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B.L. Panther

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

B! is a writer, scholar, and Pisces from Northern Illinois. They write for Paste Magazine, Into Magazine, The Spool, and Honey Literary Journal. A champion hermit, they enjoy reading, the indoors, afternoon naps, and doing nothing at all. They are the inaugural recipient of Rotten Tomatoes & Chicago Film Critics Association’s Emerging Critics Grant for their excellence in film criticism.

Publications:

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (2024) 66% 6.0/10 EDIT “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat plays like a Golden Corral that’s begun to tarnish, with an overstuffed menu of narrative choices, none of which arrive fully cooked.” – Paste Magazine Aug 19, 2024 Full Review The Fabulous Four (2024) 28% 5.9/10 EDIT “The Fabulous Four plays out like an undressed salad paid for by the Key West tourism board” – Paste Magazine Jul 25, 2024 Full Review Thelma (2024) 98% EDIT “June Squibb sets the tone for the whole film, which appears delicate but still full of hardscrabble tenacity, just like her character.” – The Spool Jun 21, 2024 Full Review Babes (2024) 87% 7.0/10 EDIT “While it sometimes feels like the comedy is spinning in place, Babes is an often hilarious reminder that there are many cycles in life.” – Paste Magazine May 15, 2024 Full Review The Crime Is Mine (2023) 98% 7.3/10 EDIT “Though it lacks a more exigent purpose, The Crime Is Mine has layers of textbook farce decorated with a confectioner’s critique.” – Paste Magazine Dec 20, 2023 Full Review The Color Purple (2023) 81% 80/100 EDIT “It’s a lighter-hearted film of immense emotion and grand gestures, but underneath is a profound reorientation from how white directors have told stories of historical Black life.” – The Spool Dec 19, 2023 Full Review Stamped From the Beginning (2023) 100% 7.5/10 EDIT “Stamped from the Beginning is a bold attempt to animate the racist images that plague the American imagination.” – Paste Magazine Nov 20, 2023 Full Review Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) A+ EDIT “Obomsawin flips the content of the traditional ethnographic documentary and deftly reminds us that this is an ongoing history of displacement and disappearance.” – Paste Magazine Oct 2, 2023 Full Review Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) 56% D+ EDIT “Today, Oz the Great and Powerful boasts collective and equal distaste among audiences and critics alike, which suggests that there’s something to be resisted within the film.” – Paste Magazine Oct 2, 2023 Full Review God's Creatures (2022) 90% A- EDIT “God’s Creatures dares to suggest that breaks from the system are the only effective treatment against repeat offenses. It’s about the harsh measures individuals must take to protect the delicate balance of their ecology.” – Paste Magazine Oct 2, 2023 Full Review The Banger Sisters (2002) 47% B EDIT “But now, 20 years on, The Banger Sisters has a salty bittersweetness...The road becomes open-ended, a prescient suggestion that there’s more to the journey, more to herstory.” – Paste Magazine Oct 2, 2023 Full Review Death Becomes Her (1992) 58% A- EDIT “Death Becomes Her is a magical and delightful illustration of queerness without sexuality.” – Paste Magazine Oct 2, 2023 Full Review The Sixth Reel (2021) 100% B+ EDIT “The Sixth Reel is a loving ode to old movies, their material remains, the necessity of their preservation. It’s also a gentle rhapsody about growing older and facing the final act of one’s life.” – The Spool Oct 2, 2023 Full Review Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (2023) 44% 8.0/10 EDIT “Those who choose to embrace the uncertainty get an enjoyable exercise in suspending rationality.” – Paste Magazine Sep 1, 2023 Full Review The Monkey King (2023) 56% 9.0/10 EDIT “The Monkey King has barrelfuls of sharp satire, high-flying action, and lyrical sentimentality that are as shifting and entertaining as the myths they celebrate.” – Paste Magazine Aug 16, 2023 Full Review Hundreds of Beavers (2022) 97% EDIT “Hundreds of Beavers remains one of the best films of this year because it embraces classical cinematic storytelling with a contemporary sensibility in a riotous way that is as sly and wily as the coyote who inspired it. ” – The Spool Jul 28, 2023 Full Review Deep Sea (2023) 88% EDIT “Peng’s animated world celebrates the brilliant colors and fluidity of the water, often sprinting through prisms and beautiful scenes as ornate as the narrative within them.” – The Spool Jul 28, 2023 Full Review Lakota Nation vs. United States (2022) 100% EDIT “[It] makes a passionate case that the US Government should return the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Lakota and their future generations.” – The Spool Jul 16, 2023 Full Review The Stroll (2023) 95% 9.7/10 EDIT “Through Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s insightful and intimate interviews and interspersed archival footage, 14th Street becomes layered like an archeological diagram.” – Paste Magazine Jun 20, 2023 Full Review Queens of the Qing Dynasty (2022) 84% 8.0/10 EDIT “A worthwhile sophomore outing for those interested in disability and queerness, it touches a constellation of identities as ornate as the golden finger covers worn by Imperial women.” – Paste Magazine May 3, 2023 Full Review Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023) 94% 8.5/10 EDIT “Elegantly shifting her lens between Little Richard’s biography and the history of the music that sprung forth from him, Cortés traces a nearly impossible trajectory without losing a grounded sense of context.” – Paste Magazine Apr 21, 2023 Full Review Chevalier (2022) 76% 7.0/10 EDIT “While there are glimmers of grace notes that suggest a complex life that challenges our assumptions of the past, Chevalier keeps to an otherwise standard period biopic meter.” – Paste Magazine Apr 20, 2023 Full Review Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) 43% EDIT “Even if the film doesn’t soar past being an average biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a chance to gather together and honor The Voice many of us will always love.” – The Spool Dec 21, 2022 Full Review Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) 95% 8.5/10 EDIT “What could have easily been a hairball of half-digested nostalgia is transformed into a mature and cat-ivating story that positively purrs.” – Paste Magazine Dec 20, 2022 Full Review Falling for Christmas (2022) 62% 7.0/10 EDIT “After taking a tumble down a jumbled script of conflict and motivations, the holiday spirit restores our financial and mental health.” – Paste Magazine Nov 10, 2022 Full Review
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