunday Times, Wendy Ide mentions that she once interviewed Banksy, and he revealed that It’s A Beautiful Life is his favorite film. Probably not coincidentally, that’s the name Thiery/Mister Brainwash gives to his art exhibit that Banksy allegedly had nothing to do with.

    Exit Through the Gift Shop [Blu-ray] is a truly postmodern film about contemporary culture, which means its ultimate veracity, or lack thereof is of secondary importance at most. It causes the viewer to contemplate that ancient question, “What is art?” This makes it more meaningful than 99% of other contemporary films.

    Related Blogs

    movie reviews

    Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide

    3 Comments

    Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide (Signet))

    Review

    “The go-to choice for both film geeks and casual couch potatoes.” —The New York Times Book Review “The best of the bunch.”—San Francisco Chronicle “The single most important reference book in every home.” —Esquire
    –This text refers to an alternate

    Paperback
    edition.

    The New York Times bestselling film guide— revised and updatedThe most authoritative book of its kind, now with more entries than ever before, updated and revised for 2009…
    Buy Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide at Amazon

    movie reviews

    Flickipedia: Perfect Films for Every Occasion, Holiday, Mood, Ordeal, and Whim

    2 Comments

    Flickipedia: Perfect Films for Every Occasion, Holiday, Mood, Ordeal, and Whim

    Review

    “Great fun for any movie lover. I’m proud to add this entertaining read to my personal reference shelf.”  —Richard Roeper, cohost, Ebert & Roeper”Easily the most useful movies-to-rent guide I’ve ever come across.”  —Luc Sante, author, Evidence, The Factory of Facts, and Low Life”Easily organized and briskly written. One for any indecisive cineaste’s bookshelf.”  —Oklahoma Gazette”An addictive, perceptive DVD guide.”  —Play”Entertaining and unique.”  —Bozema…
    Buy Flickipedia: Perfect Films for Every Occasion, Holiday, Mood, Ordeal, and Whim at Amazon

    movie reviews

    The Great Movies II

    3 Comments

    The Great Movies II

    From Publishers Weekly

    At times, Ebert’s second collection of 100 essays on great (but not, he’s careful to point out, the greatest) movies reads like an anthology of recycled reviews from his Chicago Sun-Times column, especially when he gets talking about the bonus features on DVDs. But anyone looking for a crash course in cinema viewing—regardless of whether they’ve been through Ebert’s first Great Movies collection (published in 2002)—will find plenty of rewards here. Some…
    Buy The Great Movies II at Amazon

    movie reviews

    1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: 5th Anniversary Edition

    3 Comments

    1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: 5th Anniversary Edition

    From Booklist

    Film lovers seeking critical guidance more discerning than daily newspaper reviews but less daunting than scholarly journal articles depend on a handful of critics who write about rarefied films for a general audience. 1001 Movies You Must See before You Die puts a user-friendly mask on the serious thought animating its effort to create a roster of indispensable films and rather belies the erudition of its well-qualified contributors. The chosen 1,001 are chronologi…
    Buy 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: 5th Anniversary Edition at Amazon

    movie reviews

    The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms

    2 Comments

    The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms

    From Publishers Weekly

    In his introduction to this rewarding anthology, critically acclaimed author Powers (Galatea 2.2; Plowing the Dark; etc.) says that reading is the “last refuge from the real-time epidemic.” To that end, the selections gathered here are grouped by how long they offer escape from real time: waiting rooms need long stories, for example, while elevators demand poems. Roth, Munro and Naipaul are among the 46 big-name contributors. In the Planes section, Junot Di…
    Buy The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms at Amazon