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Film Monthly

Film Monthly is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Jason Coffman, Matt Cipolla.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
2/5
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Matt Cipolla The Rise of Skywalker is so scared of doing something wrong that, by the end, it doesn't do much at all.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
1/5
Cats (2019) Matt Cipolla Add in the tonal shifts and performances that never feel like they're in the same movie, and out comes a cat scratch fever dream that can only be enjoyed ironically.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
4.5/5
The Irishman (2019) Matt Cipolla Zaillian follows Scorsese; Scorsese follows himself; they both follow Brandt, whose end goal is nothing if not ephemeral. The disconnect shouldn't work, but here it's the crux.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Frozen II (2019) Matt Cipolla Frozen II may sing about change, but that progress is what you project onto it.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Doctor Sleep (2019) Matt Cipolla It's a fascinating idea, taking from both Kubrick and King in order to make a composite of events and themes. Flanagan, however, just ends up with a contradiction.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
4/5
Little Women (2019) Matt Cipolla It is, like its balance between autonomy and collectivism, a look at ethics that are prescribed and personalized, and most places in between.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
4.5/5
The Lighthouse (2019) Matt Cipolla Hitchcockian sexuality and Kalatozov-esque atmospherics aside, Robert Eggers is eager to plunge audiences into the fog.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
4.5/5
Parasite (2019) Matt Cipolla The most impressive part? That even though this is a crowd-pleaser, it somehow manages to be marvelously depressing in ways that don't hit until after the credits roll.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Jojo Rabbit (2019) Matt Cipolla This is a satire that's too afraid to put anyone off, and the result is surprisingly anodyne.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
4/5
Love, Antosha (2019) Matt Cipolla Much of the documentary plays it straight, and its openness to truth is what keeps it from feeling piecemeal.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
The Laundromat (2019) Matt Cipolla It's entertaining at a few points, but you know what else can be entertaining? A 'we live in a society'-type op-ed. The Laundromat could have just worked as that.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) Matt Cipolla It isn't that Linklater has delivered a disaster, but there's an irascible feeling that someone -- nay, almost everyone -- behind the scenes was phoning it in.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
It: Chapter Two (2019) Matt Cipolla There's little growth here and a curious lack of stakes. For a movie about standing up to fatalism, Chapter Two wallows in it.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) Matt Cipolla It adds up to a climax that . . . ropes in its subplots in hopes to tying everything together. But this isn't a tale that should weave smoothly. It's a folktale.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
The Lion King (2019) Matt Cipolla Disney's two-hour revival of an 88-minute classic has its moments that work as a technical demo. But in case it wasn't clear already: Tech demos are not finished movies.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Luce (2019) Matt Cipolla [Onah] and Lee don't have enough of a grasp on melodrama, though, making for an after-school special with tons of untapped potential.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) Matt Cipolla Grimmel is little more than a bundle of tics, emblematic of the film's simplification of morals and motives into 'good,' 'bad,' and 'because.'
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) Matt Cipolla [W]hile the first movie threaded its pointedly ersatz ethos into a much grander milieu, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part keeps its ideas as separate as its characters.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (2019) Matt Cipolla [I]t often lacks purpose, gravitating towards the easiest targets without commenting enough on the times. It just fetishizes nostalgia instead.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3.5/5
The Farewell (2019) Matt Cipolla It's about watching, about waiting. It's when it's at its most natural that The Farewell connects the inside and the outside with an honesty that's hard to resist.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Crawl (2019) Matt Cipolla It never adds up to a great movie or even a movie that's as nutty as it could have been, but at no time did I doubt the modesty on display here. Crawl wants people to have fun.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Toy Story 4 (2019) Matt Cipolla At least the end result is a fun jaunt. Anything past this would just tug its threads to a fray.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) Matt Cipolla None of the plots' respective themes cohere with one another, nor do they allude to any true ambitions.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum (2019) Matt Cipolla [T]he synthesis between those in front of and behind the camera rarely feels lost. It's perverse, beautiful, and brutal... and it rarely seems to last that long.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Child's Play (2019) Matt Cipolla You know how Chucky used to be a supernaturally possessed doll with the soul of a serial killer? Now he's a soulless robot, just like most of the film.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
4/5
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) Matt Cipolla It'd be depressing if it weren't so true, but in this watery tableau, director/co-writer Joe Talbot finds the beauty beneath the melancholia.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Ma (2019) Matt Cipolla Where Landes sees satire, Taylor sees trauma. Where Landes sees a sick joke, Taylor sees a sickness.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Booksmart (2019) Matt Cipolla Booksmart succeeds in inclusivity and modernity, but its . . . characters lack context when it comes to teen culture or the funhouse mirror that refracts its many inspirations.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Rocketman (2019) Matt Cipolla The film works best when it's too fast for its hero. It's frustrating, then, that it's too fast for itself as well.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
The Dead Don't Die (2019) Matt Cipolla What the movie doesn't see is that by exhuming old genre references, its ethos become only as good as whoever's onscreen.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Late Night (2019) Matt Cipolla Where Late Night goes off the rails is in its last third, which feels entirely disconnected from what precedes it.
Posted Jul 28, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
The Upside (2019) Matt Cipolla The Upside isn't a movie that wants its audiences to think, and that's fine . . . but it's also a movie that doesn't let its audiences think.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) Matt Cipolla [T]he experience isn't so much linear as it is downright circuitous, stranding its nuggets of fuzzy joy in a script that fails to blend world-building with forward momentum.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
The Perfection (2018) Matt Cipolla Its later stretches are as topical as they are confused at points. It's trying something, but by the end, The Perfection's title isn't a reference to the movie itself.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Yesterday (2019) Matt Cipolla As a storyteller, Curtis lacks a starting point. He just chips away from a world without establishing it first, rendering this look at pop pantheism as arbitrary.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Long Shot (2019) Matt Cipolla It's easy to see why everyone involved wanted to tell this story, but with too many detours and a lost sense of tone, it's up to Theron to make the film seem smarter than it is.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Missing Link (2019) Matt Cipolla The sound design is synesthetic, the textures are top-notch, and . . . the shot composition anticipates eye movement with an almost hypnotic grace.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
4/5
Her Smell (2018) Matt Cipolla It may crumble under pacing issues and a total cop out of an ending, but Her Smell has more than enough flashes of wonder and a stellar lead performance.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Ask Dr. Ruth (2019) Matt Cipolla Come to think of it, Ask Dr. Ruth isn't really a portrait or a deep dive of her legacy. It's two solid movies smushed together.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Shazam! (2019) Matt Cipolla The parts in Shazam! are generally at the mercy of their respective actors, but sometimes that doesn't quite tide the film over.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Avengers: Endgame (2019) Matt Cipolla It's that the movie itself is overblown and half-baked, and without the audience, it's something of a glorified in-joke.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Dumbo (2019) Matt Cipolla [A]s for Dumbo himself? He's cute if the viewer can get past his total lack of presence. For the rest of us, he's just a victim of creative poaching.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
4.5/5
High Life (2018) Matt Cipolla Not many filmmakers can pull off such idiosyncrasies without drawing attention to themselves, but Denis makes a cogent meditation on humankind and its ingrown constructs.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Little (2019) Matt Cipolla The script . . . has its heart in the right place aside from some bizarre tonal shifts, but it's too vetted in personifying everyone's arcs to actually move well.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Wild Nights With Emily (2018) Matt Cipolla [T]here are just as many points when [Olnek's] script tries to cauterize its sadder moments with dry humor that, while successful on the page, feel sloppy.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Red Joan (2018) Matt Cipolla Young Joan, old Joan, Red Joan, blue Joan -- it's all the same here.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
The Beach Bum (2019) Matt Cipolla Say what you will about Korine's previous films, but they surely weren't forgettable. It's a shame that he broke that streak here.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
4/5
Amazing Grace (2018) Matt Cipolla Elliott and Buchanan follow [Franklin's] lead instead, framing the footage with a deft, almost invisible hand to make for 87 minutes that are teeming with life.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
The Aftermath (2019) Matt Cipolla The intentions are clear, but they're too stilted to rise above unintentional parody.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Hotel Mumbai (2018) Matt Cipolla It dives right into the brutality without enough depth, making for an uneasy balance of real-life tragedy and titillating action fare.
Posted Jul 27, 2020  Edit critic review
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