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Noah Gittell
Noah Gittell's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
Publications:
Official Website:
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/author/noah-gittell/
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Ghostbusters (1984) |
Ghostbusters, for all its wonderful silliness, is an artifact that helps us understand its time, as well as ours. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Aug 30, 2024
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The Last Detail (1973) |
It’s the essence of New Hollywood filmmaking, which broke down our myths and revealed in their place a world of everyday losers who looked so much like ourselves that we couldn’t turn away. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Aug 15, 2024
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California Split (1974) |
Every winning streak has to end, but California Split has a helluva run. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Aug 03, 2024
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Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) |
Paul Mazursky’s 1969 comedy speaks to its moment, when normies everywhere were wondering how they could partake in the pleasures of the counterculture, but Mazursky has his eye on something more universal. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jul 19, 2024
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Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) |
Sergio Leone’s 1968 spaghetti western might be set in the 19th century, but it captured the violence of the ’60s, yet the grandly cinematic film that still somehow embraces humanity. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jun 08, 2024
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Point Break (2015) |
Point Break still seduces viewers with its tension and its thrills. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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The Sixth (2024) |
This is the power of the documentary form. Never again must we forget our own nightmares. Especially when they come true. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted May 10, 2024
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Anatomy of a Murder (1959) |
There’s a fresh thrill in seeing the conventions of the courtroom drama trotted out for the first time, and its lingering sense of moral ambiguity is still jarring. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Apr 27, 2024
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Phantom of the Paradise (1974) |
Brian De Palma’s 1974 pastiche is a near-psychedelic experience built not on freaky visual effects but on pure passion and unadulterated artistry. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Mar 29, 2024
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Holiday (1938) |
Capturing the turn from the Roaring 20s to the Great Depression, George Cukor's film, starring greats Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, wears its sadness on its sleeve, but is also incredibly fun. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Mar 02, 2024
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If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) |
A beautiful love story that offers a mosaic of injustices, some of which can be overcome by love, others with no solution. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Feb 17, 2024
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Who Can See Forever (2023) |
Good for him. Bad for us, though, as there’s really not a film here amid all his soft musings. Or maybe there is, and these guys just didn’t want to find it. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Feb 03, 2024
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Cure (1997) |
Only a filmmaker as disciplined as Kurosawa would be able to live in such mysteries without losing their audience. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 19, 2024
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The Killer (2023) |
The Killer is a self-referential work in which Fincher acknowledges his own reputation as a controlling director and digs under the surface to find the quivering child beneath. He’s there, but you have to look for him. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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Afire (2023) |
In watching them find it, we might find a little peace for ourselves... - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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The Holdovers (2023) |
The Holdovers is the warmest film of director Alexander Payne’s career, if not one of his best. Certainly the one I needed at the end of this year. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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All of Us Strangers (2023) |
The romance is steamy enough—Scott and Mescal forge a chemistry that is both emotionally vulnerable and unbearably sexy—but Scott achieves a remarkable transformation in the scenes at home. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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The Teachers' Lounge (2023) |
Given the subject matter and the creative tightrope in pulling it off, it’s courageous work from all involved. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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Palm Trees and Power Lines (2022) |
When you get to the horrifying climax, it’s both unthinkable and inevitable. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023) |
It’s a film that finds universality in specificity, and not just its perfect replication of ’70s-era fashion, furniture, and cars. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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Oppenheimer (2023) |
I liked it, but thought the third act nearly cratered the whole thing. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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The Taste of Things (2023) |
The most tender film of 2023. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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The Night of the Hunter (1955) |
Charles Laughton’s sole directorial work hauntingly laid the groundwork for “from hell” movies of the ’80s and ’90s. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Dec 16, 2023
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Sexy Beast (2000) |
Ben Kingsley proves he’s one of the best actors of our time. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Nov 28, 2023
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The 'Burbs (1989) |
In between set pieces, The ’Burbs thrives on a dynamic conflict between genres, ideas, and eras. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Nov 10, 2023
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Don't Look Now (1973) |
Despite being known for its lurid sex scene, Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 film avoids Hollywood sensationalism while making grief into a monster. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Oct 27, 2023
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The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) |
It continues to provoke and entertain... - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Oct 12, 2023
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Citizen Kane (1941) |
Kane innovated several filmmaking techniques. The film pioneered a genre. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Sep 14, 2023
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McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) |
The story moves so briskly to its inexorable conclusion that it’s easy to miss how little actually happens in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, but we’re here for the mood more than the matter. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Aug 05, 2023
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Rio Bravo (1959) |
It's pure romantic bliss that feels about as far away from a political statement as you could imagine. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jul 21, 2023
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Strangers on a Train (1951) |
The taut narrative of Strangers on a Train is supported by some of the best visual filmmaking of Hitchcock’s career. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jul 06, 2023
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Late Spring (2014) |
Late Spring is an opening statement for a great artist in the midst of a reinvention, and a window into a specific time and place that the rest of the world might never have known. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jun 16, 2023
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Footlight Parade (1933) |
The 1933 film has the problematic blind spots of its era, but it remains a deliriously fun history of film. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted May 24, 2023
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Perfect Blue (1997) |
Like many great late ’90s films, Satoshi Kon’s animated thriller from 1997 grapples with the duality of the fledgling internet, but shockingly predicts future fallouts. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted May 11, 2023
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Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) |
Filled with childlike wonder, David Lowery’s Neverland is a magical place that’s sometimes a bit too fixated on its infamous villain. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Apr 26, 2023
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Showing Up (2022) |
Like a firm scrubbing of the soul, Showing Up both embodies and critiques the culture of emotional detachment that pervades the community. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Apr 15, 2023
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Walking Tall (2004) |
An amazingly true story that still challenges audiences with its complex notions of justice and revenge. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Apr 04, 2023
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The Big Lebowski (1998) |
The Dude becomes an aspirational figure, chill in the face of increasing absurdity, and ever able to express himself in perfectly quotable ways. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Mar 10, 2023
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The Conformist (1970) |
In lesser hands, The Conformist would be a first-rate political thriller, and while there are moments of tension, Bertolucci finds more drama in the thrills of human psychology. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Offside (2006) |
It’s a rich text: a love letter to the people of Iran, a fiercely complex portrayal of systemic misogyny, and a plea to Western countries not to judge the Iranian people by their government. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Feb 04, 2023
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The Son (2022) |
This isn’t Florian Zeller’s sophomore slump, it’s a massive nosedive with poor acting, bad writing, and a major lack of empathy. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Empire of Light (2022) |
In the end, the film gives you what you want: the shot. When all seems lost, one of its sad and lonely people buys a ticket, sits down in the dark, and lets the power of cinema do its work. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Dec 09, 2022
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The Fabelmans (2022) |
Steven Spielberg's slightly fictionalized coming-of-age story makes his presence behind the camera known. Onscreen, the actors nail perceptive performances. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Nov 23, 2022
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The Menu (2022) |
Not even Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nicholas Hoult can make the flavors in Mark Mylod’s latest film work together. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Nov 17, 2022
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Aftersun (2022) |
Starring Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal, Charlotte Wells’ feature debut is an emotional high-wire act, masterfully conducted with artistic vision and grounded in human nuance. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Oct 28, 2022
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Tár (2022) |
TÁR finds a new way, keeping a smart distance from its cancellable protagonist’s inner world, reflecting back to us our own contradictory feelings about power and fame. In the end, it’s a double portrait of a monster and the mad audience that created her. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Oct 17, 2022
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The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022) |
The Greatest Beer Run Ever is exactly what it’s trying to be, and that’s the problem. It’s not bad. It’s just old-fashioned. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Oct 01, 2022
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Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (2022) |
Honk is the rare case in which the actors are too rich for the film, which makes the film too poor for us. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Sep 02, 2022
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Spin Me Round (2022) |
Even the brilliant Aubrey Plaza and a stacked cast can’t save Jeff Baena’s latest film, which coasts on its premise of comedic mystery. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Aug 19, 2022
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A Love Song (2022) |
First time writer-director Max Walker-Silverman makes a perfectly human American western, while reconsidering the genre. - Washington City Paper
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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