movie reviews

Best Sources For Movie Reviews

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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)

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    French films, Quirky comedies

    Lost Cause (Sans Dessein)

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    Lost Cause (Sans Dessein) (2009) is an offbeat French Canadian comedy that mixes slapstick, vulgar and completely original types of humor.

    Paul (Steeve Leonard) is a thirty-something slacker who stumbles through life doing as little as possible. He is content enough to live alone in an apartment where nothing has been unpacked and to work as a janitor, watching miscellaneous how-to videos in his spare time.

    He is visited by a ghost who turns out to be his future self, who inhabits various objects, including a mop and an old sock, which creates many opportunities for the slapstick humor.

    The ghost, who causes him to lose his job by knocking over his boss’s Eiffel Tower sculpture (made from Q-Tips), informs him that if he doesn’t change his ways he will die a particularly humiliating death in his own bathroom.

    For a lighthearted comedy, Lost Cause is rather complex and quite long (just under 2 hours, but seems longer). Paul must choose between two love interests, a woman with whom he had a crush on in elementary school (Julie Tetreault),  who is obsessed with (what she thinks are) his telekinetic powers and a quirky neighbor (Caroline Labreche, who co-directed it along with Leonard).

    Although the plot takes various silly twists, it’s really more a series of funny, sometimes touching and sometimes tedious scenes. If you’re used to seeing French films, you’ll notice that the French Canadian accents are noticeably different.

    Lost Cause is mostly enjoyable, but it could be more compact and focused. Based on the lack of reviews, or any mention on the MRQE (Movie Review Query Engine), it appears to only be available on Netflix.  There is, however, a listing for it on the IMDb, which is the most complete online movie database. Lost Cause IMDb

    While not perfect, I’d recommend it to fans of indie films who like offbeat humor. Some of the laughs were truly bizarre and unexpected, which is more than you can say for the average Hollywood comedy.

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      Uncategorized

      Backflash (2002)

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      This is a low budget, direct to video movie directed by Phil Jones that borrows a lot from Quentin Tarantino and other directors of popular twisty-funny-action packed films of recent years. While Backflash is definitely derivative and not a great film, it’s a lot better than I expected it to be.

      It’s a fairly typical plot for this kind of film,  full of twists, betrayals and humorously grotesque villains. It starts off with a straight-laced guy named Ray who is taking a break from running his video store. He picks up an attractive ex-con hitchhiker named Harley (Jennifer Esposito) -the kind of hitchhiker that you only see in the movies- and trouble naturally follows.

      The problem with movies like Backflash is that once you’ve seen a few of them, you start to expect the supposedly unpredictable twists. Still, this one actually held my attention quite well and was funny in places too. One of the gangsters is a lunatic named Gin (Colm Meaney) who pretends it’s Christmas all year long.

      Don’t rent Backflash expecting anything original, but if you like B movies, road trip movies and twisty noirish thrillers, you could do worse. Available streaming on Netflix.

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        Indie film directors

        Entrance

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        Entrance (2012), directed by Dallas Richard Hallam and Patrick Horvath is an interesting and extremely minimalistic indie film. In fact, the movie is only 84 minutes long, and hardly anything happens the first hour.

        Entrance is about the quietly unfulfilling life of a single young woman (Suziey Block) in Los Angeles. She lives in the trendy Silverlake neighborhood, has a roommate and must walk to her job at a coffee house when her car breaks down.

        It’s difficult to say too much about the plot without giving away crucial details. Suffice it to say that the film is effective about building a very gradual sense of foreboding. This builds to a climax that turns it into a more traditional type of genre film and in this sense it was a bit of a disappointment.

        I have a higher than average tolerance for very slow moving films that focus on mood, character and atmosphere. Yet Entrance still tested my patience as it crept along at a snail’s pace for the first hour. I think the payoff could have been handled with a little more originality, as what emerged was a rather cliched villain whose type can be found in thousands of low budget films and TV shows.

        Still, I admire the way the directors were willing to take their time and emphasize the everyday life of the characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if their next film is more impressive overall.

        Entrance on IMDB

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          indie comedies

          God Bless America -Bobcat Goldthwait

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          God Bless America, written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait is billed as a black comedy that satirizes modern American culture. It’s not really much of a satire, though, as the pop culture that it portrays is not much of an exaggeration of reality.

          The black comedy part comes in the form of Frank (Joel Murray) and Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who become serial killers who kill supposedly deserving victims for their political or cultural transgressions (or, in some cases, merely because they are rude). Frank is a divorced, middle-aged guy who has just been fired and diagnosed with a terminal illness. Roxy is a teenage misfit who becomes his sidekick on a cross country rampage.

          This film can be seen as an extremely low brow version of Network (1976), as many of the long-winded tirades that Goldwaith puts in Frank’s mouth are reminiscent of the “I’m mad as hell” speech from that far superior film. This movie is full of paradoxes and ironies, and I’m not sure that they are intended.

          To begin with, this often self righteous bromide against pop culture was made by a man whose main claim to fame was starring in the slapstick Police Academy movies of the 1980s. I’ve also seen bits and pieces of Goldwaith’s standup performances and I’m not exactly clear how his type of humor is so much more highbrow than the kind he clearly loathes in God Bless America.

          Of course, one thing that Frank keeps repeating is that his main problem with modern culture is how mean and unkind it is. Yet, when we watch him channel surfing, it clearly goes beyond that. What’s obviously meant to jump out at us is the sheer mindlessness and idiocy of a culture that worships celebrities and finds nothing funnier than pure stupidity.

          Popular culture makes an extremely easy target for this type of argument, and considering this, God Bless America could have done a much better job of satirizing it. The problem is, this film has a basically teenage sensibility. If it had been made by some kid with a $2500 budget, I’d be more forgiving of its simplicity and immaturity. Both Frank and Roxy are constantly having gleeful discussions about who deserves to be killed. The main underlying irony of the film is that it focuses on shows like American Idol as the epitome of decline, while  itself displaying a much more fundamental symptom of cultural depravity -the automatic dehumanization of people who you don’t like, agree with or who offend you in any way.

          While this is ostensibly a comedy -and there are a few laughs, to be sure- you can’t overlook the fact that Goldthwait is obviously using this movie as a mouthpiece for his own beliefs. Given this, there’s something perverse about advocating wonton violence in the name of kindness. Many of the people who are killed have committed rather minor “crimes,” such as making noise during a movie or taking up two parking spaces. In the final scene, someone is blown away simply because he confesses to a desire to be on TV.

          It doesn’t take an intellectual giant to see that modern American culture is largely a wasteland. Unfortunately, God Bless America is more a manifestation of this than an antidote.

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            Rid of Me -Culture Clash in the Suburbs

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            Note: This review has recently been re-published on Devtome.

            Rid of Me is a good example of the kind of indie film that’s fun to discover, despite its flaws. I cannot say it’s a great film, but it’s certainly original, funny and insightful at times. On the other hand, it’s also uneven and some of the characters are too much like caricatures.

            On Netflix, it’s described as a black comedy and this is fairly accurate. It follows the travails of Meris (Katy O’Grady), a housewife who reluctantly moves to Portland with her husband Mitch (John Keyser). As soon as they arrive, things go badly for her. It turns out that Mitch, who is from Portland originally, has a whole clique of friends, as well as an ex-lover, with whom he grew up. These people are immediately portrayed as the worst possible stereotypes of suburban conformists. Meris cannot fit in with these people, and soon her marriage falls apart.

            Rid of Me opens in an interesting and somewhat shocking manner. The music and ambiance resemble those of a horror movie as it begins with a rather gruesome (though not violent) scene that is actually from the middle of the film. It’s something you’d never see in a mainstream film, though I’m sure many viewers would be happy to never see anything like it.

            The first problem with the whole scenario is that, while Mitch’s friends are wholly unsympathetic -in case we had any doubt how vile they are, they exhibit blatant racism towards an Islamic couple- Meris herself comes across as so socially awkward that it’s difficult to completely sympathize with her. That is, it would be hard for anyone to warm up to someone who only stares and stammers when you talk to them.

            I suppose we have to forgive the film, or more properly writer and director James Westby for making Mitch and his friends almost unbelievably obnoxious and insensitive. After all, the film is basically a satire about mainstream suburban America. Yet it’s a little hard to believe that such people in a place like Portland would be quite so narrow minded and intolerant, at least openly.

            As the film progresses, it goes in a completely different direction as Meris and Mitch divorce. Meris gets a job at a candy shop, where she is befriended by an ultra alternative girl named Trudy. She soon falls in with a whole subculture of misfits, who dress in black, get wasted and show a thorough contempt for anything middle class -such as Meris’s ex husband and his friends.

            The alternative characters in Rid of Me are just as extreme and stereotypical as the suburbanites in their antisocial posturing. Ultimately, Meris manages to find a kind of middle ground when she hooks up with a fellow misfit (albeit a more mellow sort than her new alternative friends), a record store clerk who shares many of her bizarre mannerisms to an unlikely degree. For the most part, however, the film draws an extreme line between the two extremes to make it’s point, and I suppose for laughs. One of Meris’s co-workers at the candy shop, an ultra straight woman who is a stickler for the rules states, “I hate alternative people.” Does anyone really say things like that?

            Rid of Me is one of those interesting indie films that works in some places but not others. At a certain point, it sort of drags and becomes repetitive as Meris goes back and forth between missing her old life and embracing her new one.

            All in all, Rid of Me is a mostly compelling and funny portrayal of culture clash that doesn’t always hit the mark but is worth watching for the times it does.

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              Indie film directors, indie films, Quirky comedies

              The Future -Written and Directed by Miranda July

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              The Future is the second feature film directed by Miranda July, best known for Me and You and Everybody We Know (2005). While the latter was a popular and well received indie film, The Future is even more offbeat and challenging to mainstream viewers. Nevertheless, it’s well worth watching if you can appreciate movies that are non-linear and that cross boundaries when it comes to genre.

              The Future is kind of hybrid drama, comedy and fantasy. You know it’s going to be something offbeat when it starts off being narrated by a cat. This cat, who is ill and may not live much longer, is scheduled to be adopted by Jason and Sophie, a couple in their thirties who are somewhere in between hipsters and slackers.

              There’s not too much of a plot here. Fans of Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise (1984) may appreciate the scenes of apparently pointless dialog and inaction -though the style of this film is quite different overall. I actually admire movies like this one and Stranger Than Paradise, though, where the characters are allowed to exist in a state of existentialist aimlessness.

              Both Jason and Sophie quit their jobs. Sophie drifts into an affair with an older man for no apparent reason. Jason meanwhile, begins volunteering for an environmentalist group that makes him go door to door selling trees. There’s a kind of randomness to it all. At the same time, like Me and You and Everyone We Know, there’s an underlying theme  of how important and yet tenuous connections between people are in today’s world.

              To make things more complicated and bizarre, Jason apparently has the ability to stop time. This is where the fantasy or paranormal enters into the mix, and where some viewers might lose patience. For there’s no real attempt to weave this into the story in a logical manner.

              If you watch this film on Netflix, as I did, I suggest you don’t even bother to read the customer reviews. Netflix viewers are notoriously mainstream and conservative, and have little patience for oddball indie movies. They will mercilessly savage any script that dares thumb its nose at cinematic conventions (not all the reviewers, to be fair, but a sizable percentage).

              Overall, The Future succeeds at doing something that the better quirky offbeat films manage to do -get you to take a step back from ordinary life and society and realize that the normal and everyday aren’t necessarily all there is and that there may be other, more interesting alternatives.

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                Documentary, Television

                Exporting Raymond -Russian vs. American TV

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                Exporting Raymond is an entertaining documentary about a clash of cultures that occurs over a sitcom. Phil Rosenthal is the creator of the popular CBS show Everybody Loves Raymond. He was recently invited to visit Russia so they could adapt the show for their audiences. The results were a strange and sometimes funny mixed bag.

                I have to confess that I’ve never watched Everybody Loves Raymond and am not a fan of sitcoms. I simply cannot watch anything with a laugh track. It seems like an oxymoron if you have to tell people when to laugh. So, for me the main interest of this documentary was watching the inner workings of creating television and, of course, the cultural issues.

                From the start, there were difficulties in adapting the show in Russia. The show portrays a down to earth, middle class American family, and, as it soon became clear, Russia is not quite the same. This resulted in many frustrating attempts at communication between Rosenthal and his Russian counterparts. For example, a costume designer informs Rosenthal that Russian women like to dress up, but he can’t fathom a housewife looking like she’s going out to a nightclub.

                This type of debate was amusing, though I also found it a little perplexing. Rosenthal seemed unable to accept that the show couldn’t be transplanted “as is” and still be popular with Russian audiences. Why does he care so much about realism when we’re talking about a sitcom?

                Looking at it from the other side of the coin, I wondered why the Russians were even interested in this show in the first place if it was so culturally alien to them. The problems were deeper than simply how the characters dressed. Apparently, the character of Raymond was too passive for Russian audiences, who don’t like to see men pushed around by their wives, even in jest (at least according to the Russians who Rosenthal dealt with on this project).

                There are some interesting insights into how Russian television operates. Apparently, actors must work much harder than in America, and the same people must work around the clock on different sets. We can assume they earn considerably less money too.

                Exporting Raymond is a documentary that will appeal to a variety of people -obviously to fans of the show; those with an interest in culture clashes, and anyone who would like an inside look at the entertainment industry.

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                  Portlandia -Land of Slackers, Bobos and Hipsters

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                  I recently watched the entire first season of Portlandia on Netflix streaming. Prior to this, I had never heard of the show. It began last year on IFC (Independent Film Channel), which, along with the Sundance Channel, is one of the few cable channels that provides alternatives to the generic Hollywood blockbusters that dominate most of the movie stations. Unfortunately (or maybe not, for the most part), I only have basic cable so I’ve missed out on the latest IFC offerings.

                  I immediately found Portlandia to be a funny, refreshing and original series that is way more inspired than the typically bland sketch comedy you’ll find on network shows like Saturday Night Live (even though co-star Fred Armisen is a SNL cast member -but he’s one of the writers and producers of Portlandia).

                  While this show is, on the surface, a satirical look at a certain subculture of Portland, it’s really a lot more than that. For one thing, the type of people it mocks are certainly found in many other places. Brooklynites have recognized some of the hipster stereotypes, and, in true postmodern form, a parody of this parody called Brokelandia has already appeared on the internet. You’ll also find the type of slackers, bobos, the tediously politically correct and militant vegetarians in towns like Santa Cruz, Boulder and parts of the Hudson Valley region of New York (where I currently reside), such as Woodstock and New Paltz.

                  Most of the skits feature co-creators Fred Armisten and Carrie Brownstein, who are adept at playing everything from obnoxious yuppies to hardcore feminists. There are also notable guest stars. In one episode, indie film favorite Steve Buscemi wanders into a feminist bookstore staffed by Carrie and Fred (in drag), who refuse to let him use the bathroom until he buys something.

                  In another great skit, singer Aimee Mann appears as a housecleaner being harassed by the two co-stars, who alternately fawn over her and accuse her of misdeeds such as stealing. What I appreciate about the acting and writing of such skits is that they contain equal parts truth and over-the-top parody. In fact, I can’t recall more sharply written sketch comedy since the Tracy Ullman show (from whence the Simpsons originated) back in the 90s. She also had a knack for capturing the inflections of the tediously hip bourgeoisie.

                  Aside from yuppies/bobos and political activists, the series also pokes fun at the chronically unambitious and underemployed. As one character says in the very first episode, “Portland is where young people come to retire.”

                  Portlandia does not exactly portray a realistic cross section of Portland, or any other place, nor does it try to. I haven’t spent much time in Portland, but it’s safe to assume that it’s inhabited by regular working folks, conservative churchgoers and even some rednecks along with the bobos, slackers and hipsters portrayed in the show. That’s okay, though, as the point is to hone in on a particular set of stereotypes.

                  Although Portlandia is satire that has some bite, it’s unlikely to offend any of the city’s denizens, except perhaps those that are truly humor challenged. I can confess that before watching this series Portland was fairly high up on my list of places I’d consider moving to, and the show certainly hasn’t changed my mind about this. I can only hope that it doesn’t make the place so hip that it drives rents and real estate values through the roof!

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                    Martha Marcy May Marlene

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                    The title of this film refers to the identity crisis suffered by a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) who has recently escaped from a cult. The film switches back and forth between the past and present, as Martha (her real name) comes to live with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and Lucy’s new husband Ted (Hugh Dancy). Lucy and Martha have been somewhat estranged, for reasons never spelled out (much in this enigmatic film is left unstated), making their reunion especially awkward.

                    Through flashbacks that intrude in an unsettling way into the present, we see that the rural “community” led by a bearded, guitar playing hippie-survivialist-philosopher named Patrick (John Hawkes) is a lot more sinister than it first appears. Martha is having trouble adjusting to the almost painfully normal bourgeois lifestyle of Lucy and Ted. She strips naked to go swimming, and even jumps into the couple’s bed in the middle of the night as they are having sex.

                    Martha Marcy May Marlene is a difficult film to summarize, as it’s a combination psychological thriller, character study and social commentary. Actually, it only hints at the latter, and this is where it fails to deliver the intellectual punch that the early scenes promise.

                    At first, the juxtapositioning of scenes involving the cult with those taking place in Lucy and Ted’s serene lake house seem to invite a comparison of the two diametrically opposing lifestyles. Martha criticizes the couple’s materialistic ways -the size of their home, their focus on money and career, etc. Yet the film never really goes anywhere with this comparison. Ted and Lucy never really show themselves as anything beyond a archetypically bland middle class couple.

                    The cult, meanwhile, quickly degenerates into another kind of stereotype. It’s hardly shocking that Patrick, with his charming yet intimidating personality, brainwashes his recruits into an ascetic, conforming way of life and “initiates” all of the young women sexually -this is, after all, what cult leaders do. Yet, he turns out to be even worse than your run-of-the-mill cult leader, as he leads his flock into grotesque actions reminiscent of the Manson cult.

                    From a sociological perspective, the film could even be seen as a critique of anything countercultural. Indeed, some conspiracy theorists imagine that Charles Manson was “created” to discredit the hippie movement. Not likely, but nevertheless, the way this film depicts a group of people who are attempting to live an alternative lifestyle, it makes even the most mundane middle class existence seem the epitome of sanity by comparison. Yet, I don’t think writer-director Sean Durkin was actually aiming for a Message with this film -which is, in a way, unfortunate, considering all of the interesting variables it introduces.

                    If I was slightly disappointed by Martha Marcy May Marlene, it’s only because it promises to cover some truly original and profound territory, and then turns out to be little more than a thriller, albeit a subtle and very well acted one. Elizabeth Olsen is utterly convincing as a cult victim, with her affectless stare that’s occasionally interrupted by outbursts of rage. The other noteworthy performance is that of John Hawkes, who can’t be faulted if his role was written a little over-the-top. He was also outstanding in another impressive indie film, Winter’s Bone.

                    Martha Marcy May Marlene has been described as an investigation into the slippery nature of identity. In that way, it’s more of an existentialist than sociological tale. The vagueness that’s sometimes annoying (so many details about the past -such as anything that happened to Martha pre-cult- are left out) can be seen as part of the film’s overall theme. It’s not giving anything away to say that the ending is frustratingly ambiguous.

                    Overall, Martha Marcy May Marlene is an extremely impressive debut for both writer-director Sean Durkin and for Elizabeth Olsen.

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                      Reviews, news and information related to independent films.