Amy Nicholson
Tomatometer-approved critic
Amy Nicholson is the host of the podcast "Unspooled" and critic for KPCC's Film Week. Formerly, she was the chief film critic for MTV News and LA Weekly. Her other credits include the New York Times, Variety, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and the Guardian, as well as the podcast miniseries "Zoom," "The Canon," "Quentin Tarantino Presents," "Halloween Unmasked," and "Skillset." She has served on the jury for Sundance and SXSW, and screened submissions for Sundance, AFI, and the Los Angeles Film Festival. Amy holds a double B.A. in Film Studies and Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma as well as a Masters in Professional Writing from USC. Her first book, "Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor," was published by Cahiers du Cinema, and her second, "Extra Girls," will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2022. Reach her on Twitter at @theamynicholson.
Movies reviews only
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Monolith (2023) |
Falls sway to the clickbait tropes it intends to send up: red herrings, a tone of suffocating gloom and a desperation to keep the audience on the hook. - Variety
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| Posted Mar 17, 2023
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Inside (2023) |
When boredom sets in, we’re offered the silence to contemplate our own definition of art as Nemo the criminal evolves into Nemo the creator. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 16, 2023
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) |
It’s an ungainly mishmash of tones that comes together only in one bizarre, wonderful gag when a graying wizard barges into Billy’s erotic dream to deliver some very serious exposition with his head fused to Wonder Woman’s bronze-plated breasts. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 16, 2023
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If You Were the Last (2023) |
A romantic comedy that revives the screwball formula where two people talk themselves silly — and we only had to go to the end of the solar system to make it happen. - Variety
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| Posted Mar 12, 2023
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Blueback (2022) |
You can feel barnacles on the dialogue, like when a corporate bully (Erik Thomson) growls, “You and your mom really think you can stop this, don’t you?” - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023) |
A pure fantasy that declares "dance can save the world" but doesn't bother to prove it. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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We Have a Ghost (2023) |
A cheery kids comedy heavily syruped with pro-ghoul propaganda. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 24, 2023
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2023 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation (2023) |
Squeeze the ink from these animated shorts nominees and one could paint a banner with their shared message: Be here now. This stronger-than-average selection boasts four excellent entries and one celebrity-studded sugar glop that shouldn’t win (but might) - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 21, 2023
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Your Place or Mine (2023) |
Why haven’t these codependent singletons gotten back together? “She’s … her and I’m … me?” he sputters. His answer sums up the hard thinking that went into this script. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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80 for Brady (2023) |
It gambles, correctly, that the veteran cast can convince the audience to play along with outlandish contrivances — including an assurance that four seniors in loudly bedazzled jerseys can, when needed, sneak around like ninjas. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Life Upside Down (2023) |
This is a true time capsule of the earliest days of quarantine, a moment where prognosticators were torn between predicting that divorce rates would spike (in truth, they dipped 12%) or truly believing that this experience might make us all better people. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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Missing (2023) |
It’s not exactly riveting to watch June download and install WhatsApp so that she can video call Colombia. Yet, there’s some pleasure in a brains-over-brawn quest that flatters us to fancy that we might be clever enough to solve it ourselves - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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The Seven Faces of Jane (2022) |
Most of these [segments] aren't compelling on their own, but it's nice as an exercise. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Skinamarink (2022) |
It's only January, but this might be the most divisive horror movie of 2023 if people actually go see it. I might hate it myself; it's kind of hard to tell. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Plane (2023) |
Reminded me of a picture of a beautifully-drawn horse that turned into a stick figure by the end. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Jethica (2022) |
A delightful and small little film. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Saint Omer (2022) |
It's not an easy film to watch. You really have to be in the mood for something uncompromising. I admit, it took me three times to really sit down and watch this with the focus it deserves. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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No Bears (2022) |
This film is terrific. What I really appreciate about Panahi... Is that he characterizes himself as something of an accidental disruptor, a curmudgeon. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Wildcat (2022) |
It becomes really loving, although it doesn't have a lot of "oomph." It's just sweet scenes, one after another. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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The Pale Blue Eye (2022) |
I found the mystery itself a bit dull, but I liked the setting of this and the character Christian Bale is playing. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Women Talking (2022) |
It's a film with so much depth and, of course, one of the greater casts you'll see this year. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Living (2022) |
What I appreciate about this movie is how it's really about inertia... and it doesn't pretend inertia is easy to defeat. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) |
[Antonio Banderas] plays this character with so much delight... I find him very funny and charming. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Babylon (2022) |
I absolutely loved it... What [Damien Chazelle] does that I love is tell the story in such an exaggerated, maniacal fashion that it feels truer than it's ever felt before. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Dog Gone (2023) |
Give the dog a wig of blond ringlets and he could do a passable lampoon of Lillian Gish. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 13, 2023
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Mars One (2022) |
Martins intended to hold up the billion-dollar space colonization project as a symbol of hope. Since then, it’s gone bankrupt, and the disillusionment only deepens this film about the struggle to feel satisfied on earth. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 05, 2023
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Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022) |
For a film that takes this much glee in cruelty — Matilda is called “a brat,” “a bore,” “a lousy little worm” and “a nasty, little troublemaking goblin” in her first three minutes onscreen — it also includes scenes of genuine loveliness - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 26, 2022
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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) |
We’ve heard Houston’s rendition of “I Will Always Love You” countless times, and Lemmons bets, correctly, that the beloved hit will still seize us by the heart during the rather forthright montage she pairs with it - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 23, 2022
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The Almond and the Seahorse (2022) |
Only when Sarah and Toni meet for the first time, an hour in, does the film allow a genuine conversation — and, gratefully, a moment of recognition. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 17, 2022
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Return to Seoul (2022) |
“Return to Seoul” is a startling and uneasy wonder, a film that feels like a beautiful sketch of a tornado headed directly toward your house. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 01, 2022
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Spoiler Alert (2022) |
A bigger problem is that the so-called sincere dialogue is either blunter than a soap opera (“It’s his mother. He told her not to come. I’ve never even met the woman.”) or hammier than a Hawaiian pizza (“Hey honey, I’m cancer! I mean, I’m home!”) - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 01, 2022
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The Son (2022) |
This film has an intelligent ambiguity that I liked, even if it's a letdown following The Father. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Nov 30, 2022
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White Noise (2022) |
I would have thought this Don DeLillo book was unfilmable until I just saw Noah Baumbach pull it off. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Nov 30, 2022
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Nanny (2022) |
The mood that it sets is so much better than the actual script... [But] this is a great introduction [for writer-director Nikyatu Jusu]. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Nov 30, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
We should have several movies a month like this. I'm glad Rian Johnson is the person who keeps making them. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Nov 30, 2022
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Devotion (2022) |
As an intellectual dismantling of white savior narratives, “Devotion” is smartly done; as an enjoyable heartwarmer to watch with your uncle, it’s stiff when it should soar. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 24, 2022
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Disenchanted (2022) |
By the time Idina Menzel, famous for the showstopping “Frozen” anthem “Let It Go,” belts a new ballad that includes the lyric, “Let it grow, let it glow,” you may find yourself craving fresh ideas. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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My Father's Dragon (2022) |
It’s one part doom cloud, one part squirting prank flower — an uneasy balance that’s united only by stunning visuals which sweep the audience along even when the gags stumble. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 11, 2022
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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) |
Radcliffe is winningly guileless in his performance, twitching his costume-y eyebrows and mustache like gentle bunny ears even as he lip-syncs “Another One Rides the Bus” with such commitment that his neck veins nearly pop. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 03, 2022
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The Good Nurse (2022) |
“The Good Nurse” offers no assurances that its danger is safely locked away. In the judgment of the film, Cullen is just a side effect of an institutional cancer. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 27, 2022
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Cat Daddies (2021) |
These people don't really pop as characters. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2022
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V/H/S/99 (2022) |
I was just howling and thinking "Wow, Flying Lotus... Your brain is very weird." - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2022
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The School for Good and Evil (2022) |
The movie really is star-studded, but it has almost no momentum. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2022
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Wendell & Wild (2022) |
This is a very strange movie in its moments, even if the execution is dull as anything. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2022
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Black Adam (2022) |
This movie is just sort of a lark, and more interesting as [a sign of] where the genre is going. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2022
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
Marvelous performances from Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. - FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
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| Posted Oct 24, 2022
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Ticket to Paradise (2022) |
Roberts and Clooney wear their stature like sweatpants, rousing themselves to do little more than spit insults like competitive siblings. They’re selling their own comfortable rapport, not their characters’ romantic tension.
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| Posted Oct 20, 2022
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Dark Glasses (2022) |
While it’s easy to dismiss “Dark Glasses” as the work of a master gone soft, Pastorelli’s prickly, sharp-tongued Diana is perhaps the most charismatic leading lady of Argento’s career. She dominates her surroundings — a rarity in his films - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 13, 2022
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Luckiest Girl Alive (2022) |
Kunis’s alpha female appears at once ferocious and like a conspicuous sham. (Imagine Sheryl Sandberg as a “Scooby-Doo” villain.) - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 07, 2022
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Bros (2022) |
The suspense comes in watching Eichner struggle to reconcile his galaxy-brained cynicism with mainstream rom-com touchstones - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 29, 2022
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