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Jason Di Rosso
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Cat Person (2023) |
The film explores the reasons behind what becomes a pretty catastrophic failure in communication, and it does this with a great deal of humour and even some very well directed sequences that push the film into the realm of psychological thriller. - The Screen Show (ABC Radio Australia)
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| Posted Nov 23, 2023
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Napoleon (2023) |
Scott's Napoleon is flesh and blood. He's also a walking signifier of self-belief, and the film eventually succeeds in transmitting that power. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Nov 23, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) |
An urgent, devastatingly bleak crime drama about colonialism and murder. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Oct 18, 2023
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The Eight Mountains (2022) |
It's a bittersweet drama centring on two men who meet as children... It's about the innocence of youth giving way to the disappointments of adulthood, about the impact of overbearing fathers, about the struggle to find your own place in the world. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 21, 2023
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Saint Omer (2022) |
It is Diop's layering, and deliberate blurring, of different mother and daughter relationships that underlines the film's central focus: maternal love, estrangement and resentment. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted May 26, 2023
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Petrol (2022) |
[Petrol] has a poetic and sometimes surreal narrative style that conveys a vividly emotional take on the world; it reveals profound truths about the characters, even if the precise detail of their story remains slightly -- and deliciously -- cryptic. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted May 23, 2023
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The Innocent (2022) |
The Innocent is the kind of breezy good time that's hard to find at the movies these days. It's not devoid of deeper meaning, but it's brimming, first and foremost, with a relish for storytelling that's playful and fun. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Apr 17, 2023
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Nope (2022) |
Peele's layering of themes and ideas, which don't always cohere but form a multifaceted and thought-provoking critique, takes second place to a popcorn thrill ride of high stakes and bruising action. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Aug 11, 2022
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Juniper (2021) |
Juniper is a drama with black comic edges about a fragmented family, and the unexpectedly life-affirming influence of its particularly tetchy matriarch. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Aug 04, 2022
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Titane (2021) |
Titane fuses body horror and extreme violence with questions of gender, identity and family. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 03, 2021
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Last Night in Soho (2021) |
Wright's two damsels in distress, caught in a twisted relationship across time, are vivid and captivating, but when the crimson curtains fall on their blood-soaked (mis)adventures, you wonder if they might have communicated something more. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Nov 19, 2021
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The Killing of Two Lovers (2020) |
Writer-director Robert Machoian... explores this poisoned soil of male rage with some thoughtful observations. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 16, 2021
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The Father (2020) |
The Father is an accomplished debut, but it doesn't always live up to the promise of its style and surface complexity with a corresponding profundity or level of insight. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Apr 01, 2021
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Long Story Short (2021) |
Long Story Short is for audiences looking for redemption with their romance. It's a date night fantasy, in time for Valentine's Day, and thankfully, the film's lead actors are worthy avatars. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 12, 2021
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End of the Century (2019) |
As it begins to split in different directions, it remains as uncannily real as a vivid dream, aided by the almost documentary naturalism of the two leads - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 17, 2020
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My Salinger Year (2020) |
A gentle, compassionate film about a young woman's entrance into an adult world where secrets - both professional and personal - reveal themselves slowly, and occasionally with devastating impact. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 17, 2020
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Freaky (2020) |
There's a lot of fun in Freaky's gore, but the detours into more tender emotion provide an inspired contrast. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Nov 16, 2020
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Corpus Christi (2019) |
The premise might have ended up as a biting satire of Polish Catholicism, but the film's more solemn humanism speaks to an affirmation of a Christian idea of redemption. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Oct 22, 2020
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The Translators (2019) |
It has twists to rival a Christie novel and a curiosity that skims some interesting ideas, which means it's not dull. But like many page-turners, it's never as deep as it wants to be. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 17, 2020
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Tenet (2020) |
Tenet is clearly attempting some kind of emotional payoff that remains out of reach. By the end, the idea of swimming against the current feels like a metaphor for the film itself. - At the Movies (Australia)
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| Posted Aug 27, 2020
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A White, White Day (2019) |
...there's much power in its tender portrayal of adult despair, and the hope found in responsibilities shouldered, not shirked. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Jul 16, 2020
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Irresistible (2006) |
Writer-director Ann Turner has dealt with similar themes of fear, paranoia and seduction before, but Irresistible is her first tilt at a Hollywood-style genre film. It's an interesting try and the performances are good, but the suspense sags. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted May 13, 2020
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Hearts and Bones (2019) |
With a more credible emotional core to the on-screen friendship, an audience might have followed the story anywhere. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted May 08, 2020
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If Only (2019) |
It's a sweet and sophisticated film by first time writer director Ginevra Elkann. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Mar 07, 2020
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Honey Boy (2019) |
It's directed with tenderness, anger and nostalgia by director Alma Har'el. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Mar 07, 2020
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The Lighthouse (2019) |
Eggers can't quite unlock the revelatory moments in this meld of high symbolism and psychological inquiry... While he's made a film that is brilliant in stretches, it remains emotionally distant. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Feb 07, 2020
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Sorry We Missed You (2019) |
It's a gloomy picture, but the film's criticism of economic injustice is not the only take away. Laverty's script contains a touch of humanist moralism, too. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 23, 2019
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The Irishman (2019) |
Scorsese manages to fashion a moving work that's empathetic and also boldly critical. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Nov 20, 2019
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The King (2019) |
Their re-jigging of the Bard's work as cinematic high adventure is largely successful, if not particularly daring. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Oct 25, 2019
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Judy (2019) |
There's enough emotion and sheer tragedy to propel it to the finish, and its central performance lingers for the awful emotional trauma and humanity that it conveys. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Oct 17, 2019
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Joker (2019) |
Joker builds into a statement that's salient and provocative - holding a mirror to real world frustration and the resurgent populism in our midst. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Oct 03, 2019
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Captain Marvel (2019) |
Captain Marvel packages this dilemma in a stylish, thoughtful and funny superhero movie that's a twist on the usual origin story formula. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 25, 2019
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Vox Lux (2018) |
By the time his heroine is belting out her third-rate songs in a sequined jumpsuit, you can't help but wish you'd stayed home. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 25, 2019
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Hotel Mumbai (2018) |
With a more robust exploration of how they ended up here, Hotel Mumbai might have become the more thoughtful thriller it aspires to. As it stands it's an accomplished horror ride from a director with much promise. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 25, 2019
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Destroyer (2018) |
Los Angeles - especially its crumbling eastern sprawl - serves as an evocative backdrop, with cinematographer Julie Kirkwood capturing its shades of pink and beige as the sun hits the sand and concrete. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 25, 2019
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Us (2019) |
Peele is one of the most promising directors of the American horror resurgence. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 25, 2019
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Capernaum (2018) |
No doubt it is a tongue-in-cheek name, but it is true that Capharnaüm is about many things: corruption and racism, refugees, stolen childhood, the moral weakness of adults and the difficulty in apportioning blame. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 25, 2019
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Avengers: Endgame (2019) |
You wonder how so much talent, underwritten by such an obscenely large budget, doesn't trigger more pathos. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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Burning (2018) |
Burning is a superior thriller with a double edge - a film that's about a doomed romantic obsession and also a social critique that lays bare the impotency of an outsider seeking to understand the opaque world of the mega rich. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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The Hustle (2019) |
The Hustle's attempt at satire suffers from the limitations of its imagination, and its failure to realise it needs to be harsher on the con artists than their victims if it doesn't want to make bolder changes to the script's architecture. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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The Heiresses (2018) |
In telling a personal story The Heiresses, then, is also very much a political tale. It's a terrifically accomplished debut full of humour and deep tenderness... - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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Dogman (2018) |
It's a pleasure - of sorts - to see the director back with such well-crafted and vibrantly realised characters, caught once again in his nightmarish cinematic web of loneliness and self-delusion. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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Booksmart (2019) |
Booksmart, instead, wraps its main characters in cotton wool. And despite one romantic awakening that's handled well but is best experienced without any forewarning, the script's curve balls lack impact... - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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Rocketman (2019) |
If only the film's unflinching gaze and sheer energy were enough to inspire a great film. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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The Farewell (2019) |
Given how many Americans can claim some kind of migrant heritage, it's perhaps strange there haven't been more films like Lulu Wang's carefully crafted drama... - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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Diego Maradona (2019) |
Maradona is a man whose story is full of such remarkable highs and lows, and who continues to mean so much to so many, that even Kapadia's heady storytelling can't overplay it. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 24, 2019
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Ad Astra (2019) |
Ad Astra lacks the sophistication of its high-end, 1970s references, and would have benefitted from giving in to more splashy action movie impulses. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Sep 19, 2019
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Terror Nullius (2018) |
As beautifully made as it is, there's a caustic, irreverent tone running through it that wouldn't be out of place in a student newspaper. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Jun 10, 2019
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Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) |
[The] film is a triumph of understatement as well as a moving reflection on the many ways people shut themselves off from a world that seems to have closed its doors to them. - The Hub on Screen
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| Posted Dec 06, 2018
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Widows (2018) |
Widows is cluttered and lumbering, with only occasional moments of transcendence. - The Hub on Screen
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| Posted Dec 01, 2018
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