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Critics » Ben Sachs

Ben Sachs

Agrees with the Tomatometer 65% of the time.

Publications:: Chicago Reader

Total Reviews:: 134

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 134

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T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
79%	The Impossible (2012)	" A Saw movie for middlebrows." — Chicago Reader Posted Dec 21, 2012
61%	Jack Reacher (2012)	" This is brisk, attention-grabbing, and generally unpretentious -- basically an old noir programmer inflated to blockbuster proportions." — Chicago Reader Posted Dec 21, 2012
57%	Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D (2012)	" This big-screen vehicle for the popular performance troupe would be more bearable if the exhibitors passed out earplugs along with the 3-D glasses." — Chicago Reader Posted Dec 21, 2012
65%	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)	" Little about the storytelling suggests a beating heart beneath the visuals; once the journey has begun, the characters find themselves in life-threatening danger with stupefying regularity." — Chicago Reader Posted Dec 13, 2012
92%	Starlet (2012)	" This is confident, engrossing storytelling, and the actors are terrific." — Chicago Reader Posted Dec 6, 2012
73%	Generation P (2012)	" Viktor Ginzburg keeps this lively by trying out a new effect (commercial parodies, CGI, rapid montage) in nearly every scene. Not all of them work, but the overall energy is hard to resist." — Chicago Reader Posted Dec 6, 2012
82%	Fat Kid Rules the World (2012)	" The depiction of high school band life rings true at every turn, bringing a sense of authenticity to the familiar teenage drama." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 29, 2012
89%	Life of Pi (2012)	" Ang Lee's signature style -- tasteful, measured, and devoid of personality -- translates surprisingly well to 3-D." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 21, 2012
82%	Two Years at Sea (2012)	" The first feature-length effort by noted experimental filmmaker Ben Rivers demonstrates such mastery of the image that it's worth seeing for the textures alone." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 21, 2012
50%	Vulgaria (2012)	" True to its title, this energetic Hong Kong comedy trades primarily in off-color gags, yet its tone, like that of John Waters's films, is so playful and inclusive that it's unlikely to offend anyone." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 21, 2012
70%	This Must Be The Place (2012)	" Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino handles the story with surprising thoughtfulness." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 16, 2012
——	Older Children ()	" [Writer-director Duncan Riddell] makes some solid observations." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 8, 2012
89%	A Royal Affair (2012)	" This Scandinavian coproduction is essentially an old-fashioned period spectacle, offering the tried-and-true pleasure of romantic melodrama in fancy costumes." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 8, 2012
90%	Holy Motors (2012)	" As cryptic and unpredictable as that premise might suggest." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 8, 2012
63%	Francine (2012)	" Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky, documentary makers trying their hand at drama, inspire a certain voyeuristic fascination toward the character but rarely sympathy." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 8, 2012
37%	Nobody Walks (2012)	" This dreary independent drama is essentially an art-world soap opera, but without the melodramatic verve that makes some soap operas interesting." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 8, 2012
98%	Brooklyn Castle (2012)	" The message is that chess can motivate working-class kids to become better students, and though that's nice to know, the movie doesn't illustrate this theme in much depth." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 1, 2012
83%	Smashed (2012)	" It's familiar stuff, but at least it takes addiction and recovery seriously; the depiction of Alcoholics Anonymous feels particularly heartfelt." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 18, 2012
85%	Middle of Nowhere (2012)	" The love triangle, which comes to overwhelm the second half, feels more like soap opera than anything else, and the able cast can't redeem DuVernay's often dreadful dialogue." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 18, 2012
88%	The Other Dream Team (2012)	" The movie sticks to the basic facts and patronizes viewers with plentiful music cues and other emotional pointers; you'd be better off learning this story from an old issue of Sports Illustrated." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 11, 2012
62%	Sinister (2012)	" [Director Scott Derrickson finds] new ways to frame the same rooms from one scene to the next and providing comic relief whenever the action threatens to turn monotonously grim." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 11, 2012
89%	Frankenweenie (2012)	" Missing, however, are the authentic feelings of morbidity and alienation that once made Burton an interesting filmmaker." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 4, 2012
94%	Looper (2012)	" The dystopian setting... makes for some bold cultural commentary, but as usual with Johnson, the engaging ideas feel like affectations rather than products of a fully developed sensibility." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 27, 2012
85%	The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)	" This big-screen adaptation, written and directed by Chbosky, doesn't advance the source material, though it preserves the book's sensitive tone and affectionate characterizations." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 27, 2012
33%	Snowman's Land (2012)	" Any charm evaporates amid the rampant amorality." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 27, 2012
73%	Hello I Must Be Going (2012)	" Sarah Koskoff's screenplay is flagrantly duplicitous, introducing the heroine as a self-pitying sloth, then trying to pass her off as likable by making nearly all the other characters drips, snobs, or unfeeling scolds." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 21, 2012
84%	Arbitrage (2012)	" This isn't very effective as a thriller, though it's a provocative fable about our ambivalent feelings toward financial elites." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 21, 2012
6%	The Cold Light of Day (2012)	" Cavill is no substitute for Van Damme, whose self-critical performance gave the earlier movie much of its heft" — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 14, 2012
76%	Samsara (2012)	" Any sincerity inherent in the project is overwhelmed by the manufactured awe of its godawful New Age score." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 6, 2012
——	Hospitalite (Kantai) ()	" This charming comedy begins as a very Japanese joke about limited privacy but deepens into something more ambiguous." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 6, 2012
39%	The Possession (2012)	" Director Ole Bornedal doesn't add a single idea of his own." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 6, 2012
4%	The Apparition (2012)	" This horror movie from Warner Bros. is nothing special, but it's nice to see a modest genre entertainment buoyed by a major studio's resources." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 31, 2012
48%	Hit & Run (2012)	" This is neither funny nor suspenseful, but it does feature some cool-looking cars, and Tom Arnold delivers some decent pratfalls as an accident-prone man." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 23, 2012
38%	The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)	" It's hard to believe that Hedges once wrote some decent light fiction (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, An Ocean in Iowa) before he started making greeting-card movies like Dan in Real Life and this one." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 16, 2012
88%	Ballplayer: Pelotero (2012)	" [The] Directors...try to soften...ugly truths with sentimental stories of teenagers getting signed and pulling their families out of poverty, but the portrait of widespread exploitation overwhelms the intended effect...[ END HERE ]of these subplots" — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 9, 2012
95%	Searching for Sugar Man (2012)	" Here's the rare music documentary in which the narrative is more interesting than the songs." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 9, 2012
64%	Girlfriend Boyfriend (2012)	" The shift from social portrait to domestic soap opera practically negates the democratic message of the first section, but Yang's stylish filmmaking is impressive throughout." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 9, 2012
64%	Kumar� (2012)	" It's a fascinating social experiment, but not much of a movie." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 9, 2012
92%	A Simple Life (2012)	" [T]he sort of film in which every detail feels unforced but essential." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 9, 2012
73%	Hope Springs (2012)	" These modest virtues are buried under such hard-sell devices as a manipulative muzak score and sitcom-style close-ups that disrupt the narrative momentum." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 9, 2012
76%	Unforgivable (2012)	" It's clearly the work of a master storyteller, conveying a rich, novelistic sense of character and a poetic feeling for the passing of time." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 3, 2012
71%	Sacrifice (2012)	" Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) cowrote and directed, and his talent for psychological drama isn't really suited to this sort of broad, mythic storytelling." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 26, 2012
89%	El Velador (2012)	" The artful compositions tend to make the subject matter seem vaguely unreal; Almada's true subject isn't the drug war itself but the apathy of outside spectators." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 26, 2012
93%	Farewell, My Queen (2012)	" Jacquot takes a refreshingly understated approach to costume drama, avoiding historical generalizations to focus on the particulars of palace life and the psychological states of individual characters." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 19, 2012
44%	To Rome with Love (2012)	" Most of the characters are archetypes, yet Allen treats them with genuine affection and avoids the bitterness that's marred much of his recent work." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 6, 2012
80%	Magic Mike (2012)	" The dance numbers, choreographed by Allison Faulk, are inventive and athletic, but not really erotic; Soderbergh never lets you forget that, for these men, dancing is above all a job." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 29, 2012
63%	The Woman in the Fifth (2012)	" The movie casts such a seductive air of mystery that the resolution feels anticlimactic, yet there's plenty to enjoy along the way, particularly Hawke's nuanced lead performance as a quiet man with secrets of his own." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 21, 2012
70%	Natural Selection (2012)	" However gritty this indie comedy may look (cinematographer Steve Calitri seems to be aping William Eggleston's photographs of the American south), it isn't all that different from an Adam Sandler vehicle." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 21, 2012
28%	Bel Ami (2012)	" The supposedly cunning protagonist registers as a cipher, and the directors' tendency to shoot dialogue scenes in close-up blunts any understanding of the social milieu he's trying to conquer." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 21, 2012

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