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Elvis Mitchell
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications:
Critics' Group:
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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When Harry Met Sally... (1989) |
Instead of sharpening an ax, Reiner sharpens Popsicle sticks to make into play knives. - L.A. Weekly
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| Posted Jul 09, 2024
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Spaceballs (1987) |
No one is that interested in Star Wars anymore. So watching Spaceballs is like picking up an old copy of Mad magazine and being puzzled about that Jack Palance parody you found so funny years ago. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Apr 12, 2024
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Who's the Man? (1993) |
As a movie, it's not much, but Who's the Man? rolls into a throwaway cool breeze, becoming a hip-hop version of one of those Hope and Crosby road movies. - Spin
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| Posted Sep 08, 2023
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Batman (1989) |
Batman tries to span the uncharted area between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Blue Velvet, which is worthy of notice. That it fails may be because of Tim Burton's lack of narrative cohesion. - L.A. Weekly
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| Posted Jul 25, 2023
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In the Mood for Love (2000) |
In the Mood for Love is probably the most breathtakingly gorgeous film of the year, dizzy with a nose-against-the-glass romantic spirit that has been missing from the cinema forever. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 17, 2023
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The Matrix (1999) |
It's rare, and kind of touching, really, to see a lushly financed studio spectacular work so hard to keep everyone's attention. And with enough symbolism to keep online chat rooms busier than the day Babylon 5 was cancelled. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
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| Posted Jul 13, 2023
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Armageddon (1998) |
This kind of bravura, pumped-up filmmaking is the stuff of great trailers; the coming attraction spots take the top of our head off. But it's exhausting, and you begin to feel that the movie runs on a special clock in which every minute lasts 90 seconds. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
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| Posted Jun 22, 2023
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Evil Dead 2 (1987) |
For those who respond by screaming back at the movie while swallowing its junk food aesthetic, this may be the best time they've had in quite a while. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Mar 29, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) |
The Last Crusade is a Raiders remake, and a perfunctory one at that; it may be good-hearted, but [Spielberg's] heart isn't really in it anymore. - L.A. Weekly
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| Posted Mar 29, 2023
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The Truman Show (1998) |
There are no surprises in The Truman Show, except that Weir and Carrey manage to keep the picture on course. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
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| Posted Feb 15, 2023
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Godzilla (1998) |
Emmerich and Devlin seem to have created a new subgenre: Generic Destruction. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
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| Posted Feb 14, 2023
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The Big Lebowski (1998) |
A likably off-balance, screwball comedy mystery that cruises along so smoothly, and so quickly, you've got to pay attention. That's because Bridges' towering performance may divert your eye from the keen details. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
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| Posted Jan 24, 2023
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Driving Miss Daisy (1989) |
[Morgan Freeman] has a marvelous talent for delicacy and power, combining the two so that you're unaware of the contradictions, and only the realism shows. - L.A. Weekly
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| Posted Jul 25, 2022
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The Witches of Eastwick (1987) |
Miller tries to deliver a simplified but obviously ironic version of the novel. The result: When The Witches of Eastwick works, you can't help but be taken by it. But it doesn't work nearly as often as you might hope. - Detroit Free Press
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| Posted Apr 22, 2022
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Titanic (1997) |
At least we know there won't be a sequel. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Read More
| Posted Mar 17, 2022
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Beloved (1998) |
It's a daring and provocative collection of ideas and heart that needed to be better, but still has something going for it. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Read More
| Posted Feb 02, 2022
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Sidewalk Stories (1989) |
Charles Lane's efforts make you wish that Sidewalk Stories, an ambitious attempt to do a Chaplinesque scenario in modern-day New York, were a better movie. - L.A. Weekly
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| Posted Jan 24, 2022
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Nightmare Alley (1947) |
Power is a little old for the part. It's hard to fight a wince every time someone refers to him as ''kid.'' But his performance is deft and real. - New York Times
Read More
| Posted Dec 06, 2021
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From the Hip (1987) |
"From the Hip" has its heart in the wrong place. That it even has a heart is part of the problem. This picture needs to be considerably more ruthless than it is. - Detroit Free Press
Read More
| Posted Sep 25, 2021
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The Birth of a Nation (2016) |
The beauty, and occasional lumpiness, of Parker's vision grows out of the fact that this is a film brimming with grim-visaged vigor. - Vice
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| Posted Jul 11, 2018
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Hanna (2011) |
Wright applies an artful eye to carnage; he and production designer Sarah Greenwood exhaustively deploy their love for finding colors that mirror the characters' psychological states. - Movieline
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| Posted Apr 07, 2011
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Henry's Crime (2010) |
Caan is the spicy mustard on this fatty corned beef sandwich of a movie; without him, Henry's Crime is a filling meal that wouldn't linger in the memory. - Movieline
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| Posted Apr 07, 2011
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Source Code (2011) |
Saddled with CG effects that will only be passable on your smart phone, or from the back seat of a minivan, it's as if the looniness of the Code plot is out to undermine the highly wound, tightly cut beginning -- the camera shakes from too much adrenaline. - Movieline
Read More
| Posted Mar 31, 2011
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Super (2010) |
The action in Super is clumsy and triggers cringe-producing consequences that make you wonder about the sanity of its protagonist. - Movieline
Read More
| Posted Mar 31, 2011
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Sucker Punch (2011) |
All that's missing is the excitement. - Movieline
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| Posted Mar 24, 2011
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White Irish Drinkers (2010) |
[The] film teems with characters who are in fact white, Irish and drinkers. And, as you might have guessed from its title, Drinkers is as full of cheap sentimentality and predictable behavior as a Hell's Kitchen bar would have been in the 1970s. - Movieline
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| Posted Mar 24, 2011
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Paul (2011) |
What's funniest about Paul however, is that each of its characters is stunned out of their complacency, right down to a humorous and touching revelation in the climax. - Movieline
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| Posted Mar 17, 2011
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Certified Copy (2010) |
Certified Copy is something unique to Kiarostami's career, bringing to mind an adjective I never thought I'd append to him: adorable. - Movieline
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| Posted Mar 10, 2011
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Happythankyoumoreplease (2010) |
Radnor shows an assured hand with his cast, and rather than try to force a plot the actor-director defines his film by the characters. - Movieline
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| Posted Mar 09, 2011
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The Adjustment Bureau (2011) |
Damon's resolve is admirable -- a purity of heart that shows he's trying to will a movie into being. - Movieline
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| Posted Mar 03, 2011
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We Are What We Are (2010) |
You might want to catch We Are What We Are before its inevitable, much-too-glossy remake brightens the walls of American multiplexes. - Movieline
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| Posted Feb 24, 2011
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Hall Pass (2011) |
The pleasantly crude Hall Pass reminds us of what's been missing from movies: Those squirm-inducing moments in comedy that produce enough discomfort that at points what we're watching is half a heartbeat away from a horror film. - Movieline
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| Posted Feb 24, 2011
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Unknown (2011) |
The notion of combining Taken and Roman Polanski's Frantic makes for a clean graft here. - Movieline
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| Posted Feb 17, 2011
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Certifiably Jonathan (2007) |
It's got a great subject -- the extraordinarily voluble comedian Jonathan Winters, whose constant rush of words can be like a blizzard: beautiful, maddening, exhausting and finally beautiful again. But it's not a great film. - Movieline
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| Posted Feb 10, 2011
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The Eagle (2011) |
Nearly everything in The Eagle feels like text carved into a tablet, and the stolid Tatum's lack of an inner life reinforces that miscalculation. - Movieline
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| Posted Feb 09, 2011
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The Roommate (2011) |
In the theater where I saw it, the tedium was broken only by the sound of Angry Birds being played on iPhones. - Movieline
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| Posted Feb 04, 2011
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Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (2009) |
The on-the-nose, audience tested feel of the film's current title also sums up the way the movie plays; what nuance it had went out the window with the original name. - Movieline
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| Posted Feb 03, 2011
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The Way Back (2010) |
Weir's artisan's sureness grants a bewitching calm -- his trademark ambience -- to this harrowing tale. - Movieline
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| Posted Jan 20, 2011
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A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010) |
Man has the confidence of knowing exactly where it wants to go, and when it wants to arrive; however, you may be just as familiar with the territory as the driver. - Movieline
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| Posted Jan 14, 2011
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The Green Hornet (2011) |
While this latest Rogen-penned iteration is a game try, it feels a bit like he's trying to make a volume out of a footnote. - Movieline
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| Posted Jan 12, 2011
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Of Gods and Men (2010) |
The movie has a mournful electricity, as we come to realize it's about accepting the inevitable. - Movieline
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| Posted Sep 13, 2010
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Mean Girls (2004) |
This tart and often charming new comedy is a version of the heart-of-darkness teen social comedy Heathers for the tweener audience. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 29, 2004
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The Clay Bird (2002) |
Set in Bangladesh in the 1960's, Tareque Masud's intelligent drama questions the nature of dedication to Islam. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 29, 2004
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Godsend (2004) |
You'd be better off downloading the trailer: a much more convincing piece of storytelling. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 29, 2004
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MC5: A True Testimonial (2002) |
A riveting, all-elbows- and-knuckles documentary about the proto-punk warriors known as the MC5. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 22, 2004
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The Twilight Samurai (2002) |
The director Yoji Yamada's devotion to somber, everyday detail will test the patience of many viewers of this initially slow-going character drama. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 22, 2004
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13 Going on 30 (2004) |
While essentially a retread of Big, what keeps this body-switch comedy going is the director's love for actors, and his refusal to judge them by the characters they play. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 22, 2004
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Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) |
Quentin Tarantino's deliciously perverse semisequel is the most voluptuous comic-book movie ever made. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 15, 2004
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Klezmer on Fish Street (2004) |
After all the squirming and twisting, the film never secures a strong grip on its subject. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 15, 2004
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The Whole Ten Yards (2004) |
The sequel to The Whole Nine Yards is more afterthought than accomplishment, a cocktail made with orange juice and Champale instead of actual bubbly. - New York Times
Read More
| Posted Apr 08, 2004
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