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Judy Berman
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications:
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) |
It is Goldin’s courage and determination that make her an effective activist, and her empathetic eye that makes her a great artist. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 10, 2023
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The Janes (2022) |
Through individual interviews, a composite image forms of a society touched on every level by half its population’s lack of bodily autonomy. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Dec 14, 2022
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Prince (2022) |
As hit-or-miss as the sketches can be, it’s these new interstitials that betray the show’s true aimlessness... - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Britney Vs Spears (2021) |
Hearing from so many people say they saw a woman who millions around the world care about being mistreated but couldn't, or simply didn't, do anything about it is heartbreaking. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Sep 30, 2021
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COVID Diaries NYC (2021) |
To watch COVID Diaries is to confront video evidence that the novel coronavirus was never the great equalizer so many were spuriously suggesting it was during the very same months when these shorts were being made. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 11, 2021
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Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (2021) |
Excessively long but mostly insightful and absorbing... - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Feb 26, 2021
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Fake Famous (2021) |
A new documentary argues the obvious: that influencer culture is soulless. What's harder, and what would have made for a more worthwhile film, is to explain why such vapidity appeals to young people - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Feb 06, 2021
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Amulet (2020) |
...the most technically ambitious of these films, and through the first two-thirds, at least, it's jaggedly compelling... - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Aug 18, 2020
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Taylor Swift: Miss Americana (2020) |
With a more elegant, purposeful structure or at least more time to explore her toughest choices, Miss Americana might have given fans a satisfying portrait of the real Taylor Swift. As is, it's more like a sketch. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Jan 28, 2020
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El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) |
Paul earned three Emmys for his supporting role on Breaking Bad, and in El Camino he delivers a mesmerizing lead performance that proves he deserves a spot on Hollywood's A-list. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Oct 11, 2019
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Aziz Ansari: Right Now (2019) |
His extensive complaints about performative wokeness among liberal white people don't exactly break new ground for stand-up... But he does have a knack for pushing these serious dilemmas into the realm of the absurd. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Jul 10, 2019
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Unicorn Store (2017) |
Unicorn Store only ends up infantilizing millennials and, when it comes to Jackson's ethereal character, playing into offensive tropes. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Apr 04, 2019
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Rent Live (2019) |
We'll never know whether a genuinely live version would have come closer to preserving the urgency of Larson's beloved musical, but it certainly would've had a better excuse for showing so many seams. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Jan 29, 2019
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Fyre (2019) |
What's most haunting about the movie isn't the transformation itself so much as the emptiness of the desires that fuel it-essentially the same empty desires that both propelled McFarland and destroyed him. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Jan 17, 2019
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Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006) |
"Ultimately, your work is your world," Walker says toward the end of the documentary. 30th Century Man succeeds, then, because it inhabits the world of its subject. - Tiny Mix Tapes
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| Posted Dec 06, 2018
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My Winnipeg (2007) |
More an abstract hallucination than a photo-realist portrait, My Winnipeg would be out of place on the "documentary" shelf at the video store. But it deserves prime placement in the Guy Maddin canon. - Tiny Mix Tapes
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| Posted Dec 06, 2018
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New York, I Love You (2009) |
Most of the shorts suffer from similarly hackneyed story lines, with all action leading up to a pat resolution. - Tiny Mix Tapes
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| Posted Dec 06, 2018
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Humpday (2009) |
Where Humpday really excels is in its depiction of Ben and Andrew's relationship. After so many years apart, they speak easily and candidly to one another... - Tiny Mix Tapes
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| Posted Dec 06, 2018
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Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018) |
As seen through Lacy's compassionate lens, the Jane Fonda who lays bare her life in Five Acts is introspective and affable, confident yet forthcoming about her flaws and failures. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Sep 25, 2018
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again (2016) |
Ortega's production is full of curious directorial choices like this. A few hit. Many miss. - Elle
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| Posted Jun 11, 2018
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Nico, 1988 (2017) |
Because [Susanna] Nicchiarelli gets all of that, Nico, 1988 never devolves into a sob story. - Pitchfork
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| Posted Apr 25, 2018
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David Bowie: The Last Five Years (2017) |
Bowie's untimely death was a tragedy, but at the very least, it finally got us really discussing his body of work. The Last Five Years continues that necessary conversation. - Pitchfork
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| Posted Jan 11, 2018
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Detroit (2017) |
Detroit, however, suggests [director Kathryn Bigelow] - and her current screenwriter - still can't quite tell the difference between an impactful film and an important one. - Mic.com
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| Posted Sep 22, 2017
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mother! (2017) |
Mother!... is just as gorgeous, bombastic and uninterested in presenting fully formed characters as those movies, but it's also pretty spectacular. - Mic.com
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| Posted Sep 22, 2017
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CBGB (2013) |
Unless you're morbidly curious about how one of the loudest, strangest, and most irreverent and original moments in rock history can be transformed into a jukebox musical for the entertainment of precisely no one, there's no need to see CBGB. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Venus in Fur (2013) |
Lighthearted as it is, Venus in Fur has the rare effect of filtering the viewer's life through its own extreme lens. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Wetlands (2013) |
... The film is packed with subtle, feminist riffs on romantic movie clichés... - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets (2014) |
Whatever the reason, this truly is a film about life, death, and supermarkets, which means it's a far better film about Pulp than any mere record of their final concert would have been. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Dear White People (2014) |
... an incisive look at not only how smart, ambitious people of all different skin tones and experiences talk about race in America, but also what's behind those words. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Pasolini (2014) |
Pasolini may not be the film we were promised, but it turns out to be something better: a thought-provoking - if not quite masterful - cinematic portrait of an artist whose visionary oeuvre remains poorly understood. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Far From the Madding Crowd (2015) |
... the novel Thomas Hardy actually wrote would have made for a much more thrilling film. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) |
Of the many films that have been made about Kurt Cobain, documentary and fiction, [director Brett] Morgen's is the best because what it leaves us with is the one thing that most defined his life: empathy. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Love (2015) |
That philosophical freedom is what gives his earlier films value, and the lack of it is what makes Love, with its adherence to worn-out binaries, a disappointment. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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The Revenant (2015) |
Ultimately, The Revenant suggests no deeper or more nuanced truths than a medieval morality play. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Heart of a Dog (2015) |
... it restores a sense of calm to its subject without evading the most haunting questions. - Flavorwire
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Gaga: Five Foot Two (2017) |
... Five Foot Two feels intriguingly raw. - Pitchfork
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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We Are X (2016) |
What drives [director Stephen] Kijak's film, and adds a universal dimension to a singular band's narrative, is the drama inherent in a group of strong personalities who live for music attempting to create and perform it together. - Pitchfork
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Song to Song (2017) |
... just another minor variation on Malick's favorite theme-the power of love and spirituality to transcend the life-poisoning curses of ambition and greed-and not a very effective one, at that. - Pitchfork
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Gimme Danger (2016) |
... by getting Iggy to talk about his art rather than his antics, Jarmusch performs the delicate feat of elucidating a beloved rock'n'roll persona without exploding it. - Pitchfork
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) |
Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders enjoys a richly deserved place in the international canon of timeless coming-of-age stories. - The Dissolve
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| Posted Jul 06, 2015
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