Critics » David Thomson
David Thomson

David Thomson

Agrees with the Tomatometer 76% of the time.

Publications:
Film Comment Magazine , Independent , L.A. Weekly , Movieline , The New Republic
Total Reviews:
84

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 84
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
36% The Counselor (2013) " The Counselor is a very bad film, and I suspect that a lot of the actors knew that already as they did their work. It lacks clarity, plausibility, suspense, and purpose." — The New Republic
Posted Oct 24, 2013
94% All Is Lost (2013) " All Is Lost is amazing, deeply moving, and a harking back to an age when the best mainstream films might be the best pictures America made." — The New Republic
Posted Oct 4, 2013
81% Prisoners (2013) " Prisoners is weary after ten minutes, and I suppose it has persuaded itself that its length is justified by its solemn gaze into the abyss." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 26, 2013
93% Top of the Lake: Season 1 " Top of the Lake is written and directed by Jane Campion and Garth Davis. That's reason enough for taking it seriously, but for being disappointed too. " — The New Republic
Posted Sep 13, 2013
82% Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) " This is a hell of a film, a marvelous experience, far more beautiful than sentimental, so long as you don't have to have a mind made up for you." — The New Republic
Posted Aug 16, 2013
22% The Canyons (2013) " The Canyons is inept and de-energizing, and Lindsay Lohan is enough to make you cry." — The New Republic
Posted Aug 7, 2013
54% Lovelace (2013) " It is made by documentarians who show more concern for feminism than for fiction or fantasy." — The New Republic
Posted Aug 7, 2013
76% Ray Donovan: Season 1 (TV, 2013) " Ray Donovan is so way ahead of Lovelace or The Canyons in conveying the sexed swagger of Los Angeles. "Ray Donovan" is the one of these three items to watch-so long as you can live with a little nastiness. " — The New Republic
Posted Aug 1, 2013
91% Blue Jasmine (2013) " Sooner or later a major film-maker has to give us someone we will never forget. Jasmine is that someone." — The New Republic
Posted Jul 25, 2013
40% Only God Forgives (2013) " This is a ludicrous, showy film, and we are left to reconcile those two antagonistic qualities, or get out." — The New Republic
Posted Jul 18, 2013
89% In the Fog (2013) " In the Fog, which seems to me a masterpiece, is about occupation and the destruction of an understanding of one's own history." — The New Republic
Posted Jul 2, 2013
82% Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) " Caesar [the main ape] is the reason to see this daft, breathless picture." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 24, 2013
100% Brighton Rock (1947) " Anyone interested after seeing this film [the 2011 version] should go straight to the 1947 original and the uncanny way in which the steadily decent and amiable Attenborough was so scary." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 24, 2013
51% Brighton Rock (2011) " Drab in color, with very little of Brighton-they shot in neighboring Eastbourne, apparently because Brighton is too posh now to be its old self." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 24, 2013
93% Drive (2011) " What it had going for it was an uncanny and moving relationship between Gosling and Mulligan." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 24, 2013
97% The Killing (1956) " Faultless and enjoyable." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 24, 2013
100% The Prowler (Cost of Living ) (1951) " It's really a quick, deft analysis of a kind of world where corruption and easy answers are on the advance." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 24, 2013
67% World War Z (2013) " Z has guts and energy. It starts its mayhem early and it never lets up." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 21, 2013
92% Take Shelter (2011) " In my estimate, this unique and frequently arresting film suffers from the monotony of the lead players' affect, and from the film's urge to have its gloomy cake and eat it." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
94% Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) " It came nowhere close to the numbers on Easy Rider, but it is so much more worthwhile as a film. Indeed, I'm going to push my luck and say there has never been a better film about sweaters." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
36% In Time (2011) " In Time is so crammed with provocative ideas it begins to feel over-crowded." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
92% Page Eight " Bill Nighy is the hushed engine of the film, just as Rachel Weisz is asked to be the emblem of a vein of decency and commitment that is worth defending." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
43% J. Edgar (2011) " The Hoover material is ugly and very American, and it might have made an authentic monster story. But the picture offered is muddled, cautious, and at cross purposes." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
89% The Descendants (2011) " The Descendants is humane, decent, and close to real quality." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
84% My Week with Marilyn (2011) " I believe the heart of the film, and the cleverest stroke of all, is Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark, someone few of us will have heard of." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
79% Shame (2011) " The film's numb attitude assumes that Brandon's problem is beyond reach or rescue. So why are we watching, except for high-tone misery and something close to pornography?" — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
80% Young Adult (2011) " There has always been something so inward about [Theron;] she can seem detached or deprived. But here it's as if the script and the direction felt bound to heed that loneliness, and let the actress go with her bravery and the depressive sag of her mouth." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
83% Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) " The movie is riveting in the exact sense of the word: We feel nailed to the screen in the impossible task of working out what is going on-let alone why it matters." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
78% A Dangerous Method (2011) " It makes for an absorbing drama and leaves the mustiness of cigars in the theatre." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
98% The Artist (2011) " The whole thing is so damn clever and charming, it might just sneak off with Best Picture. " — The New Republic
Posted Jun 20, 2013
99% A Separation (2011) " You cannot watch the film without feeling kinship with the characters and admitting their decency as well as their mistakes. " — The New Republic
Posted Jun 19, 2013
76% We Need to Talk About Kevin (2012) " It becomes a film about her [Swinton] scattered mind. That produces wonders from Swinton, but it ignores the plea in the title. What about Kevin? Kevin deserves so much more attention-indeed, he deserves being played by Tilda Swinton. " — The New Republic
Posted Jun 19, 2013
84% The Hunger Games (2012) " The film shows precious little hunger and no sense of game. " — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
78% The Deep Blue Sea (2012) " The movie is an exquisite period piece, slow and dank, and unduly persuaded that it's rendering a classic. " — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
70% The Loneliest Planet (2012) " You have to see The Loneliest Planet, for it is one of those works that prepares you for life, that make you wary, alive and responsible, and which ... well, you'll never forget it." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
38% Dark Shadows (2012) " The only reason to see Dark Shadows is to discover how dire and pointless-how flat-out dreadful-a movie can be even when it has Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Helena Bonham Carter attached to its flimsy pretext." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
74% Conversations With Other Women (2006) " I was hooked to the screen, to the film's sense of time and place and risk, to the intelligence of the talk and the intimations of pleasure and regret in Bonham Carter's performance." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
94% Moonrise Kingdom (2012) " The film is frequently funny, always elegant (or mock-elegant), and something that would make Humbert Humbert laugh all the way to his asylum. " — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
74% Prometheus (2012) " Prometheus is scary only in the sum of instincts and talent for movie-making that have been lost." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
100% Fat City (1972) " So you say to yourself, this Fat City is pretty damn realistic, even if you know in your heart that "realistic" and Hollywood should not be printed on the same page-otherwise paper ignites. Still, you're marveling at it." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
51% Savages (2012) " The film would have been so much more interesting if the two men had been identical twins played by the same actor-like Jeremy Irons in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
—— Black Panther " The lighting can be unnatural, and sometimes the acting is awkward; the concentration on process seems numbing. But those very defects give the film a special mood, lucid in its nastiness, but not too far from black surrealism." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 17, 2013
67% Lawless (2012) " It's slight and casual to the point of laziness, but it's straight fun, done with knowledge and a laconic pleasure. You could do far worse." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
98% Oslo, August 31st (2012) " The beauty is in the array of animated faces in Anders' life. And it's in the simple promise and vitality of Anders' face, which serves the film without any regard for being in a film, let alone a tragedy or a poetic vision of darkness and futility." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
85% The Master (2012) " It's a mess; it's pretentious; it is thundery with dismay. " — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
93% Looper (2012) " I found myself dreaming of the days when Willis would take a rest from Die Hard-ing to do character cameos of unexpected depth and pathos: Pulp Fiction, Nobody's Fool, and a few others. Now he clings to stoic longevity, and shoots people." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
66% Cloud Atlas (2012) " Whatever your age, even if life is an ocean made up of many drops, you may resolve that life is too short for this errant nonsense." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
96% Argo (2012) " Entertaining and suspenseful in old-fashioned ways." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
89% Lincoln (2012) " It's very good, but that's not the point. It's necessary." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
63% Anna Karenina (2012) " So can we somehow make a bargain with the film world: no more Anna Kareninas? You're making idiots of yourselves." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Showing 1 - 50 of 84
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