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MetroActive

MetroActive is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Jeffrey M. Anderson, Richard von Busack.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) Richard von Busack [General Yen] is a breakthrough film. Not just a breakthrough for its director Frank Capra, who rightly understood it as one of his best films... But the real breakthrough in this compelling, dreamy romance are the racial taboos it shatters.
Posted Apr 24, 2023  Edit critic review
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964) Richard von Busack [Paradjanov's] extraordinary sensuality combines the dreaminess of Vigo with the feeling for the natural world of Herzog.
Posted Feb 28, 2022  Edit critic review
Licensed to Kill (1997) Richard von Busack Licensed to Kill is a real achievement, especially since Dong didn't lose his perspective -- he hates the crime, but not the criminals, and he pins the blame where it belongs.
Posted Jun 09, 2020  Edit critic review
Committed (2000) Richard von Busack Committed isn't [Heather] Graham's fault. If, for the first time on screen, she's charmless and annoying, it's better to pin the fault on director/writer Lisa Krueger, whose simplistic moralizing keeps Committed a dull, trying experience.
Posted Apr 30, 2020  Edit critic review
Onward (2020) Richard von Busack The reliably appealing Onward is a study of sibling love... If the gags aren't always sublime, the observations are tender.
Posted Mar 11, 2020  Edit critic review
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) Richard von Busack On the whole, director Céline Sciamma masters the waxing and waning of moods... [But] one takes away Heloise's tousled hair and rich, satiated half-smile, and tends to overlook Sciamma's trouble settling on an ending.
Posted Feb 26, 2020  Edit critic review
Blumhouse's Fantasy Island (2020) Richard von Busack It wanders in all directions, it takes a great deal of desperate writing to twist around and explain who's the actual bad guy, and the production design and costuming is disappointing.
Posted Feb 19, 2020  Edit critic review
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) Richard von Busack Call it upcycled, repurposed or just plain ripped-off, but it's made out of familiar and gaudy stuff.
Posted Feb 12, 2020  Edit critic review
The Gentlemen (2019) Richard von Busack Ritchie's problem is that he has about a pint of movie sloshing around in a gallon jug. All the sidebars and word-bandying among the all-male cast don't expand upon this story satisfactorily.
Posted Feb 05, 2020  Edit critic review
2020 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation (2020) Richard von Busack Get out your handkerchiefs, because rich tales of sadness constitute this year's selection of Oscar-nominated animated shorts.
Posted Jan 30, 2020  Edit critic review
The Aeronauts (2019) Richard von Busack The Aeronauts does what movies used to do; telling us fictions to remind us to be brave and persistent.
Posted Jan 23, 2020  Edit critic review
1917 (2019) Richard von Busack It's a movie on steroids, cooking up incidents when the truth is bad enough... [But] I succumbed to this thrilling, compelling film.
Posted Jan 16, 2020  Edit critic review
Uncut Gems (2019) Richard von Busack The Safdies have talent, and if they'd cut this uncut gem they'd get closer to the work they're emulating.
Posted Jan 14, 2020  Edit critic review
Cats (2019) Richard von Busack The film is a triple-decker weirdburger from the twitching ears to the too-long tails that make the ensemble look like lemurs.
Posted Jan 14, 2020  Edit critic review
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Richard von Busack This was once a series that did things that no other movie franchise could; the best thing you can say about it now is that it's finally wrapped up.
Posted Dec 27, 2019  Edit critic review
The Kingmaker (2019) Richard von Busack It is to Greenfield's credit that she caught the mask of glamour slipping for a second, revealing the hideousness of tyranny underneath it.
Posted Dec 19, 2019  Edit critic review
Honey Boy (2019) Richard von Busack At 33, LaBeouf has come a long way... But as a writer, he wallows.
Posted Dec 11, 2019  Edit critic review
Marriage Story (2019) Richard von Busack Baumbach finds new depths in his performers, in the wounded, frightened side in Driver, and the macho side in Johansson; she's quite small, but formidable in a boy's haircut and trousers.
Posted Dec 04, 2019  Edit critic review
Knives Out (2019) Richard von Busack Knives Out is Thanksgiving entertainment for those seething at their relatives over the turkey carcass.
Posted Dec 02, 2019  Edit critic review
Pain and Glory (2019) Richard von Busack Pain and Glory is like getting a letter from Almodovar, but what's here is not all in words. He may not quite be the last filmmaker left who understands the power of color, but his eye has little equal; he notices the harmony of colors.
Posted Nov 21, 2019  Edit critic review
The Good Liar (2019) Richard von Busack Happily, Bill Condon's The Good Liar rejoices in old age's boundless capacity for treachery -- a senior citizen's dirty avidity for just one more piece of pie.
Posted Nov 20, 2019  Edit critic review
Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019) Richard von Busack Prosecutorial as it is, Matt Tyrnauer shows us the weirdly whimsical side of the man... I guess even river scum must have professional courtesy.
Posted Oct 31, 2019  Edit critic review
Jojo Rabbit (2019) Richard von Busack [An] elegantly turned if sometimes episodic comedy.
Posted Oct 31, 2019  Edit critic review
Dolemite Is My Name (2019) Richard von Busack Dolemite is My Name is great fun, despite the way it disgruntles the serious Rudy Ray Moore fan.
Posted Oct 24, 2019  Edit critic review
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) Richard von Busack This is tense and authentically tough, but not on its own wavelength, like David Lynch's brilliant sidebar to Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me. El Camino doesn't stand alone.
Posted Oct 16, 2019  Edit critic review
Joker (2019) Richard von Busack Phoenix's maniac is never boring, always finding new layers of anguish; it's even remarkable what he does with the cigarettes he chain smokes.
Posted Oct 10, 2019  Edit critic review
The Sound of Silence (2019) Richard von Busack The Sound of Silence is a thoughtful film, though; Sarsgaard is convincingly enigmatic, and observe how good Jones is in this mode, in which her mirth is restrained to a bare minimum.
Posted Sep 26, 2019  Edit critic review
Judy (2019) Richard von Busack There's a word for a lot of Judy, and that word is schmaltz; I preferred the previous arrangement where she'd sing "Over the Rainbow" and we'd cry, rather than the role reversal here.
Posted Sep 26, 2019  Edit critic review
Ad Astra (2019) Richard von Busack The lost-father drama can be tedious in the deftest hands. But this time, the celestial backdrop adds some allegorical freshness to the subject.
Posted Sep 18, 2019  Edit critic review
It: Chapter Two (2019) Richard von Busack What should feel like a slowly gathering evil that one cannot forestall arrives with the inevitability of a mandatory sequel.
Posted Sep 11, 2019  Edit critic review
The Goldfinch (2019) Richard von Busack Mostly the film copies Dickens' approach to mysterious bequests, lifelong guilt and sudden reversals of fortune, in a sprawling tale that [director] John Crowley keeps engrossing, but never completely convincing.
Posted Sep 11, 2019  Edit critic review
After the Wedding (2019) Richard von Busack After the Wedding defeats Moore, yet she gives this stodgy adoption-melodrama a good fight, with sudden surprising moves and pivots.
Posted Sep 05, 2019  Edit critic review
The Nightingale (2018) Richard von Busack The problem with so many of these films is their insistence on graphic depictions of sexual violence -- as if viewers couldn't possibly imagine being overpowered and taken by force.
Posted Aug 28, 2019  Edit critic review
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) Richard von Busack The cast are far more than the usual cyphers fed to the meat grinder, and there is a sense of loss in almost every supernatural attack.
Posted Aug 15, 2019  Edit critic review
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) Richard von Busack It is a bit gooshy, with a baptism by a profane junkyard reverend and a magical realist moment of triumph. Still, the Outer Banks waterscapes make The Peanut Butter Falcon funky and appealingly summery.
Posted Aug 15, 2019  Edit critic review
The Great Hack (2019) Richard von Busack I urge all to watch The Great Hack, and beware.
Posted Aug 08, 2019  Edit critic review
(undefined) Richard von Busack Attell, a balding pudge with skeevy beard and friendly dark eyes, combines deeply pervy and palsy-walsy qualities in a way not seen since Telly Savalas went to that big casino in the sky.
Posted Aug 06, 2019  Edit critic review
Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (2019) Richard von Busack One feels less like reviewing Once Upon A Time in... Hollywood, and more like writing Quentin Tarantino a letter that begins, "Thank you for retrieving my lost city."
Posted Aug 01, 2019  Edit critic review
Sword of Trust (2019) Richard von Busack A harmonious blend of mumblecore and screwball, Lynn Shelton's Sword of Trust touches both poles: nowheresville cinema-of-disappointment meets millionaire ex machina. Despite the ambling pace, here is the self-deception of frantic 1940s comedy.
Posted Jul 26, 2019  Edit critic review
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) Richard von Busack A beautifully made study of disillusionment and urban dispossession.
Posted Jul 11, 2019  Edit critic review
Ophelia (2018) Richard von Busack Without the dialogue, Hamlet is melodrama. You sort of ache to hear the actual lines instead of these Shakespeare for Dummies summaries.
Posted Jun 27, 2019  Edit critic review
Child's Play (2019) Richard von Busack The ghastliness isn't even vivid enough to be worrisome. We viewers are not impressionable blank slates like poor Chucky. Besides, current events tend to put one in the mood for a violent puppet show.
Posted Jun 27, 2019  Edit critic review
Toy Story 4 (2019) Richard von Busack Toy Story 4 has the wings and claws of a great melodrama. Nobody today can drill into childhood trauma like Pixar.
Posted Jun 19, 2019  Edit critic review
The Dead Don't Die (2019) Richard von Busack The tone is like a New Yorker cartoon mocking a particularly bloody Goya painting; it's too cozy to be grisly.
Posted Jun 19, 2019  Edit critic review
Shaft (2019) Richard von Busack This catastrophic reboot insists that we won't know NYC detective John Shaft is a bad M.F. unless he talks about his magnum every six seconds.
Posted Jun 13, 2019  Edit critic review
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) Richard von Busack The actual battles are highly satisfactory, even if no one gets to shout, "Destroy all monsters!"
Posted Jun 06, 2019  Edit critic review
All Is True (2018) Richard von Busack It's uneven but worthy work, with Branagh believable and vinegary as a man making amends.
Posted Jun 06, 2019  Edit critic review
Rocketman (2019) Richard von Busack Director Dexter Fletcher... bills this as a "true fantasy." The fiction may be upfront -- composite characters cannot sue -- but it's awfully familiar.
Posted May 30, 2019  Edit critic review
Red Joan (2018) Richard von Busack It's too easy to say Dench is this film's only redeeming value, yet it's too difficult to try to find other good points about this stodgy romance.
Posted May 15, 2019  Edit critic review
Charlie Says (2018) Richard von Busack Harron's film gets the milieu, the angle and the details right. To properly tell the story of the Manson gang, one needs a certain fellow feeling for the hippies.
Posted May 15, 2019  Edit critic review
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