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Film Blather

Film Blather is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Eugene Novikov.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
B
Nebraska (2013) Eugene Novikov One of Payne's better films.
Posted Sep 02, 2013  Edit critic review
B-
Gravity (2013) Eugene Novikov 'Gravity' tries so hard to add emotional heft to its simple survival story, but its attempts are labored, unconvincing, and frankly downright dumb. This gorgeous, exciting film didn't need them.
Posted Sep 01, 2013  Edit critic review
B
12 Years a Slave (2013) Eugene Novikov A more conventional effort than 'Hunger' or 'Shame,' but it's every bit as searing and tough-minded, and hardly less challenging.
Posted Sep 01, 2013  Edit critic review
B+
All Is Lost (2013) Eugene Novikov All the drama we need is in the moment, and that's where the movie stays.
Posted Aug 31, 2013  Edit critic review
A-
Under the Skin (2013) Eugene Novikov What we used to call a 'visionary achievement' -- mesmerizing nightmare fuel in the vein of vintage Cronenberg, with the same sleek, disorienting gloss that Glazer put on his extraordinary 'Birth.'
Posted Aug 31, 2013  Edit critic review
B-
Starred Up (2013) Eugene Novikov This isn't Mackenzie's most interesting work, but you could do much worse for an issue movie.
Posted Aug 30, 2013  Edit critic review
C+
Labor Day (2013) Eugene Novikov Reitman feels the need to amp up the drama, and unloads a honking dump of backstory that's contrived and maudlin in a mode that I had thought was the exclusive province of Nicholas Sparks.
Posted Aug 30, 2013  Edit critic review
B
2 Guns (2013) Eugene Novikov In a summer of lumbering, unwieldy blockbusters sanitized and sucked free of nuance for consumption in China, it's a lively, quirky, lived-in delight.
Posted Aug 02, 2013  Edit critic review
B+
At Any Price (2012) Eugene Novikov Though Bahrani may be moving toward the mainstream here, he remains an empathetic, nuanced chronicler of the American working class.
Posted Jul 24, 2013  Edit critic review
C+
Pacific Rim (2013) Eugene Novikov Why did this consummate labor of love have to be so dumb - so clunky and hollow and poorly-acted? Why does it feel so incomplete?
Posted Jul 12, 2013  Edit critic review
B-
Man of Steel (2013) Eugene Novikov Look, this is an often-stunning event film. It's big and bold, with a scope and scale that's virtually unparalleled in the genre. But so much of that work is squandered on stuff that doesn't matter.
Posted Jun 13, 2013  Edit critic review
B-
The Kings of Summer (2013) Eugene Novikov Knows how to be funny, but it can also be a bit too studiedly random, e.g. in generating Biaggio's vaguely creepy non sequiturs and in indulging long digressions about giant wontons and avocado meat.
Posted Jun 01, 2013  Edit critic review
B
What Maisie Knew (2012) Eugene Novikov An almost uncomfortably plausible depiction of the effects of bad parenting on a fragile psyche.
Posted May 25, 2013  Edit critic review
C
Fast & Furious 6 (2013) Eugene Novikov The set-up here is so sparse it almost plays as a joke, a sneer at the notion that a film with this many car crashes could need something so snobbish as a story.
Posted May 24, 2013  Edit critic review
D
Pain & Gain (2013) Eugene Novikov The film is so inept and hateful that asking what it thinks about anything seems like dividing by zero.
Posted Apr 26, 2013  Edit critic review
C
Oblivion (2013) Eugene Novikov If Kosinski wants to keep making these elaborate techno-dystopias, I'm down. But he needs to find a better framework for his visual ideas.
Posted Apr 19, 2013  Edit critic review
C+
42 (2013) Eugene Novikov '42' won't teach you a thing, but for a film that couldn't have been very good, it's not bad.
Posted Apr 12, 2013  Edit critic review
D
The Host (2013) Eugene Novikov An alien invasion movie that consists of Saoirse Ronan and Disembodied Voice of Saoirse Ronan arguing with each other over whether and when and with whom the body of Saoirse Ronan should get it on.
Posted Mar 29, 2013  Edit critic review
B+
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) Eugene Novikov Try to imagine 'Crash' as written and directed by James Gray and you might come close to conceptualizing this beguiling film.
Posted Mar 29, 2013  Edit critic review
C+
The Lords of Salem (2012) Eugene Novikov One alluring thing about Zombie is that it's hard to know how much of all this is a put-on. I spent a lot of time squinting at it, which is more fun than being bored.
Posted Mar 13, 2013  Edit critic review
A
Mud (2013) Eugene Novikov So good - so incredibly good; a classic in the making - that I promise you won't miss the metaphor and abstraction of 'Take Shelter'.
Posted Mar 10, 2013  Edit critic review
B
Haunter (2013) Eugene Novikov The biggest pleasures here come from how thought-through and rigorous this weird little universe is; how Natali and King commit fully to their story and follow it through to a satisfying conclusion.
Posted Mar 10, 2013  Edit critic review
B
Prince Avalanche (2013) Eugene Novikov David Gordon Green seems to have found a happy medium between the laid-back sincerity of his earlier work and the puerile stoner comedy he's favored since 'Pineapple Express'.
Posted Mar 10, 2013  Edit critic review
B
Cheap Thrills (2013) Eugene Novikov There's no big twist here, but the film's sustained thoughtfulness is as surprising as any plot development.
Posted Mar 09, 2013  Edit critic review
B-
Evil Dead (2013) Eugene Novikov It's a tremendous technical achievement.
Posted Mar 09, 2013  Edit critic review
C+
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) Eugene Novikov Even when this lovably half-baked effort really started to whiff, I couldn't bring myself to be too annoyed.
Posted Mar 09, 2013  Edit critic review
C
Snitch (2013) Eugene Novikov The bulk of 'Snitch' is a lumbering drag, a sanitized PG-13 rendition of a season of 'The Wire' that feels rushed even as it refuses to end.
Posted Feb 21, 2013  Edit critic review
B-
Beautiful Creatures (2013) Eugene Novikov It's 'Twilight' with the sexes reversed, yes, but if 'Beautiful Creatures' becomes a four-sequel, screaming-tween-assault phenomenon I'll at least be able to understand it, if not quite buy in.
Posted Feb 13, 2013  Edit critic review
A-
2-Headed Shark Attack (2012) Eugene Novikov
Posted Jan 22, 2013  Edit critic review
C
Mama (2013) Eugene Novikov Muschietti doesn't have the chops to sustain tension once he ditches the parts of his story that are conceptually intriguing. Once the film becomes a conventional horror show, it deflates fast.
Posted Jan 17, 2013  Edit critic review
C
On the Road (2012) Eugene Novikov The protagonists' aimless drug- and sex-fuelled adventures have neither a seductive pull nor the weight of tragedy. They're just grimy and a little boring.
Posted Jan 12, 2013  Edit critic review
B
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) Eugene Novikov One possibility is that the main thing to recommend the film is nostalgia. But so be it.
Posted Dec 13, 2012  Edit critic review
C
Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) Eugene Novikov An aimless, mind-numbing prestige picture with uneasy undertones it seems desperate to deny.
Posted Dec 08, 2012  Edit critic review
D+
Rise of the Guardians (2012) Eugene Novikov A dumb, blandly sloganeering love letter to blind faith and willful denial.
Posted Nov 20, 2012  Edit critic review
C
Life of Pi (2012) Eugene Novikov Built around a revelation and thematic punchline that is such specious nonsense that nothing else it says or does or shows us really matters.
Posted Nov 20, 2012  Edit critic review
B+
Lincoln (2012) Eugene Novikov A studied and stunningly wonky meditation on compromise.
Posted Nov 08, 2012  Edit critic review
C
The Sessions (2012) Eugene Novikov The movie methodically punts each time it comes across anything interesting.
Posted Oct 19, 2012  Edit critic review
B-
Sinister (2012) Eugene Novikov A well-engineered scare machine, as the people sitting next to me at the screening can attest; at a certain level, one is hard-pressed to argue with soiled underpants.
Posted Oct 12, 2012  Edit critic review
A
Looper (2012) Eugene Novikov The most robust pure sci-fi in years - tighter and more fun than even 'Inception', if not as dizzyingly ambitious in its engineering.
Posted Sep 28, 2012  Edit critic review
D+
Trouble With the Curve (2012) Eugene Novikov Schematic and beyond stupid, mindlessly lionizing the geezers that 'Moneyball' spent two hours justly laughing at. It's an embarrassment.
Posted Sep 20, 2012  Edit critic review
B
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) Eugene Novikov Feels warm and genuinely affectionate in a way that's impossible to manufacture. You've seen this story before, but maybe not populated with personalities this fully realized and alive.
Posted Sep 20, 2012  Edit critic review
C+
Dredd (2012) Eugene Novikov What 'Dredd' feints at, before retreating to action flick convention, is the first real successor to Alex Proyas' 'Dark City'.
Posted Sep 20, 2012  Edit critic review
B
Rust and Bone (2012) Eugene Novikov So enthrallingly bizarre that despite a penchant for aggressively taking notes on festival films I managed to jot down almost nothing over its 2+ hour running time.
Posted Sep 06, 2012  Edit critic review
C-
The Iceman (2012) Eugene Novikov A drab, remedial gangster film.
Posted Sep 02, 2012  Edit critic review
B-
A Royal Affair (2012) Eugene Novikov Features Mads Mikkelsen in the most straightforwardly positive role I've ever seen him in, and he turns out to have an expressive impassiveness to rival Ryan Gosling's.
Posted Sep 01, 2012  Edit critic review
B
No (2012) Eugene Novikov A fascinating exercise in historical fill-in-the-blanks.
Posted Sep 01, 2012  Edit critic review
B
Argo (2012) Eugene Novikov An intelligent, expertly-made thriller with glimmers of the extraordinary.
Posted Sep 01, 2012  Edit critic review
B-
Premium Rush (2012) Eugene Novikov May be my favorite New York movie since Raimi's 'Spider-Man'.
Posted Aug 23, 2012  Edit critic review
B
The Bourne Legacy (2012) Eugene Novikov If the overarching story is silly, on the ground Gilroy's approach is the opposite: brainy and logistics-obsessed.
Posted Aug 09, 2012  Edit critic review
B+
Chonmage purin (A Boy and His Samurai) (2010) Eugene Novikov But while the American version of this story might have involved Kevin James and a lot of farting, this justly acclaimed Japanese family film is magical and totally unexpected.
Posted Jul 27, 2012  Edit critic review
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