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Seattle Film Blog

Seattle Film Blog is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Kathy Fennessy.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
3.5/4
7 Keys (2024) Kathy Fennessy For a $300K debut, 7 Keys is stylish, but not slick, with each section represented by a different color scheme and a score that ranges from suspenseful to ominous as Lena and Daniel reveal more of themselves.
Posted Jan 18, 2026  Edit critic review
4/4
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) Kathy Fennessy From her 2018 debut Little Woods through Hedda, Nia DaCosta has a solid track record, but there was no guarantee she was going to pull off this high-stakes sequel in such fine style, but I'll be damned: she does. And then some.
Posted Jan 15, 2026  Edit critic review
3.5
Father Mother Sister Brother (2025) Kathy Fennessy All told, it's one of his most understated films, even as it asks some of the biggest questions, like, "Can we ever really know our parents?" And, "Can we ever really know our kids?"
Posted Jan 09, 2026  Edit critic review
4/4
Radio On (1980) Kathy Fennessy Radio On would make for the ideal double bill with Border Radio, the restless black and white debut from fellow [Wim] Wenders acolyte Alison Anders.
Posted Dec 24, 2025  Edit critic review
2/4
Fame Whore (1997) Kathy Fennessy Their desperate need to succeed has all the narrative drive and technical expertise of a glorified home movie--one featuring a soundtrack by Dub Narcotic Soundsystem, Emily's Sassy Lime, and Barbara Manning--but a home movie, nonetheless.
Posted Dec 24, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
The Aura (2005) Kathy Fennessy El Aura starts out as a two-hander, like Nine Queens, but soon segues into something darker and altogether stranger. On the one hand, it's more ambitious. On the other, it's more difficult.
Posted Dec 24, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
No Other Choice (2025) Kathy Fennessy Park [Chan-wook] is such a strong visual stylist that it comes as little surprise that he ditches the first-person narration of Westlake's novel such that Lee does more showing than telling, so it's fortunate that he's such a magnetic performer.
Posted Dec 21, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Mala Noche (1986) Kathy Fennessy Sensitive, but never sentimental, it's the work of a born filmmaker.
Posted Dec 14, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
Drink and Be Merry (2025) Kathy Fennessy I was particularly struck by the way the film doubles as a character actor showcase, and every performer, in all their idiosyncrasies, gets the chance to shine. These mostly post-middle-aged actors deserve bigger parts than what they usually get.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
Hooligan Sparrow (2016) Kathy Fennessy If [Nanfu] Wang never gets to the bottom of the reasons why Sparrow has decided to risk her life for a cause--other than the fact that Chinese women can only benefit from her advocacy--it doesn't weaken her film in any way.
Posted Nov 30, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
His Motorbike, Her Island (1986) Kathy Fennessy Biker movies tend to exclude women, to make them bystanders, or to push them to the front as in 1970's Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss with the immortal Meiko Kaji, but Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's unique take splits the difference.
Posted Nov 05, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025) Kathy Fennessy We know how this story ends, but [Scott] Cooper's trick is to make the film feel suspenseful while retracing the steps it takes to get there, including incidents from Springsteen's childhood which play into the album.
Posted Oct 23, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) Kathy Fennessy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You begins as a dark comedy before edging into horror, punctuated by bursts of sparking, surrealistic imagery.
Posted Oct 16, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (2025) Kathy Fennessy [Kathryn] Bigelow has filled out the cast with a wide-ranging group of talents, and they give it their all, but I miss the greater care she once took with character, even in stylized genre exercises like The Loveless, Near Dark, and Strange Days.
Posted Oct 10, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Peter Hujar's Day (2025) Kathy Fennessy The 76-minute film is as much a profile of the photographer, at a particular moment in his life, as a showcase for the actor, who first won my heart in Todd Haynes' multi-persona Dylan depiction I'm Not There.
Posted Oct 09, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
The Ice Tower (2025) Kathy Fennessy These aren't horror movies; they're coming-of-age pictures made with great empathy and imagination, and this is surely one of the most beautiful she has made.
Posted Oct 04, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
One Battle After Another (2025) Kathy Fennessy One Battle After Another, [PT Anderson's] 10th feature, doesn't recreate Reagan's America, but rather Trump's America, and everything about it feels up to the minute, because one directly leads to the other.
Posted Sep 25, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
Compensation (1999) Kathy Fennessy From today's perspective, [Zeinabu irene] Davis's concerns don't seem radical necessarily, but though rooted in the realities of the past, her film really was ahead of its time.
Posted Sep 09, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
Lake Tahoe (2008) Kathy Fennessy If Lake Tahoe isn't as funny as Duck Season, a low-income twist on Risky Business, i.e. bored teenager makes the most of an unsupervised Sunday, it's a richer work.
Posted Sep 07, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Mouchette (1967) Kathy Fennessy Some have described the ending as "spiritual," others as "tragic." For me, it came as a relief. Up until that point, Nortier, a one-shot actress, made me feel every bump, bruise, slight, and slander.
Posted Aug 30, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
Caught Stealing (2025) Kathy Fennessy Like the movie star he has become, Butler also manages to look good, even when he looks bad, if you know what I mean, and his transformation at the end pushes that idea to the extreme in ways both hilarious and ingenious.
Posted Aug 28, 2025  Edit critic review
3.4/4
By the Stream (2024) Kathy Fennessy I don't think By the Stream was intended as a film about love, but rather regrets and new beginnings. For me, though, that's what resonated most.
Posted Aug 23, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Honey Don't! (2025) Kathy Fennessy [Margaret] Qualley makes [Ethan] Coen and [Tricia] Cooke's black comic take on the sunshine noir or hardboiled detective story worthwhile–I just wish the film rose to her level.
Posted Aug 21, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Kathy Fennessy Despite the 62-year-old source material and the references to an elder's past glories–from gold records to magazine covers–it's very much about today, and Lee has decidedly mixed feelings about that.
Posted Aug 14, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
Great Absence (2023) Kathy Fennessy There's a tendency in films about dementia to resort to sentiment and cliché, which [Kei] Chika-ura handily avoids in Great Absence, but the directness of Complicity [his previous film] proves more emotionally involving
Posted Jul 16, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972) Kathy Fennessy Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers was designed for maximum enjoyment, and that's what it delivers.
Posted Jun 10, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
Last Days Here (2011) Kathy Fennessy A lot of recent music docs have taken on subjects who've persevered through adversity. Rock School co-directors and metal musicians Argott and Fenton don't break the mold, but they do depict a version of bottom that puts most others to shame.
Posted Jun 07, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
The Weird World of Blowfly (2010) Kathy Fennessy If you're looking for 89 minutes of fun, The Weird World of Blowfly won't be the documentary to fill that need. Though high-profile admirers, like Ice-T and Jello Biafra, testify to his influence and importance, Furmanski tells a pretty sad story,
Posted Jun 04, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
In the Heat of the Night (1967) Kathy Fennessy The movie has all the tropes of the conventional murder mystery–dead body, colorful suspects, potential coverup–but everything leads back to the way this small-minded Southern town treats a Black detective from the North.
Posted Jun 02, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Suburban Fury (2024) Kathy Fennessy It's hard to tell what [Robinson Devor] thinks about [Sara Jane Moore], but that isn't the same as lacking a point of view. It's more about providing a voice for a woman who has felt misrepresented.
Posted May 23, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Ready or Not (2025) Kathy Fennessy Claire Frances Byrne's directorial debut is a potent piece of work rooted in a specific place and time--with all the Irish slang you could hope for--and yet universal to the challenges teenage girls face.
Posted May 20, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/4
The Balconettes (2024) Kathy Fennessy I like the way the film began and it held my attention, but lost my sympathies midway through. I'm all for sisterhood, but the men in the film are painted with the broadest of strokes.
Posted May 18, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
The Glass Web (1953) Kathy Fennessy I'm not certain The Glass Web would score high marks from Czar of Noir Eddie Muller of TCM and Noir City fame, but it's a solid B-picture
Posted May 15, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story (2024) Kathy Fennessy Though an American could have made this documentary, and it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world, only an Irish woman could really get her as thoroughly.
Posted May 14, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
Four Mothers (2024) Kathy Fennessy The real star of the show is James McArdle, an experienced supporting actor of stage and screen, proving here he can easily command the screen--and your sympathies--as the leading man.
Posted May 13, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Romeo & Juliet (2013) Kathy Fennessy Despite their superior work elsewhere, Steinfeld and Booth make for a tepid match, unlike the lovers, played by Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, at the heart of Franco Zeffirelli's definitive 1968 version.
Posted May 04, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
Meek's Cutoff (2010) Kathy Fennessy Kelly Reichardt's meditative take on the genre, written by Jon Raymond, feels more enigmatic than most--with the possible exception of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man--even if the period details look right.
Posted May 04, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Haute Cuisine (2012) Kathy Fennessy In attempting to avoid anything too political (Mitterand's policymaking) or personal (Hortense's background), Haute Cuisine comes across as blander than its overly-respectful makers may have intended.
Posted May 04, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
The Shrouds (2024) Kathy Fennessy The Shrouds plays like a successor to Crimes of the Future (the second, and not the first film with the same title that appeared a year after Stereo). It isn't just personal, but more overtly biographical.
Posted Apr 21, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Art for Everybody (2023) Kathy Fennessy Director Miranda Yousef doesn't just look at the paintings, prints, and ancillary products that made him rich, but behind the pious image to reveal what he really thought and the kind of art he really wanted to make.
Posted Apr 16, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
The Friend (2024) Kathy Fennessy In the end, Iris finds a solution. I cried, and you might, too. This is a film that could easily get lost in the marketplace, but I hope it doesn't.
Posted Mar 30, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Choose Me (1984) Kathy Fennessy Choose Me may be a small film relative to the go-big-or-go-home '80s, but all things considered: it's an impressive achievement.
Posted Mar 24, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Play It Cool (1970) Kathy Fennessy I don't know if Japanese filmmaker Yasuzō Masumura ever saw Fellini's Nights of Cabiria–though he did study film in Italy in the 1950s–but without imitating the Italian master in any way, he proves just as empathetic to sex workers.
Posted Mar 15, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
The Trans List (2016) Kathy Fennessy Everything is carefully lit and composed, but there's no camera movement, just cutaways to still images. This isn't a liability if the speakers are compelling, and they usually are.
Posted Mar 05, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/4
The Glass Castle (2017) Kathy Fennessy The actors, including Ella Anderson as the young Jeannette, give it their all, but they look awkward and uncomfortable, particularly [Brie] Larsen as a tightly-wound Manhattan gossip columnist
Posted Mar 05, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Endless (2020) Kathy Fennessy Every generation gets the Ghost they deserve, and Scott Speer's supernatural romance puts a YA spin on the benevolent specter trope.
Posted Mar 05, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024) Kathy Fennessy If anything, The Rule of Jenny Pen flirts with the kind of enjoyably silly menace of Richard Attenborough's 1978 ventriloquist dummy horror Magic whenever Dave and the doll go to town--singing, dancing, the whole bit.
Posted Mar 02, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
Anatahan (1953) Kathy Fennessy Josef von Sternberg's sympathies for a proud and sensuous woman make Keiko a worthy successor to the regal angels and empresses Marlene Dietrich once embodied for her favorite director.
Posted Feb 22, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/4
The Monkey (2025) Kathy Fennessy [Osgood Perkins] retains the bones of King's 42-page story, but changes the tone, condenses the number of characters, invests one of them–and not just the toy monkey itself–with malevolence, and amps everything up to 11.
Posted Feb 16, 2025  Edit critic review
4/4
Dead Man's Switch (2024) Kathy Fennessy At Cannes 2024, [Adriana] Paz shared the best actress award with the cast of Emilia Pérez, which is ironic, because Jacques Audiard's embattled musical, which was shot in France, also deals with the Missing Persons system, and it's the inferior effort.
Posted Feb 09, 2025  Edit critic review
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