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Critics list

James C. Taylor

James C. Taylor's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
Biography:

L.A. Weekly film critic.

Publications:

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Fall (2008) 20% EDIT “The Fall is really just a dull, poorly acted courtroom drama with glossy, autumnal cinematography and an implausible twist.” – L.A. Weekly Oct 29, 2009 Full Review The Queen and I (2008) 100% EDIT “Like its royal subject, The Queen and I is charming, elusive, frustrating and not easily forgotten.” – L.A. Weekly Jul 16, 2009 Full Review Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon (2008) EDIT “Production values are rough, but the lack of polish serves both Sheldon's raffish, off-color persona and the film's argument that L.A. jazz is still alive in small nightclubs, not something confined to a much-mythologized past.” – L.A. Weekly Jun 5, 2008 Full Review Swimming in Auschwitz (2007) EDIT “Instead of the grand horror of the Holocaust (or the "big suffering," as one woman calls it), Swimming in Auschwitz depicts individuals who "maintained some semblance of life" amid the mass dehumanization that surrounded them.” – L.A. Weekly May 5, 2008 Full Review Remember the Daze (2007) 0% EDIT “Remember the Daze has the irony-free, instant-nostalgia earnestness of your high school yearbook, but watching it is not likely to conjure your own youthful emotions -- it's more like flipping through the generic memories of a complete stranger.” – L.A. Weekly Apr 10, 2008 Full Review The Urn (2008) EDIT “Writer-director Skip Usen's concept may sound zany, but as a film, it's labored and earns almost no laughs.” – L.A. Weekly Feb 28, 2008 Full Review Raising Flagg (2006) 23% EDIT “Erich Roland's HD cinematography is the only element of the film one can honestly enjoy.” – L.A. Weekly Sep 27, 2007 Full Review Milarepa: Magician, Murderer, Saint (2006) 41% EDIT “The legend of Milarepa -- an exiled heir who sought revenge before finding dharma -- engages on a narrative level; however, Chokling's direction fails to give the story any period texture or visceral emotion.” – L.A. Weekly Sep 13, 2007 Full Review Noriko's Dinner Table (2005) 64% EDIT “Noriko's Dinner Table is both prequel and sequel to Suicide Club -- but never its equal. It's twice as long and three times as ponderous.” – L.A. Weekly Jul 5, 2007 Full Review In-Laws, Out-Laws (2004) EDIT “Its 104 minutes of lukewarm-'n'-fuzzy comfort food will no doubt satisfy some, but those looking for deeper insight into our nation's peculiar mating rituals will feel left out.” – L.A. Weekly May 3, 2007 Full Review What Love Is (2006) 15% EDIT “The level of insight in this romantic comedy's dialogue makes the oeuvre of Ed Burns look like Racine.” – L.A. Weekly Mar 22, 2007 Full Review Guadalupe (2006) EDIT “Marketed as an action thriller along the lines of The Da Vinci Code, but Santiago Parra's debut feature is actually a bland domestic drama -- one that somehow manages an even more sluggish pace than Ron Howard's bloated blockbuster.” – L.A. Weekly Dec 8, 2006 Full Review Living the Dream (2006) 0% EDIT “An embarrassment of a vanity project.” – L.A. Weekly Nov 24, 2006 Full Review Copying Beethoven (2006) 29% EDIT “Da-da-da-dumb.” – L.A. Weekly Nov 9, 2006 Full Review The Bridge (2006) 67% EDIT “An attractive, well-intentioned film that is surprisingly dull and uninvolving.” – L.A. Weekly Oct 26, 2006 Full Review Azumi (2003) 47% EDIT “Failing in its attempts at Zhang Yimou-like poetry, Azumi calls to mind a long, blood-splattered director's cut of a Power Rangers episode.” – L.A. Weekly Jul 27, 2006 Full Review Mini's First Time (2006) 50% EDIT “Mini is too tame for Skina-max and too inane to survive on the art-house circuit. It's a pretentious erotic thriller that gives honest trash a bad name.” – L.A. Weekly Jul 13, 2006 Full Review Erosion (2005) EDIT “Tedious hand-wringing about infidelity and bursts of unerotic sex.” – L.A. Weekly Apr 20, 2006 Full Review The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch (2005) 79% EDIT “The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch rarely stops genuflecting long enough to let its hair down.” – L.A. Weekly Apr 6, 2006 Full Review Game 6 (2005) 62% EDIT “No writer could ever top the high drama witnessed in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series - which may be the point of this sloppy but endearing mash note to baseball, art and fate.” – L.A. Weekly Mar 30, 2006 Full Review Film School Confidential (2002) EDIT “Underdahl has succeeded only in creating a feature that shows considerably less invention and coherence than an evening of student shorts.” – L.A. Weekly Mar 23, 2006 Full Review Winter Passing (2005) 40% EDIT “It distinguishes itself thanks to assured performances that burn with quiet conviction.” – L.A. Weekly Feb 16, 2006 Full Review Through the Fire (2005) 68% EDIT “Though some will see this fast-paced film as proof that hoop dreams really can come true, the real strength of Through the Fire lies in its careful, often indirect questioning of the moral universe of professional sports and big-money endorsements.” – L.A. Weekly Feb 9, 2006 Full Review Go for Zucker (2005) 54% EDIT “German-made comedy is a rare enough export, but German-made Jewish comedy hasn't been seen abroad -- or in the Fatherland -- since the days of Adolf Hitler.” – L.A. Weekly Feb 9, 2006 Full Review Annapolis (2006) 10% EDIT “Reports suggest that Annapolis was filmed last year, but watching this naval clunker, you'd swear it had been on the shelf since before the Gulf War.” – L.A. Weekly Jan 26, 2006 Full Review
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