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Penelope Houston

Penelope Houston's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Magnificent Seven (1960) 93% EDIT “...this tough-sentimental eulogy to the gunfighter establishes itself as a likable enough Western on its own traditional terms.” – Sight & Sound Jan 14, 2026 Full Review Marnie (1964) 78% EDIT “ Hitchcock cast his “discovery” of The Birds, ‘Tippi’ Hedren; and there is something almost brutal in the way he ruthlessly drives his inexperienced leading lady at the hurdles of this far from easy part. ” – Sight & Sound Dec 22, 2025 Full Review Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) 92% EDIT “The effortfully inane action, verbal tomfoolery and in-house TV jokes dangle limply from the cinema screen, waiting for a breeze which the directors, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, never manage to whistle up.” – Observer (UK) Apr 1, 2025 Full Review Barry Lyndon (1975) 78% EDIT “To make Barry Lyndon work, the spectator has first to shed expectations about the genre... and then to achieve a series of adjustments between a setting which represents an age’s finest view of itself, and the fatalistic melancholy of the human prospect.” – Sight & Sound Feb 25, 2025 Full Review Caravan to Vaccares (1974) 0% EDIT “Geoffrey Reeve directs on the principle that action and excitement are synonymous; sadly, this isn't so.” – The Times (UK) Mar 8, 2024 Full Review Chinatown (1974) 98% EDIT “Chinatown brings the private eye mystery bounding back because it keeps its sense of the past within itself, playing none of those cute, boring audience games with nostalgia.” – The Times (UK) Mar 8, 2024 Full Review Up the Down Staircase (1967) 78% EDIT “Up the Down Staircase earns full credits by keeping one rooting for its heroine and her small, wistful and utterly improbable victory. Early on it looked like doing rather more.” – The Spectator Jul 1, 2022 Full Review Barbarella (1968) 65% EDIT “Barbarella is a gift-wrapped 'X' certificate bonbon for a space age nursery.” – The Spectator Mar 22, 2021 Full Review The Defiant Ones (1958) 90% EDIT “This is the point made by The Defiant Ones: not an attack on colour prejudice in terms of morality, but of plain necessity.” – Observer (UK) Jan 30, 2021 Full Review EDIT “Rosi's method limits him to stating a case; though Gianni di Venanzo's color camerawork, even in the oddly wan print on show here, puts it glitteringly.” – The Spectator Oct 12, 2020 Full Review Obyknovennyy fashizm (Triumph Over Violence) (1968) EDIT “Romm's film has its points, and perhaps had rather more when shown as originally made... which I'm told wasn't so devoted to self-defeating sarcasm.” – The Spectator Oct 12, 2020 Full Review As Long As You're Healthy (1966) EDIT “[Etaix] doesn't manage to keep half enough of the bad jokes down.” – The Spectator Oct 12, 2020 Full Review They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1969) EDIT “They Came to Rob Las Vegas carries the dehumanized thrill to a rather splendid ultimate.” – The Spectator Oct 4, 2020 Full Review Billion Dollar Brain (1967) 57% EDIT “Scrambled technique has the effect of a series of evasive mannerisms, to keep anyone from meeting the story head-on.” – The Spectator Sep 28, 2020 Full Review The Strawberry Statement (1970) EDIT “Hagmann, got hist training in TV commercials; and all too often it shows through in the flashings and zoomings... the narcissistic awareness of the charm of youth.” – The Spectator Sep 27, 2020 Full Review Twisted Nerve (1968) EDIT “The real trouble is not that the film is horrific, but that its notion of shock value seems so blatantly calculated in their and so lame, decrepit and unalparming in practice.” – The Spectator Sep 27, 2020 Full Review If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) 67% EDIT “Falls well short of the flip promise of its title.” – The Spectator Sep 27, 2020 Full Review My Way Home (1978) EDIT “Jancso was an ethnology student before he became a filmmaker. He seems to have retained the most useful kind of curiosity about how people do what they do.” – The Spectator Sep 26, 2020 Full Review I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968) 14% EDIT “This dimly predictable comedy tries to have its hashish cake and eat it several times over.” – The Spectator Sep 26, 2020 Full Review Dance of the Vampires (2011) EDIT “Polanski had something in mind which never found its way to the screen.” – The Spectator Sep 26, 2020 Full Review The Last Grenade (1970) EDIT “[A] curiously old-fashioned yarn.” – The Spectator Sep 26, 2020 Full Review Negatives (1968) EDIT “The two women only really exist as a misogynist's dream figures revolving around the man.” – The Spectator Sep 25, 2020 Full Review X, Y & Zee (1972) 29% EDIT “Life in Edna O'Brien land has long been on the odd side, and in [X, Y & Zee] has arrived at a pretty pass, strongly suggestive of a boulevard comedy suffering from a rather severe rush of blood to the head.” – The Times (UK) Jul 8, 2020 Full Review Weekend of a Champion (1972) 73% EDIT “A good weekend's work by everyone; including the sharp director, Frank Simon.” – The Times (UK) Jul 8, 2020 Full Review The Decameron (1970) 79% EDIT “In effect, The Decameron does come across somewhat distantly, for all its busy emphasis on the spontaneous energies of a genial Utopia which has yet to discover the fretful complexities of Renaissance man.” – The Times (UK) Jul 8, 2020 Full Review
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