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Brandon Judell

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Cinema editor of New York Theatre Wire and contributor to CultureCatch.com and indieWire. My articles have also appeared in THE BAY AREA REPORTER; Detour, aRude, Filmmaker, The Bay Area Reporter, SOHO STYLE; SMOKE AFFAIR; The Advocate, and FLAIR. My short stories have been anthologized in Libido, and A Member of the Family (Dutton).

Favorites:

Central Station;The Celebration; Beautiful Thing; Battle of Algiers; Another Country; Ghost Dog; Surrender, Dorothy; The King is Alive: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Boys Don't Cry; Keep the River on the Right; I Love You, Alice B. Toklas; Laurel and Hardy's The Brats; Jules and Jim; Once Were Warriors; Ladybird, Ladybird; You're a Big Boy Now; Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush

Location:

New York City

Official Website:

http://www.indiewire.com

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Mazel Tov (2025) 6/10 EDIT “This mildly comic, sometimes over-the-top, intermittently dramatic exploration of a dysfunctional family delightfully argues when relationships are deteriorating, Jewish traditions can be the glue that mends.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Jan 25, 2026 Full Review Marty Supreme (2025) 93% 9/10 EDIT “Superbly chronicles the overzealous ping-ponging exploits of a self-absorbed, Philip-Rothian Jew with an unbridled Type A persona.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Jan 25, 2026 Full Review Sirāt (2025) 92% 9/10 EDIT “The explosive final half hour of Sirāt's motto: no matter how little life has blessed us with, we can still wind up with less. ” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Jan 25, 2026 Full Review The Plague (2025) 97% 9/10 EDIT “The Plague does for pre-teens what Jaws did for sharks and what The Shining accomplished for recovering alcoholic authors with writer's block. You'll want to keep them at more than an arm's length.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Jan 5, 2026 Full Review The Carpenter's Son (2025) 31% EDIT “If you are a devout Christian, you might scream, "Blasphemous!" or be totally intrigued by this at-times bloody fantasy of Jesus's formative years. If you are a bit cynical, you might just chuckle a bit or look at the carryings-on with disdain.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Nov 16, 2025 Full Review Griffin in Summer (2024) 94% 5/5 EDIT “Nicholas Colia might well be the greatest living gay, Boston-raised director and screen writer America has ever cultivated. There’s no guarantee. After all, he’s only made one feature and several shorts. But what a feature!” – Bay Area Reporter Aug 26, 2025 Full Review Ride or Die (2025) EDIT “These are 2 beautiful, talented actresses sensuously embodying the chaotic characters . . . . A nominee for Best U.S. Narrative Feature at Tribeca, you just know everyone involved here will have a long career, collecting SAG benefits long after I’m dead. ” – CultureCatch Jul 13, 2025 Full Review The Phoenician Scheme (2025) 77% 6/10 EDIT “Brilliantly visual and intermittently entertaining, the timely comic romp that decimates the rich, the powerful, the religious, and the self-involved certainly seems to embrace Schopenhauerism.” – CultureCatch Jul 13, 2025 Full Review Honeyjoon (2025) EDIT “A wry tale of mother and daughter clashing, melding & loving each other amidst private masturbatory gropings, flirting, & hiking. Moral: “Happiness comes in waves, in little moments, but it’s not forever, even more reason to ride the wave when it comes.”” – CultureCatch Jul 13, 2025 Full Review Two Times João Liberada (2025) EDIT “A brave experimental work that has two trans women separated by centuries combating the patriarchy, fighting for control of how they are to be portrayed. If there are going to be limits set on the way they express themselves, they will set them. ” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Apr 27, 2025 Full Review I Stand Alone (1998) 88% 4/5 EDIT “Think Celine with a splattering of Bukowski. Godard as re-configured by David Lynch. On the other hand, don’t think. Just experience. The film is a dark look at a white French misanthropic butcher who blames his miseries on minorities &unsubmissive women.” – IndieWire Apr 20, 2025 Full Review Stranger by the Lake (2013) 94% 8/10 EDIT “The film changed my life. I immediately stopped dating LGBTQI+ serial killers after viewing it.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Apr 12, 2025 Full Review Misericordia (2024) 94% EDIT “ Voltaire once avowed: “God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.” In a Guiraudie offering, God’s creatures might not be doubling over with merriment, but you do sense that several are ready to spout a smile.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Apr 12, 2025 Full Review Disney's Snow White (2025) 39% EDIT “All I felt was the untainted childhood joy I felt when I saw my very 1st film, The Lady and the Tramp. You won’t mind your kids streaming it ad nauseam. With charming leads, huggable sidekicks, a scary forest, and sweet hedgehogs, who could ask for more? ” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Mar 24, 2025 Full Review The Monkey (2025) 77% EDIT “It has as much in common with the prize-winning short story collected in Skeleton Crew as a can of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli has in common with gourmet dining. Imagine if director John Waters were straight and a bit less funny, and you have The Monkey. ” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Feb 23, 2025 Full Review Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire (2024) 9/10 EDIT “Moving on to the more disquieting, this devastating, necessary documentary concerns being a witness to history and then disseminating the horrors that the world means to forget or maybe worse . . . distort and make light of.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Feb 7, 2025 Full Review Hester Street (1975) 81% 8/10 EDIT “Has you asking, “What chance do centuries-old traditions have in the New World?” Discovering the winner is the delight of this beautifully textured recreation of a time when being an immigrant had its challenges, not like now. Oh, forgot about Guantanamo.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Feb 6, 2025 Full Review ADA - My Mother the Architect (2024) EDIT “What survives longer than a memory? Buildings, of course. Just ask Ada Karmi-Melamede, the subject of her daughter’s unflinching documentary, Ada: My Mother the Architect. As a voiceover notes: “She is the Madonna of Israeli architecture."” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Feb 6, 2025 Full Review Neither Day nor Night (2024) EDIT “With fine thesping throughout, especially from Peled, a bubbe’s dream with sorrowful eyes & pinchable cheeks, Neither Day Nor Night, described by an Australian fest as a “crime-thriller,” is a pleasing tale of overcoming adversity in an unsuitable manner.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Feb 6, 2025 Full Review Midas Man (2024) 83% EDIT “A wry biopic of the man who discovered the Beatles, transforming them from a scraggly quartet into the most consequential band. Here's a never-less-than-engaging look at not totally surviving the sixties, a perfect Brit counterpart to A Complete Unknown.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Feb 6, 2025 Full Review The Binding (2024) EDIT “The screenplay, by the capable life partners Kantor and Keren, delves into sex addiction, damning dads, animated camel accidents, nipple play, closet cases, and even a newish method of conversion therapy that hopefully won’t gain in popularity.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Jan 2, 2025 Full Review Solvent (2024) 88% EDIT “This deliriously witty, yet highly discomforting film is a wry look at modern society's derangement. What follows defies categorization. There’s horror, comedy, underground absurdity, & romance, but these genres are called upon to do more than entertain.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Dec 2, 2024 Full Review Small Things Like These (2024) 93% 9/10 EDIT “With his seductive angularity, his throbbing intensity, and with those singular orbs of his, Murphy believably transforms a man who might have remained a helpless onlooker at the world’s indifference to those in need into a Warrior of Hope.” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Nov 10, 2024 Full Review Bulletproof: A Lesbian's Guide to Surviving the Plot (2024) 9/10 EDIT “With seemingly hundreds of clips dating from the 1950s onward, Latimer maps boob-tube and celluloid lesbian invisibility, stereotyping, and murder, all the way to the recent decades’ life-affirming depictions. ” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Oct 10, 2024 Full Review Ganymede (2024) 77% EDIT “This heartfelt exploration of a young wrestler from an EXTREMELY religious household seeking his first same-sex kiss is in the end a hoot and a half. Coming to that realization, though, might take you through 2 or 3 Twizzlers and a handful of popcorn. ” – Brandon Judell (Medium) Aug 31, 2024 Full Review
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