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glumpy_99

glumpy99
Criticker Zealot - 7280 Film Ratings
Member Since: 21 Oct 2010
Location: Australia
Age: 41
TCI: not enough ratings
Films in Common: 0
Not in Your Top 1000 TCIs
Bio: "The complete filmgoer is open to the movie on the screen, and asks it to work in its own ways for its own purposes. He does not fault one for not being the other, but is grateful for both if they are successful." - Roger Ebert, Review of "Keane" (2004)

Top 10:
#10 Gone With The Wind (1939)
#9 The Godfather (1972)
#8 Some Like It Hot (1959)
#7 Jackie Brown (1997)
#6 A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
#5 Tootsie (1982)
#4 The Big Sleep (1946)
#3 Network (1976)
#2 JFK (1991)
#1 Chinatown (1974)

more Recent Ratings

61 20% Les filles d'Olfa (2023) - Rated 21 Apr 2024
"This score is really a reflection of my own personal biases against this sort of docu-drama hybrid – in this case, the performative aspects mesh uneasily with the efforts to find truth in the relationships between mother and daughters and leave both the first person testimonies, and quite graphic and painful reenactments, feeling equally messy and contrived and undermining the drama in each. Definitely a devastating and wrenching tale, but hurt by Hania’s choice of style."
59 17% Say It Isn't So (2001) - Rated 21 Apr 2024
"Largely harmless post-PIE gross-out comedy is not a bad film, so much as a miscalculated one – Klein is a winningly affable lead in a movie that doesn’t treat him well, subjecting him to some harshly cruel treatment that doesn’t seem warranted (and an “ear” scene more cringingly gruesome than RESERVOIR DOGS). Look to Field and (especially) Jenkins for pitch-perfect examples of how this material should have been played!"
71 39% Hercules (1997) - Rated 21 Apr 2024
"Say the words “90s Disney” and you’ll know exactly what to expect from this down-the-line retelling of the Hercules myth – mixing equal parts LION KING and ALADDIN, this is reliably enjoyable (and love the opening narration!), but is almost too polished and perfect, bearing the mark of a production team who know the buttons to push for the formula, and hammer them for all they’re worth. Some nice touches here and there (the Greek chorus with a distinctly LITTLE SHOP flavour are great value)."
72 42% How to Deal (2003) - Rated 21 Apr 2024
"Uneasily straddles the line between standard teen soap and something more ambitious – the better elements do make this worth watching (especially Janney, who brings life and colour to her “harridan mother” archetype), but they also heighten the disappointment when it folds back into cookie cutter (especially in Foch’s dope-smoking, zinger-prone grandmother). As always, Moore proves herself an underrated (and undervalued) leading lady, sparking a requisite chemistry with love interest Ford."
66 29% Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) - Rated 21 Apr 2024
"Intriguing fantasy-horror from the 80s Disney stable seems hampered by possibly budgetary issues, and moreso restrictions on what “Disney horror” could be back then – this could have benefited from say Joe Dante’s hand in cranking up the horror a little more, because this seems a little too staid in its moodiness, especially after a foreboding and ominous opening act. Nicely performed, especially by Robards and Pryce, who seems to be walking so that Alan Rickman could pick up the torch and run!"
52 11% High Life (2018) - Rated 21 Apr 2024
"With its 70s art-house aesthetic, and a cast full of performers ready to capture the era’s spirit, this should have been a can’t-miss, but it wastes its potential on extremely seedy and unpleasant plotting, not to mention slow and lugubrious pacing which makes the film feel like a long, slow, deliberate rubbing of the nose into the ugliness. Fine work by Pattinson, and enigmatic work from Binoche, help maintain a little interest, but it’s all basically for naught."
62 22% The Condemned (2007) - Rated 16 Apr 2024
""THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME” for WWE veterans – has the makings of a fine piece of disposable entertainment, but there’s an odd push-pull between the campiness of the performers and the deadly earnest pontifications the screenplay drags up around the “evils” of screen violence; “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” has been so played out at this point that there really needed to be a new angle to make this satisfying. Austin is a satisfactory hero, and Jones gleefully tears up the screen as a loony antagonist."
50 10% Ethos (2011) - Rated 16 Apr 2024
"Too far down the Dinesh D’Souza rabbit hole for my liking, but not as noxiously ugly in its conclusions – still brings to mind the old adage that the fact you don’t understand something does not necessarily prove evidence of a conspiracy, though Harrelson’s at times hilariously earnest and constipated delivery as host seems to want to drone the viewers into a hypnotic haze-state (maybe some weed would help?) A waste of time and resources really, but not hideously terrible."
63 24% First Daughter (1999) - Rated 14 Apr 2024
"Pretty much what you would expect from a mid-level 90s TV production – likable and low-key making it an easy and undemanding watch, though the screenplay can’t really decide if it’s a redemption story for Hemingway (whose reason for redemption is murky at best) or a mending the familial bonds story for Keena’s titular daughter (especially via some awkward frisson between Hemingway and the President?) Still not bad if you know what you’re getting – 5 extra points for the explosion in the hut!"
75 48% Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005) - Rated 14 Apr 2024
"I think the softie in me got swindled – my memories of Part 1 have faded to the point where I’m not sure if this is objectively any better, but it certainly seems to play better: some genuinely amusing moments mesh in a genially sweet way with the more sentimental ones, and even though I think I liked this combination more when it was called “Father Of The Bride”, this is still solid and breezy family entertainment, with Levy and Martin’s simmering rivalry an effective plot clothesline."