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johnmcdonald.net.au

johnmcdonald.net.au is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): John McDonald.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) John McDonald I’m not reflexively opposed to long films, only boring, self-indulgent ones, and the latest Avatar, like all Cameron’s movies, is a vanity project.
Posted Dec 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Twiggy (2024) John McDonald Joanna Lumley speaks about Twiggy’s resilience, and that may be the defining characteristic of her personality.
Posted Dec 12, 2025  Edit critic review
The Running Man (2025) John McDonald For us the major interest is how this chase will end, which renders two hours of furious action merely academic. Wright is obviously hoping we’ll be so engrossed in following Ben’s next move that we’ll live imaginatively within the film moment by moment.
Posted Nov 27, 2025  Edit critic review
Bugonia (2025) John McDonald While there are moments of irony and absurdity, Bugonia is a very dark experience, poised always on the edge of violence, occasionally stepping over the line.
Posted Nov 25, 2025  Edit critic review
The Choral (2025) John McDonald Elgar’s oratorio is about the redemption of a soul, but everyone in this increasingly secular age has their own private version of heaven or hell.
Posted Nov 25, 2025  Edit critic review
Die My Love (2025) John McDonald In this film, Lawrence spends so long slinking around on her hands and knees, bum in the air, it feels unsettling when she walks on her hind legs.
Posted Nov 07, 2025  Edit critic review
Frankenstein (2025) John McDonald The frequent action scenes and the monster’s superhero powers feel extrinsic to the deeper story del Toro is trying to tell. It’s as if he needed to make the film appeal to the kind of popular audience that flocks to the Marvel Comics movies.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
After the Hunt (2025) John McDonald The film engages with the booming politics of identity that have left their mark on America’s universities, overturning tradition and commonsense, but with so many flawed characters it becomes difficult to disentangle the public from the personal.
Posted Oct 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Christy (2025) John McDonald The wonder of this film, which has a relentlessly grimy and gloomy ambience, is that it keeps lifting us, almost imperceptibly, out of the doldrums along with Christy.
Posted Oct 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Fran the Man (2025) John McDonald Fran the Man is an example of a rare variety of movie – a comedy that’s actually funny.
Posted Oct 22, 2025  Edit critic review
One Battle After Another (2025) John McDonald At no point in this long movie does Anderson allow the narrative to slacken, even when we’re sitting in Bob’s loungeroom watching him take another toke from his pipe.
Posted Sep 30, 2025  Edit critic review
National Theatre Live: Inter Alia (2025) John McDonald The judge’s dilemma is also that of her creator, Suzie Miller, who has used the stage as a way of exploring complicated topics that are being treated in brutally dismissive fashion by ideologues and opportunistic politicians.
Posted Sep 30, 2025  Edit critic review
The Roses (2025) John McDonald It's tempting to say all the best scenes grow out of the cultural gulf that separates the British expats from their American hosts.
Posted Sep 30, 2025  Edit critic review
Honey Don't! (2025) John McDonald This, presumably, is Coen and Cooke’s idea of a B-movie, but it’s too slick and self-aware to be an authentic B, and too devoid of drama.
Posted Sep 06, 2025  Edit critic review
An Ordinary Case (2024) John McDonald The film owes a huge debt to the performances of Auteuil and Gadebois who draw us into a story that might have felt mechanical with lesser talents.
Posted Sep 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Eddington (2025) John McDonald I found myself ticking off a checklist of all the appalling things we’ve seen coming out of America over the past five years, condensed and adapted to one nondescript town.
Posted Aug 27, 2025  Edit critic review
The Life of Chuck (2024) John McDonald Perhaps the scariest part is that the film is being widely described as “life affirming”, which instinctively puts me on the defensive, worried that a bucket of treacle lies in wait for the unwary viewer.
Posted Aug 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Four Letters of Love (2024) John McDonald Those who are not hopeless romantics might feel the filmmakers are laying it on a bit thick. Must all Irish people have these deeply poetic souls?
Posted Aug 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Auction (2024) John McDonald Talking to an art dealer recently who had previously worked as a merchant banker, I was a little surprised when he said the art business was ten times more shady and more complex.
Posted Aug 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Materialists (2025) John McDonald Jane Eyre can declare: “Reader I married him,” and we put down the book feeling satisfied, and confident of her future. For Lucy, there is no ultimate right or wrong.
Posted Jul 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 (2025) John McDonald To read Orwell today is to be struck by the predictive value of his work. He may have been too pessimistic about the year 1984, but the world is trying to hard re-fashion itself in conformity with his worst imaginings.
Posted Jul 22, 2025  Edit critic review
One to One: John & Yoko (2024) John McDonald ...it’s almost touching to see the faith that figures such as Jerry Rubin, John and Yoko had in “the people” – the same people who gorged themselves on consumer junk, spent their lives watching TV, and voted for Nixon in record numbers.
Posted Jun 10, 2025  Edit critic review
The Phoenician Scheme (2025) John McDonald The Phoenician Scheme is quirkiness squared, or cubed, although the plot is simplicity itself – as four-square as one of Anderson’s signature establishing shots.
Posted Jun 10, 2025  Edit critic review
Universal Language (2024) John McDonald If Canada is widely accused of being boring, Rankin portrays Winnipeg in such a manner that it seems transcendentally boring.
Posted May 20, 2025  Edit critic review
Ocean with David Attenborough (2025) John McDonald The message isn’t: “It’s never too late”, but “It’s almost too late.” We’re hanging on by our fingernails but can still haul ourselves out of danger if we abandon some of our most destructive and wasteful practices.
Posted May 16, 2025  Edit critic review
Forbidden Games (1952) John McDonald It’s not horror she feels, but a kind of fascination, as if there’s a great puzzle to be solved if only the correct rituals are observed. It’s not a descent into the abyss, but a game of hopscotch into darkness.
Posted May 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Riefenstahl (2024) John McDonald Veiel’s film is an extended portrait of an actress who spent most of her life playing herself, adding new details where they seemed appropriate, forgetting other things which may or may not have been documented
Posted May 02, 2025  Edit critic review
The Penguin Lessons (2024) John McDonald The filmmakers apparently believe that if you put a penguin in a starring role, you can’t go wrong...
Posted Apr 25, 2025  Edit critic review
National Theatre Live: Dr. Strangelove (2025) John McDonald This stage version is a curiosity, a nostalgia trip, with sufficient connection to our present-day anxieties to give it a sense of relevance.
Posted Apr 25, 2025  Edit critic review
The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) John McDonald Dumas may be a shambolic author but he knew how to cast a spell on his readers. He had the knack of writing pot-boilers that have survived as great works of literature.
Posted Apr 19, 2025  Edit critic review
Small Things Like These (2024) John McDonald Ultimately, Bill’s dilemma is our dilemma. Can we stand by and watch crimes being perpetrated by those in a position of power, thinking only of preserving our own skins?
Posted Apr 11, 2025  Edit critic review
The Return (2024) John McDonald Most of the action takes place in Odysseus’s head as he struggles to overcome feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety, to reclaim his family and his kingdom.
Posted Apr 07, 2025  Edit critic review
Disney's Snow White (2025) John McDonald While I never expected a masterpiece, I’m still a little stunned by the sheer awfulness of this remake.
Posted Mar 31, 2025  Edit critic review
I'm Still Here (2024) John McDonald Although he plays the story straight, Salles sentimentalises by sheer perseverance. We begin to wonder if the Paiva family ever has a serious argument or a tantrum that can’t be resolved in an instant.
Posted Mar 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Hard Truths (2024) John McDonald His characters are a function of social classes, dysfunctional families, personal obsessions, and dumb luck. They are instantly relatable because we meet such people everywhere.
Posted Mar 09, 2025  Edit critic review
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) John McDonald Not only does Rasoulof say the unsayable, he virtually shouts: “J’accuse!”
Posted Feb 24, 2025  Edit critic review
The Last Showgirl (2024) John McDonald For a movie set in the world of Las Vegas showgirls who dance in a burlesque review called Le Razzle Dazzle, it’s some sort of achievement to never lift the mood out of pathos.
Posted Feb 18, 2025  Edit critic review
A Complete Unknown (2024) John McDonald In this portrayal, the young Dylan is no study in pouting cuteness. For much of the time he comes across as a jerk – selfish, arrogant, ambitious and manipulative.
Posted Feb 10, 2025  Edit critic review
Babygirl (2024) John McDonald In our prudish, moralistic age, Babygirl portrays an aspect of the sexual impulse that doesn’t fit the prevailing templates but feels unnervingly true.
Posted Feb 09, 2025  Edit critic review
The Brutalist (2024) John McDonald The lead character, László Tóth, shares his name with the disturbed, Hungarian-born, Australian iconoclast who took a hammer to Michelangelo’s Pietà in 1972. Although this Tóth is a builder, we can also discern a destructive side to his personality.
Posted Feb 02, 2025  Edit critic review
Emilia Pérez (2024) John McDonald Although the subject matter of this film is immensely provocative, to get hung up on the Mexican or trans content may be missing the point.
Posted Jan 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Conclave (2024) John McDonald The election of a new Pope may be a secretive affair, steeped in ritual and tradition, but it’s indisputably a political process in which candidates must wrestle with their own egos and ambitions.
Posted Jan 19, 2025  Edit critic review
Nosferatu (2024) John McDonald As soon as the papers are signed, Thomas feels he’s had enough of the Count’s dubious hospitality but finds it impossible to leave. When Orlok asks you to stay for drink it’s hard to say no
Posted Jan 12, 2025  Edit critic review
Parthenope (2024) John McDonald We are mesmerised by surfaces and puzzled by the depths revealed in tantalising fashion. One thinks of the ocean in which the lead character is born, and where she swims like a mermaid.
Posted Jan 12, 2025  Edit critic review
Anora (2024) John McDonald Baker has made a film about what happens when the ordinary meets the extraordinary, but by the end we’re wondering which is which.
Posted Dec 27, 2024  Edit critic review
The Room Next Door (2024) John McDonald The viewer is drawn to identify with Ingrid. With her, we provide an audience for Martha’s reflections. We share the same tense feelings, wondering when and how the deed will be done.
Posted Dec 27, 2024  Edit critic review
A Real Pain (2024) John McDonald The ambition, and the odd magnetism of this story, is to portray the Kaplans’ tense relationship as not inconsiderable in the face of the Holocaust.
Posted Dec 19, 2024  Edit critic review
My Favourite Cake (2024) John McDonald It requires a good deal of bravery to make a film such as My Favourite Cake, kicking against the boundaries of what is permissable under this regime.
Posted Dec 10, 2024  Edit critic review
Gladiator II (2024) John McDonald As the wackiest, most bloodthirsty Roman emperors seem to have lodged themselves in the public imagination, Scott gives the people what they want.
Posted Dec 10, 2024  Edit critic review
Wicked (2024) John McDonald The Wizard of Oz may have its ambiguities, but in Wicked, the whole story boils down to one proposition: “It’s not easy being green”.
Posted Dec 10, 2024  Edit critic review
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