>
J. Hoberman
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Alien Resurrection (1997) |
At least Alien 3 had intimations of mythological grandeur. Too tepid to be satire, "Resurrection" has reached the point of diminishing returns. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Aug 06, 2024
|
|
|
|
Spaceballs (1987) |
The spirit of desecration rules Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs. Buoyant, unsentimental low comedy, this manic Star Wars parody is continually vulgar without ever seeming smarmy. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Apr 03, 2024
|
|
|
|
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023) |
Indeed, given Jude’s willingness to engage with (or disinclination to disengage from) the cyber-powered second life, Do Not Expect is more despairing if even funnier than Bad Luck Banging. - The Nation
Read More
| Posted Mar 30, 2024
|
|
|
|
Forrest Gump (1994) |
There's an undeniable kick to the idea of recapitulating to the Boomerography as a tale told by an idiot, but the thrill inexorably fades. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Mar 01, 2024
|
|
|
|
Pulp Fiction (1994) |
More than anything else, Quentin Tarantino is a spinner of tall tales—the superbly garrulous, living embodiment of the movie enthusiast’s hey-wouldn’t-it-be-great-if... aesthetic. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Feb 29, 2024
|
|
|
|
Yambao (1957) |
Deliriously trashy...fueled by the star’s mad conviction, Yambaó is a movie made for Jack Smith... - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2024
|
|
|
|
Sensualidad (1951) |
Feistier than most and strikingly progressive in her class and gender solidarity... - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2024
|
|
|
|
Aventurera (1950) |
López is an actress of taste. - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2024
|
|
|
|
Maria Candelaria (1944) |
Pictorial big-sky melodrama... - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2024
|
|
|
|
Salón Mexico (1949) |
...a classic cabaretera, detailing the self-effacing Stella Dallas–like martyrdom of a dime-a-dance fichera... - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2024
|
|
|
|
Rio Escondido (1947) |
Fernández and Figueroa proved equally adept in the nocturnal realm of smoky dives and neon-illuminated back alleys. - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2024
|
|
|
|
Victims of Sin (1950) |
A tumultuous product of Mexican cinema's Golden Age, the movie is a perfect storm, the confluence of three huge talents. - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2024
|
|
|
|
Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002) |
A three-part, nine-hour look at the painful decline of a once-thriving industrial zone...Wang has immersed himself in the lives of migrant workers... - The Nation
Read More
| Posted Nov 10, 2023
|
|
|
|
Youth (Spring) (2023) |
The prolific director examines how the People’s Republic became the workshop for much of the world. - The Nation
Read More
| Posted Nov 10, 2023
|
|
|
|
Three Sisters (2012) |
Wang’s magnificent 2012 portrait of young children in a subsistence-level village in Yunnan province... - The Nation
Read More
| Posted Nov 10, 2023
|
|
|
|
Traffic (2000) |
Traffic is exemplary Hollywood social realism. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Sep 07, 2023
|
|
|
|
Spirited Away (2001) |
Its funny, inexplicable transformations are closer to vintage Fleischer Bros than Disney. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Jul 17, 2023
|
|
|
|
Mulholland Dr. (2001) |
Mulholland Drive is thrilling and ludicrous. The movie feels entirely instinctual. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Jul 11, 2023
|
|
|
|
Back to the Future (1985) |
This sci-fi blending of American Graffiti and It’s a Wonderful Life is the kind of movie that, try as you might to avoid it, you'll end up ingesting by osmosis anyway. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2023
|
|
|
|
Unrest (2022) |
The tranquility is accentuated by the soft murmur of voices, the sound of wind in the trees, and the natural-light cinematography. Unrest’s pastoral quality recalls mid-period Straub-Huillet films... - The Nation
Read More
| Posted Jun 21, 2023
|
|
|
|
The Color Purple (1985) |
What’s most shocking about this film is not how sentimental it is, it’s how inept. The valentine comes apart in your hands. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted May 25, 2023
|
|
|
|
EO (2022) |
The beasts give EO an authenticity beyond human acting, without the trappings of rational meaning. Behind the veil of Skolimowski’s bravura technique, life simply is. - The Nation
Read More
| Posted Jan 03, 2023
|
|
|
|
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) |
At once spectacle and antispectacle, Jeanne Dielman not only criticizes the dominant mode of representing women but challenges the dominant mode of representation itself. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Dec 07, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Easy Life (1962) |
Il Sorpasso can be heavy-handed and, like Bruno, sometimes tiresome, but it derives considerable impact from its finale. - New York Times
Read More
| Posted Sep 28, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Velvet Underground (2021) |
Without belaboring the point, The Velvet Underground also makes the case for Warhol’s enduring significance. - Tablet
Read More
| Posted Mar 25, 2022
|
|
|
|
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021) |
Bad Luck Banging, or Loony Porn, the Romanian director Radu Jude’s exuberantly rude and bawdy new film, is a movie about us. Or rather, it’s a comedy about our world. - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Mar 14, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Little Fugitive (1953) |
Coney Island was never more lovingly depicted and few movies have been more dedicated to a child's point of view and this. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Sep 16, 2021
|
|
|
|
Distant Journey (1950) |
A landmark-a movie of its time that continues to speak to ours. - Tablet
Read More
| Posted Sep 13, 2021
|
|
|
|
Undine (2020) |
The German director Christian Petzold is a maestro of modern (or modernized) myths. - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Jul 02, 2021
|
|
|
|
The Monopoly of Violence (2020) |
Visceral as it is, Monopoly is a montage film in the Soviet tradition. Dialectics abound. Brutality is juxtaposed with theory. - Artforum
Read More
| Posted Jun 28, 2021
|
|
|
|
(undefined) |
Perhaps the season's purest critique of Bannonism... - Tablet
Read More
| Posted May 17, 2021
|
|
|
|
The Brink (2019) |
Most woundingly, Klayman shows Bannon bested by journalists and bombing with audiences... - Tablet
Read More
| Posted May 17, 2021
|
|
|
|
Paris Calligrammes (2020) |
Nothing sulky about Paris Calligrammes. Joie de vivre has a jauntier vibe than Lebensfreude. Still, this is not a film a French artist would likely make-too uncool, "a Fräulein in Paris," but also too coolly critical. - Artforum
Read More
| Posted May 10, 2021
|
|
|
|
Rembrandt's J'Accuse (2008) |
Peering beneath the painted surface and searching in the shadows, tracking that which was cut from the canvas and mapping the network of glances that remain, the filmmaker uncovers a foul, lurid, corrupt, and perversely compelling conspiracy. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Apr 20, 2021
|
|
|
|
Bananas (1971) |
...an inventive piece of filmmaking, full of cinephilic references and most evocative of the period during which it was made. - Tablet
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2021
|
|
|
|
I Walked With a Zombie (1943) |
Zombie was a progressive movie in dealing with issues of race. - Tablet
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2021
|
|
|
|
Christmas Holiday (1944) |
Christmas Holiday's misleading title is amusingly amplified by the presence of musical stars Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly. - Tablet
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2021
|
|
|
|
A New Leaf (1971) |
Matthau makes an amusingly irascible lady killer but May's performance is unique. - Tablet
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2021
|
|
|
|
It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) |
It Always Rains on Sunday might be called "kitchen-sink noir." - Tablet
Read More
| Posted Mar 16, 2021
|
|
|
|
Martin Eden (2019) |
A movie that arrives like a bolt out of the blue, bursting with ideas, not unlike its hero. - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Oct 16, 2020
|
|
|
|
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) |
Ripe... a guilty pleasure of mine... - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
The Lovely Month of May (1963) |
...a pioneering work of free-associational "direct cinema" by Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme... - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018) |
...an atmospheric, tropical film noir... - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Venom and Eternity (1950) |
Consider it a recalcitrant chunk of twentieth-century cultural history. - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959) |
Jackson provides a suitably formidable closer with "The Lord's Prayer," but the movie peaks early with O'Day's stoned version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and rapid-fire scatting on "Tea for Two." - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Viridiana (1961) |
Made in Franco's Spain, Luis Buñuel's blasphemous comedy Viridiana (1961) poked a finger in the dictator's eye... - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Pauline at the Beach (1983) |
French bedroom farce stripped down to its essentials. - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Kuroneko (1968) |
The movie's implacable sense of poetic justice is only equaled by its graphic smarts. - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) |
Ichikawa's movie is not only exciting but excited in documenting... - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|
|
|
|
Beanpole (2019) |
Balagov's beautifully acted second feature... - The New York Review of Books
Read More
| Posted Aug 14, 2020
|