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Spliced Personality

Spliced Personality is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Sean Burns.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) (2025) Sean Burns It’s quaint without being cloying, the kind of promising first feature that reminds us what festivals like this are supposed to be for.
Posted Feb 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Zodiac Killer Project (2025) Sean Burns A wryly funny deconstruction that doubles as the finest work of criticism I’ve encountered in some time.
Posted Feb 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Atropia (2025) Sean Burns I guess it makes sense that the only real stinker I saw this year went home with the biggest prize.
Posted Feb 06, 2025  Edit critic review
The Things You Kill (2025) Sean Burns As the story unfolds, you can see at least half a dozen ways in which the film could have gone terribly wrong. Watching Khatami sidestep them all is exhilarating.
Posted Jan 31, 2025  Edit critic review
OBEX (2025) Sean Burns I adore how lovingly handcrafted Birney’s images and effects are, a retro sci-fi aesthetic by way of thrift stores and hot glue guns that feels like a pointed rebuke to AI slop.
Posted Jan 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Predators (2025) Sean Burns An uncommonly thoughtful documentary probing our attraction/repulsion to such sordid stories, and the shared humanity that is lost when the ugliest aspects of society are packaged as entertainment.
Posted Jan 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Thelma (2024) Sean Burns Not a hard movie to watch but it’s an easy one to resent, given that Margolin had excellent actors and the opportunity to make something real here, instead of a silly fantasy about an old lady doing dumb action movie stuff.
Posted Feb 04, 2024  Edit critic review
Stress Positions (2024) Sean Burns Maybe I’m just not ready yet for the wacky Covid period pieces.
Posted Feb 04, 2024  Edit critic review
A Real Pain (2024) Sean Burns Sort of like 'Sideways,' except if instead of wineries they toured concentration camps.
Posted Feb 04, 2024  Edit critic review
Fancy Dance (2023) Sean Burns A throwback message movie blessed with a natural born movie star.
Posted Feb 06, 2023  Edit critic review
Bad Behaviour (2023) Sean Burns There’s an interestingly aggressive edge to Englert’s staging, a sense that it could explode at any moment. The film feels unfinished, but also dangerous and alive.
Posted Feb 06, 2023  Edit critic review
Fair Play (2023) Sean Burns Critics are hailing 'Fair Play' as the return of the erotic thriller and I feel like I’m being gaslit. First of all, its not a thriller.
Posted Feb 06, 2023  Edit critic review
Eileen (2023) Sean Burns Luckily, there’s nothing straight at all about this picture (in any sense of the word) with its sinister, camp sensibility and this instantly iconic, fiendishly funny Anne Hathaway performance.
Posted Feb 06, 2023  Edit critic review
The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023) Sean Burns Hite was a willowy, ethereal figure and the film (narrated by a breathy Dakota Johnson) has a wonderfully frilly, feminine texture.
Posted Feb 06, 2023  Edit critic review
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023) Sean Burns A film about a beloved performer struggling with a devastating degenerative illness probably has no business being as funny and entertaining as this one.
Posted Feb 06, 2023  Edit critic review
Mamacruz (2023) Sean Burns The movie is entirely predictable in its plot mechanics yet quietly revolutionary in its insistence on taking the sexuality of senior citizens seriously.
Posted Jan 23, 2023  Edit critic review
Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) (2022) Sean Burns It was nice to finally hear the stories behind so many of the T-shirts I wore in high school.
Posted Jan 23, 2023  Edit critic review
Other People's Children (2022) Sean Burns It would probably be impossible for me to not enjoy a movie in which Frederick Wiseman plays a kindly gynecologist.
Posted Jan 23, 2023  Edit critic review
Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) Sean Burns Expanded from a short that screened at the festival in 2019, it probably played a lot better at 12 minutes.
Posted Jan 23, 2023  Edit critic review
Decision to Leave (2022) Sean Burns The best romantic comedy since 'Gone Girl,' or at least 'Phantom Thread' in its snickering, sinister implication that the only unsolvable mystery is the human heart.
Posted Nov 05, 2022  Edit critic review
She Said (2022) Sean Burns So artless and prosaic it makes 'Spotlight' look like 'All The President’s Men.'
Posted Nov 05, 2022  Edit critic review
Aftersun (2022) Sean Burns It’s all elisions, ellipses and lingering looks that build to an almost overwhelming emotional force.
Posted Nov 05, 2022  Edit critic review
Triangle of Sadness (2022) Sean Burns Östlund reveals himself to be a social satirist and political thinker on the level of Adam McKay, and just as inexplicably acclaimed.
Posted Nov 05, 2022  Edit critic review
Personality Crisis: One Night Only (2022) Sean Burns The songs are interspersed with plenty of boozy banter, tall tales and reminiscences from Johansen. He’s an engaging performer and a very funny guy, even when the material feels like secondhand Tom Waits.
Posted Nov 05, 2022  Edit critic review
Stars at Noon (2022) Sean Burns Sensual and swoony in ways you didn’t think modern movies were still allowed to be. Though I must admit, the period sex is surprisingly restrained coming from the director of 'Trouble Every Day.'
Posted Nov 05, 2022  Edit critic review
Am I OK? (2022) Sean Burns A stunningly banal celebrity indulgence.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Palm Trees and Power Lines (2022) Sean Burns I was sure that a certain scene in the middle of the movie was going to be the most upsetting thing I saw at Sundance but that was only because I hadnt seen the ending yet.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Dos Estaciones (2022) Sean Burns González and cinematographer Gerardo Guerra constantly shoot these characters through doorways and windows, isolating them in frames within frames that seem to shrink along with their fortunes.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Emily the Criminal (2022) Sean Burns This is the tightest, most satisfying little noir Ive seen in a good long time.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power (2022) Sean Burns Moronically small-minded and anti-art, trivializing serious issues with specious nonsense.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
I Didn't See You There (2022) Sean Burns The central visual conceit more than sustains the slender running time, making the able-bodied among us reflect on how much of our everyday routines we take for granted.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
To the End (2022) Sean Burns A bummer semi-sequel Lears should have called 'The Fossil Fuel Empire Strikes Back.'
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) Sean Burns What can I say? I liked spending time with these people. You probably will too.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022) Sean Burns Thompsons comic timing hasnt been so sharp since The Tall Guy, which had a similar joke about sneezes.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Babysitter (2022) Sean Burns Its all feverishly cut together in a flurry of grotesque, leering closeups and sickly colors, full of dreamlike interludes Im not sure I fully understand but I laughed like hell all the same.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Sharp Stick (2022) Sean Burns There are none of Dunhams critical insights and no conflict nor stakes to speak of. Its just cartoony characters pulling faces and bland, sex-positive affirmations that sound like self-help pamphlets. A disaster.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Call Jane (2022) Sean Burns The movie doesn't carry itself like 'an important film about an important subject.' It's practically breezy, full of warm humor and sly visual gags.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Master (2022) Sean Burns I would so much rather have been watching a straight campus drama about these issues with these actors, instead of all this wannabe A24 'elevated horror' mumbo jumbo.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Speak No Evil (2022) Sean Burns Like if Michael Haneke directed an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
Nothing Compares (2022) Sean Burns Shame on the Prince estate for refusing to allow her shattering rendition of the title track to appear in the film.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
After Yang (2021) Sean Burns The film wants to flirt with philosophical questions about what makes us human, but it's mostly content to watch Colin Farrell watch home movies while crying over a broken appliance.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995) Sean Burns What makes the film so special is how matter-of-factly it treats the provocative subject matter, and its goofy gentleness of spirit hasnt aged a day.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
La Guerra Civil (2022) Sean Burns The fights colorful context takes a backseat to a boringly conventional boxing doc, cycling through a claustrophobic collection of talking heads in tediously televisual fashion.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
When You Finish Saving the World (2022) Sean Burns These characters are well-played single notes, repeating themselves so adamantly and often that the 88-minute film feels like at least two hours.
Posted Feb 04, 2022  Edit critic review
The Kids (2021) Sean Burns Considering the players involved I'd spent the past couple decades assuming a whole lot worse went on, giving this documentary perhaps the opposite effect than was intended.
Posted Jun 18, 2021  Edit critic review
Italian Studies (2021) Sean Burns It's a dreamy mood piece with a lot of elliptical edits and musical motifs that feel laid on with a trowel to distract us from the fact that's there's not a lot of 'there' here.
Posted Jun 18, 2021  Edit critic review
Larry Flynt for President (2021) Sean Burns I'd have voted for him three times if I could.
Posted Jun 18, 2021  Edit critic review
The World to Come (2020) Sean Burns What stings you is Fastvold's abrupt editing style, slashing at the pastoral photography and presentational period specifics to render the story's emotional violence as a death of a thousand cuts.
Posted Feb 06, 2021  Edit critic review
The Dog Who Wouldn't Be Quiet (2021) Sean Burns Sometimes you spend a movie wondering where the hell this is going and by the end it feels like you've glimpsed the secrets of the universe.
Posted Feb 06, 2021  Edit critic review
Mass (2021) Sean Burns Insufferably impressed with its own cleverness, right down to the dumb double entendre title.
Posted Feb 06, 2021  Edit critic review
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