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The L Magazine

The L Magazine is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Ela Bittencourt, Jesse Hassenger, Nick Schager, R. Emmet Sweeney, Violet Lucca.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Inside Out (2015) Jesse Hassenger After a couple of movies that felt a little like Minor Pixar, Inside Out swings for the fences repeatedly, from its trademark emotional sensitivity to its equally trademark bang-up gag-writing.
Posted Jan 27, 2021  Edit critic review
Unexpected (2015) Abbey Bender Unexpected deserves credit for featuring a relationship between two women that is not often shown. At the same time, though, that relationship, fraught with race and class tension as it is, never really challenges us in a believable way.
Posted Jun 26, 2018  Edit critic review
Amour fou (2014) Abbey Bender The story has the potential to be emotionally bombastic, but Hausner's careful direction keeps us at a determined remove.
Posted Jun 26, 2018  Edit critic review
Girlhood (2014) Abbey Bender Girlhood shines a poignant light on black female friendship, and the presence of violence feels like an unfortunate attempt at projecting racial verisimilitude. What's far more interesting is the sight of these four girls enjoying each other's company.
Posted Jun 26, 2018  Edit critic review
Northeast (2011) Ela Bittencourt Northeast never finds enough direction, or gathers enough oomph, to leave a lasting impression.
Posted Apr 12, 2018  Edit critic review
Meet the Fokkens (2011) Ela Bittencourt A prostitute's sexual freedom is a fiction; though this isn't news, the film confronts the issue with rawness and panache.
Posted Apr 12, 2018  Edit critic review
Ricky on Leacock (2012) Ela Bittencourt Weiner seems star-struck, and treats viewers to too many chats over home-cooked dinners and film-award ceremonies.
Posted Apr 12, 2018  Edit critic review
Farewell, My Queen (2012) Ela Bittencourt It might be that Marie still waits for a true incarnation, but Jacquot's pushing her beyond likeability is refreshing.
Posted Apr 12, 2018  Edit critic review
The Woman in the Fifth (2011) Ela Bittencourt It is a pity that Pawlikowski abandons his quietly haunting impressionism in the film's more literal second half.
Posted Apr 12, 2018  Edit critic review
Gerhard Richter Painting (2011) Ela Bittencourt Shows the process behind Richter's fancy free abstract paintings, but leaves the greater forces and themes that make him not only a famous or a rich painter but an important one unexamined.
Posted Apr 12, 2018  Edit critic review
Putin's Kiss (2011) Ela Bittencourt It does deliver a forceful message: the fight for the young Russians' hearts and minds is far from over.
Posted Apr 12, 2018  Edit critic review
The Girl (2009) Violet Lucca If nothing else, see The Girl to remember what a real cinematic visual sensibility can be. Bliss out, don't read the subtitles.
Posted Jun 20, 2016  Edit critic review
Daniel and Ana (2009) Violet Lucca Daniel & Ana may seem like a terrible choice for a first date, but if you're brave enough, the post-cinematic discussion will assuredly be more revealing of character than any online compatibility test.
Posted Jun 20, 2016  Edit critic review
Outrage: Beyond (2012) Violet Lucca Another cash-grab that unfortunately wears its cheapness on its sleeve.
Posted Jun 20, 2016  Edit critic review
Obvious Child (2014) Violet Lucca The humor in Obvious Child never trivializes its characters' feelings, but instead provides a balance and the ability to explore more nuanced emotional situations.
Posted Jun 20, 2016  Edit critic review
Miss Julie (2014) Violet Lucca Miss Julie's acid dialogue and sardonic twists burn down to the bone of costume drama's fattened arm, its darkness closer to original-series Upstairs Downstairs than to polished one-percenter porno Downton Abbey.
Posted Jun 20, 2016  Edit critic review
Whores' Glory (2011) Violet Lucca For a film with such fraught subject matter, Whores' Glory feels ultimately empty. Whether or not that's the ultimate comment on these lives is unclear.
Posted Jun 13, 2016  Edit critic review
Gloria (2013) Violet Lucca What truly makes the film riveting is Paulina Garca's performance as the title character -- and she appears in nearly every shot. With a wide, truly contagious smile, Garca exudes a lived-in confidence and control with every movement.
Posted Jun 08, 2016  Edit critic review
Don Jon (2013) Violet Lucca In terms of disposable, enjoyable entertainment, you could do much worse than this.
Posted Jun 07, 2016  Edit critic review
Rubber (2010) Violet Lucca Rubber may not be everyone's comedic go-to, but certainly it's a sui generis indie that doesn't portend to be anything more than its 86 minutes.
Posted Jun 07, 2016  Edit critic review
Viva Riva! (2010) Violet Lucca One of the most vivid, ambitious cinematic offerings of 2011.
Posted Jun 06, 2016  Edit critic review
United Red Army (2007) Violet Lucca Neither glowing hagiography nor glowering condemnation, United Red Army is about the why of that failure -- in exacting detail, and with plenty of time to think it over.
Posted Jun 06, 2016  Edit critic review
Saint Laurent (2014) Violet Lucca Bertrand Bonello's film shares more DNA with Olivier Assayas's Carlos than the September Issue (magazine or documentary), and prioritizes action, energy, and form over lengthy explications of history or psychology.
Posted Jun 06, 2016  Edit critic review
The Honeymoon Killers (1969) Henry Stewart A critical response to Bonnie and Clyde and its romantic violence...subverts every Hollywood shibboleth...
Posted Apr 13, 2016  Edit critic review
Natural Born Killers (1994) Henry Stewart Feels like watching television when the cat's got the remote.
Posted Apr 13, 2016  Edit critic review
Farewell, My Lovely (1975) Henry Stewart It's Chinatown dipped in honey--then left out in the sun for the flies.
Posted Apr 13, 2016  Edit critic review
The Craft (1996) Henry Stewart Witchcraft becomes a metaphor for drugs in this conservatively cautionary 90s camp favorite.
Posted Apr 13, 2016  Edit critic review
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968) Henry Stewart Unlike the slashers it resembles, its monster enforces no reactionary moral code; the bad guy is a [Catholic father], and the unbelieving hero...leaves the praying to priests.
Posted Jan 15, 2016  Edit critic review
Foreign Correspondent (1940) Henry Stewart Hitchcock's second American feature...is mostly set anywhere but in America, yet it's a curious piece of Hollywood propaganda.
Posted Jan 15, 2016  Edit critic review
River's Edge (1987) Henry Stewart Like a typical high school comedy under extreme duress...interrogates a suburban generation that's either numb or nasty, born of the 60s' failed idealism...about a boy who has to betray his hometown to do right by the world. And by himself.
Posted Nov 12, 2015  Edit critic review
Paperhouse (1988) Henry Stewart There really are no other movies like this one.
Posted Nov 12, 2015  Edit critic review
Autumn Sonata (1978) Henry Stewart Here are two women wrestling with each other, a true grudge match, but also two actors with distinct styles, challenging one another, making the other better.
Posted Aug 28, 2015  Edit critic review
The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) Henry Stewart The Stanford prison experiment never felt more relevant...This is how the conditions are created for both Rikers Island and Staten Island; correctional officers aren't so different from police: from New York to Ferguson, Baltimore to Cleveland.
Posted Aug 10, 2015  Edit critic review
Jaws (1975) Henry Stewart Spielberg reduced [Benchley's novel] to a fight at sea between animal and man, which is as old as American literature itself.
Posted Aug 10, 2015  Edit critic review
The Stepfather (1987) Henry Stewart The coup de grce? He's also a real-estate agent.
Posted Jun 24, 2015  Edit critic review
Excalibur (1981) Henry Stewart This trippy telling of Thomas Malory mixes myriad mythologies...to create transcultural ur-lore...
Posted Jun 24, 2015  Edit critic review
Heaven Knows What (2014) Henry Stewart We all live on top of each other in the Safdies' city.
Posted Jun 24, 2015  Edit critic review
After Hours (1985) Henry Stewart All the anxiety of Koch-era New York is wrapped up in this surreal, screwball and terrifying film.
Posted Jun 24, 2015  Edit critic review
Tomorrowland (2015) Keith Uhlich Corny, childish gibberish writ large.
Posted May 21, 2015  Edit critic review
Altered States (1980) Henry Stewart The far-out fringes of studio-funded cinema.
Posted Apr 22, 2015  Edit critic review
Patterns (1956) Henry Stewart Captures a transitional moment, before the term "ruthless American businessman" was assumed redundant, when a few of them still had honor and character--just before the country went full Vader.
Posted Apr 06, 2015  Edit critic review
God Told Me To (1976) Henry Stewart Grimy and off-the-rails, an overlooked masterpiece, a thinking man's grindhouse picture that fuses the religious-crisis pretensions of a Great Novel with the tawdry horror tropes of a Times Square also-ran.
Posted Mar 11, 2015  Edit critic review
In Cold Blood (1967) Henry Stewart B&W rarely looked so good, before or since.
Posted Mar 11, 2015  Edit critic review
It Follows (2014) Henry Stewart As scary as a serious consideration of your own death.
Posted Mar 11, 2015  Edit critic review
Focus (2015) Keith Uhlich Swindler cinema is only as good as its architecture; once the big picture is revealed, viewers should be thrilled at having had one pulled over on them. Focus, sadly, leaves you feeling bilked.
Posted Feb 25, 2015  Edit critic review
She's Gotta Have It (1986) Henry Stewart Her three suitors seem to represent different facets of black identity, and her spurning of all three feels like a defiant rejection not only of being pigeonholed but also of pigeonholing the black experience.
Posted Feb 20, 2015  Edit critic review
Queen and Country (2014) Keith Uhlich Once more unto the breach for writer-director John Boorman, who revisits the semiautobiographical characters from his superb WWII dramedy Hope and Glory in the beautifully bittersweet Queen and Country.
Posted Feb 12, 2015  Edit critic review
Compulsion (1959) Henry Stewart Director Richard Fleischer brings to the film style and occasional jazz-wailing verve, teasing out the underlying homoeroticism [in this] mashup of Rope, In Cold Blood and Inherit the Wind.
Posted Feb 09, 2015  Edit critic review
Wild (2014) Jesse Hassenger The movie does an admirable job visualizing the potentially tedious process of a person walking around, thinking about herself.
Posted Feb 06, 2015  Edit critic review
Big Eyes (2014) Jesse Hassenger A portrait of Burton's native California: sunny pop-art sprawl with undercurrents of dysfunction and menace.
Posted Feb 06, 2015  Edit critic review
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