Adam Kempenaar
Movies reviews only
Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
---|---|---|---|
|
Creed III (2023) |
Creed III is too sleek, too rushed, and too contrived to deliver [all] the emotional payoffs it promises. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Mar 15, 2023
|
|
|
The Integrity of Joseph Chambers (2022) |
Machoian and his sound designer, Peter Albrechtsen, layer those natural sounds with occasional bursts of seemingly unnatural ones, mirroring Joseph’s increasingly unbalanced psyche and maximizing tension. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Feb 17, 2023
|
|
|
Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023) |
One of the things I appreciate most about Soderbergh is his ingenuity… but even he can’t make this no-stakes show go. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Feb 17, 2023
|
|
|
Navalny (2022) |
Part political portrait, part espionage thriller - containing perhaps the most jaw-dropping phone call in the history of cinema. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Feb 10, 2023
|
|
|
To Leslie (2022) |
As a showcase for Riseborough’s estimable talent, To Leslie succeeds. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Feb 10, 2023
|
|
|
Psycho (1960) |
Not that [Marion] or we are guilty of the horrors [Norman] is, but this is a movie fundamentally about shame, of which guilt is an inextricable component. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Feb 10, 2023
|
|
|
Knock at the Cabin (2023) |
Like its band of zealots, Shyamalan’s movie is insistently menacing with a patina of compassion and empathy. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Feb 03, 2023
|
|
|
White Noise (2022) |
Above all, it is - not surprisingly - a marriage story, and the story of a family that, in its own bizarre way, might be the most functional and relatable Baumbach has ever portrayed. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Jan 16, 2023
|
|
|
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) |
Overwritten, when it isn’t underwritten. Overwrought. Overblown. I’m over it. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 13, 2022
|
|
|
RRR (2022) |
I was expecting insane, rocket-fueled spectacle. I was not expecting an insane, rocket-fueled THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP with Ram Charan as Anton Walbrook... and N. T. Rama Rao Jr. as Roger Livesey. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 09, 2022
|
|
|
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) |
Leave it to del Toro to transform a kids’ fairy tale into a funny, sad, and resourceful rumination on obedience, the messiness of immortality, and the world’s true monsters - fascists and others who exploit the innocent. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 09, 2022
|
|
|
Empire of Light (2022) |
Earnestly crafted and intentioned, mostly avoiding over-simplifying the struggles of its characters or offering trite solutions to complicated issues – but there’s still a whiff of falseness to it. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 09, 2022
|
|
|
Last Flight Home (2022) |
Eli Timoner gave us a manual for how to live; documenting her father’s life and death, Ondi gives us a manual for how to say goodbye. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 09, 2022
|
|
|
Grave of the Fireflies (1988) |
It’s one thing to have a film really sadden you, but I also found it sublime in its beauty... [Setsuko and Seita's] happiness together is transcendent. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 07, 2022
|
|
|
Avatar (2009) |
It’s not just that we’ve seen the tale before… it’s that every aspect of the screenplay is terrible.
- Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 07, 2022
|
|
|
"Sr." (2022) |
[Downey Jr.] has developed this construct of a movie as a means to interrogate his father... to be able to ask him things he wouldn’t normally be able to ask; the artifice allows him to probe. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 02, 2022
|
|
|
The Fabelmans (2022) |
...wants to reckon in a meaningful way with the idea that cinema – like any art form – can be powerful and revealing and magical... but [also] can be just as dishonest as it is honest. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 02, 2022
|
|
|
The Eternal Daughter (2022) |
Sneakily and suggestively subverts our expectations of a ghost story… to create this eerie dreamspace within which Julie finds herself. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Dec 02, 2022
|
|
|
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
Glass Onion is so cleverly and distressingly prescient. Some of its timeliness is serendipity; the larger share is a smart writer and director who understands that the roots of these sad farces are as old as our country. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 18, 2022
|
|
|
Nanny (2022) |
The way Jusu visually manifests Aisha’s pervasive dread is suffocatingly evocative. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 18, 2022
|
|
|
Bad Axe (2022) |
...a curious, compassionate portrait of a country, community, and family in flux. And as socio-politically topical as it is, what lingers are the emotionally introspective ways the family members change during this volatile time. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 18, 2022
|
|
|
Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter (2021) |
...[Anthony] Bourdain lamented what he perceived as a lack of appreciation towards Trotter from the food culture that Trotter effectively begat. Love, Charlie is a successful reclamation of the revolutionary chef’s achievements and impact. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 18, 2022
|
|
|
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) |
The MCU’s mechanics are too oppressive to allow for true mournful meditation. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 18, 2022
|
|
|
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) |
A less unhinged parody of Oscar-bait music biopics, no matter how dead on, would have been an insufficient celebration of Weird Al and his work; nothing and everything is true about it. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 11, 2022
|
|
|
Aftersun (2022) |
We see a Polaroid of father and daughter begin to develop but never come fully into focus, a powerful visual metaphor for Wells’s exploration of identity and a relationship that is just in the process of forming... - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 11, 2022
|
|
|
Descendant (2022) |
We meet so many people in Descendant who could be the primary subjects of their own documentaries, and Brown deftly peels back the layers of all of their stories and makes them heard. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 04, 2022
|
|
|
Armageddon Time (2022) |
Gray isn’t just well-intentioned... while the world around Paul may want to move on from Johnny, we can’t. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 04, 2022
|
|
|
Triangle of Sadness (2022) |
There is scarcely a gag or scenario that isn’t telegraphed and obvious, and yet it’s seemingly just as satisfied with its own cleverness as its targets are with their over-pampered, empty lives. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 04, 2022
|
|
|
Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) |
Lovelace and Southern render this chronicle of the early 2000’s New York music scene in a dreamy, expectant haze tinged with an inescapable fatalism. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 04, 2022
|
|
|
Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues (2022) |
…joyfully but soberly investigates Armstrong’s immense artistry and complicated legacy. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 04, 2022
|
|
|
Causeway (2022) |
...if anything, its audaciousness lies in its restraint…all of the revelations are small-scale but meaningful. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Nov 04, 2022
|
|
|
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
Banshees’ dramatic resonance is a result of how deftly McDonagh delivers his characters’ virtues and vices. What’s hilarious and tragic is that both are so modest compared to the amount of anguish they cause. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Oct 28, 2022
|
|
|
Decision to Leave (2022) |
...this combination of sensuality and the sensory experience makes it so profound. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Oct 23, 2022
|
|
|
Tár (2022) |
TÁR wants us to consider the costs of greatness, for the artist determined to achieve it and those who suffer under that determination. What’s permissible? What’s off-limits? Field isn’t interested in easy answers. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Oct 16, 2022
|
|
|
God's Creatures (2022) |
With sound and cinematography, Holmer and Davis devise some relatively subtle but potent moments that isolate their characters against communal spaces – spaces within an all-too-cozy village where that community can be one’s blessing or curse. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Oct 07, 2022
|
|
|
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) |
Rhythm is essential when talking about Miller. Three Thousand Years certainly isn’t the intricate symphony of chaos that Fury Road was, but there’s an underlying musicality that glides it along. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Sep 30, 2022
|
|
|
Don't Worry Darling (2022) |
...lingers far too long in the Victory Project. In an alternate reality, there’s a brilliant, 95-minute, reimagined, and restructured version of Don’t Worry Darling – one that leaves you with the right kind of questions. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Sep 30, 2022
|
|
|
Blonde (2022) |
Is the movie a success because Dominik puts us inside Marilyn’s head and makes us experience life through her sad eyes in a way that is off-putting and difficult? Or is this yet another person exploiting her and her sadness? - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Sep 30, 2022
|
|
|
The Woman King (2022) |
Predictable script hitting every conventional beat... It all plays out like a Disney movie made for kids, except with copious throat slitting – and even that is relatively tame in order to maintain the PG-13 rating - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Sep 30, 2022
|
|
|
Moonage Daydream (2022) |
...a thoughtful, meditative, almost trance-inducing rumination on the meaning of art and life. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Sep 30, 2022
|
|
|
Fire of Love (2022) |
...has that same sense of playfulness but also wants to explore [Katia and Maurice's] obsession, their willingness to face danger. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Aug 12, 2022
|
|
|
Prey (2022) |
The rare franchise installment that finds a fresh, compelling spin on the material while also effectively drawing inspiration from the original without being suffocated by it. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Aug 12, 2022
|
|
|
The Lady Eve (1941) |
[Stanwyck] is moving at a speed – processing the situation and dictating it – that is so much faster than [Fonda] and yet they aren’t out of sync with each other at all. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Aug 05, 2022
|
|
|
Bullet Train (2022) |
At his best, there’s an audacity to Leitch’s direction that can be invigorating when combined with his tempo and technical proficiency – and a very game movie star. Which is what he has here. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Aug 05, 2022
|
|
|
The Gray Man (2022) |
The most glam dad-enjoys-while-folding-laundry movie ever. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Aug 04, 2022
|
|
|
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) |
For a movie seemingly made with the sole purpose of inserting as many goofy gags per minute as possible while employing a healthy dose of vivid colors and rousing GNR hits, Love and Thunder is shockingly lethargic. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Jul 15, 2022
|
|
|
Hustle (2022) |
I don’t necessarily need to see more [Adam] Sandler Netflix movies; I do need to see more movies by Jeremiah Zagar. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Jun 17, 2022
|
|
|
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) |
...leans into a distinction between the macho father and Keaton’s character – [and] in its own way becomes a critique of masculinity and societal expectations. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted Jun 08, 2022
|
|
|
The General (1926) |
The Mad Max: Fury Road of its day. - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted May 27, 2022
|
|
|
Men (2022) |
"...frustratingly stuck between needing a PhD in theology and pagan rituals [to appreciate], or it all seeming slight and obvious." - Filmspotting
Read More
| Posted May 27, 2022
|