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Denver Westword

Denver Westword is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Alan Scherstuhl, April Wolfe, Bilge Ebiri, Luke Y. Thompson, Odie Henderson, Simon Abrams.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
On the Basis of Sex (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Leder's film never lets us forget that it's a feel-good Hollywood fantasy "inspired" by real life, but there's a heart thumping beneath the gloss, with some fire in its blood - and some hurt, too.
Posted Dec 25, 2018  Edit critic review
Ben Is Back (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Ben Is Back's pained heart is a flinty, confident Julia Roberts character realizing at last that there are some problems she can't conquer.
Posted Dec 17, 2018  Edit critic review
Mary Queen of Scots (2018) Alan Scherstuhl It's a film of two faces, one exposed and glowing, the other blotted out entirely, its vulnerability painted over.
Posted Dec 11, 2018  Edit critic review
Happy as Lazzaro (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Happy as Lazzaro offers no explanations for its disruptions of time and space, for its jolting inconsistencies, for its baldly symbolic surprises or even for its characters' continued hopefulness.
Posted Dec 02, 2018  Edit critic review
At Eternity's Gate (2018) Alan Scherstuhl At Eternity's Gate is committed to what its subject saw - how its subject saw - rather than just how commandingly its star reels through his big speeches.
Posted Nov 19, 2018  Edit critic review
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) April Wolfe Maybe all these dutifully meaningless stories would have been easier to swallow spaced out into standalone episodes, as the directors had originally planned.
Posted Nov 15, 2018  Edit critic review
A Private War (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Hard-edged and harrowed, Rosamund Pike is magnificent in A Private War.
Posted Nov 15, 2018  Edit critic review
Green Book (2018) Craig D. Lindsey Farrelly and company take their road trip and make a middlebrow, kid-gloved entertainment committed to reminding everyone that racism is bad and that getting along with people who are different than you is way easier than you think.
Posted Nov 14, 2018  Edit critic review
Widows (2018) April Wolfe This thoughtful, textured story - though brutal at times - stands as one of the clearest depictions of turmoil, racism and nepotism in local politics that's ever been drawn onscreen.
Posted Nov 13, 2018  Edit critic review
Outlaw King (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Mel Gibson's film isn't just this movie's unofficial prequel: It's the larger animal upon which this one is a parasite.
Posted Nov 08, 2018  Edit critic review
The Front Runner (2018) Bilge Ebiri The Front Runner is at its best when showing the inner workings of the Hart campaign as it attempts to handle the revelations.
Posted Nov 06, 2018  Edit critic review
The Other Side of the Wind (2018) Odie Henderson The notion of Welles inadvertently begetting Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project is far more delicious than anything presented in this 122-minute edit of his last film.
Posted Oct 31, 2018  Edit critic review
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) Alan Scherstuhl The swift yet lengthy Bohemian Rhapsody often verges on becoming something as thrilling as Queen itself - and then crashes back into the off-putting, the ill-considered or the ridiculous.
Posted Oct 30, 2018  Edit critic review
Suspiria (2018) April Wolfe Like great dance, it becomes an expression of the soul.
Posted Oct 24, 2018  Edit critic review
What They Had (2018) Alan Scherstuhl This brittle and cantankerous comic drama, written and directed by actress Elizabeth Chomko and boasting a top-shelf cast, zeroes in on wrenching choices millions of adults face as their parents age: how to care for them while still living a life.
Posted Oct 22, 2018  Edit critic review
The Sisters Brothers (2018) April Wolfe Ultimately a story about brotherhood, friendship and the insecurity of life in a violent place, the film injects a sweetness and innocence into the genre, mostly through one stellar performance by John C. Reilly.
Posted Oct 19, 2018  Edit critic review
Halloween (2018) April Wolfe Too bad that Laurie's story is only one of this Halloween's two movies. Whoever made the decision to slash up some hot and horny teens to round out the movie has seriously undercut what might have been a horror achievement...
Posted Oct 19, 2018  Edit critic review
Loving Pablo (2017) Alan Scherstuhl A lavishly entertaining, deeply amoral drug-life biopic that's never believable for a second.
Posted Oct 18, 2018  Edit critic review
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) Serena Donadoni No one does dissolute hubris with as much charm as Grant, and his ebullience is the perfect foil to the misanthropic McCarthy.
Posted Oct 17, 2018  Edit critic review
Mid90s (2018) Kristen Yoonsoo Kim Mid90s, for all its darkness, is uplifted by its hilarious moments and joyous skating shots - filmed on Super 16, set to the golden Californian soundtrack of The Mamas & the Papas.
Posted Oct 16, 2018  Edit critic review
The Oath (2018) Alan Scherstuhl I somehow never once found myself tempted to sneak a peek at my phone to check in on our real American hellscape.
Posted Oct 12, 2018  Edit critic review
Hal (2018) Bilge Ebiri In making the case for Hal Ashby as a major director due for reassessment, Amy Scott's documentary exemplifies the notion of cinema as a powerful, complex tool of personal expression.
Posted Oct 11, 2018  Edit critic review
The Hate U Give (2018) Alan Scherstuhl The film runs 132 minutes, but everything in it is vital.
Posted Oct 11, 2018  Edit critic review
The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) Alan Scherstuhl With piercing hilarity, The Kindergarten Teacher dares us to work out for ourselves, from moment to moment, whether Lisa is a hero, a monster, or something in between.
Posted Oct 10, 2018  Edit critic review
The Old Man & the Gun (2018) Alan Scherstuhl A pleasurably breezy crime story and character study.
Posted Oct 10, 2018  Edit critic review
First Man (2018) Bilge Ebiri In the end, what shines through First Man is the toughness and resilience of the men whose no-nonsense efforts allowed the rest of us to dream.
Posted Oct 10, 2018  Edit critic review
Venom (2018) Bilge Ebiri Venom could have brought a certain amount of sitcom silliness to a grimmer, grittier part of this world. But in the end, what might have been a bold and bracing new thing winds up being more of the same.
Posted Oct 10, 2018  Edit critic review
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) Alan Scherstuhl What fun is a puzzle box with contents that are so common?
Posted Oct 10, 2018  Edit critic review
22 July (2018) Simon Abrams Reduces the terrorist attacks that rocked Norway in 2011 to a crass movie parable: Here's the everyman who overcomes considerable pain and helps put a deadly extremist in jail.
Posted Oct 10, 2018  Edit critic review
Private Life (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Jenkins allows both of her leads actually to be leads: They share the film and most scenes, and much of its vital power arises from the connection between them.
Posted Oct 04, 2018  Edit critic review
Science Fair (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Science Fair has been engineered to please crowds, and at that it's a rousing success.
Posted Sep 27, 2018  Edit critic review
Colette (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Colette has little to tell us about actual writing, the endless hours spent toiling with the page, but it's electric on the subject of how the world was changing - and how she seized from the chaos the life that she truly wanted.
Posted Sep 27, 2018  Edit critic review
Free Solo (2018) Alan Scherstuhl To watch Honnold think through each ledge of his climbs can stop the heart; to watch him navigate human emotion might melt it.
Posted Sep 27, 2018  Edit critic review
The House With a Clock in Its Walls (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Roth's film is a funhouse throwback, a scare-the-kids goof with a top-shelf cast, an antique shop's worth of creepy windup dolls and more heart than you might expect - and, like those jack-o'-lanterns, it's got more teeth, too.
Posted Sep 18, 2018  Edit critic review
Assassination Nation (2018) Alan Scherstuhl While sometimes messy, this material is emotionally resonant and cinematically alive.
Posted Sep 18, 2018  Edit critic review
Lizzie (2018) Alan Scherstuhl While dutifully feminist in its outlook, the film strips Lizzie while never laying her bare.
Posted Sep 18, 2018  Edit critic review
American Chaos (2018) Alan Scherstuhl The film, I suspect, will have some minor historical value, but I fear that watching Stern well up on election night won't offer much insight to people alive now.
Posted Sep 18, 2018  Edit critic review
Blaze (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Like the songwriters who fascinate him, Hawke is committed to eschewing cliché, to emotional truth and to refusing to pander. He also admirably resists indulging in the myth that drunken obscurity is romantic.
Posted Sep 18, 2018  Edit critic review
White Boy Rick (2018) Alan Scherstuhl Demange's film is overstuffed with incident, with proper nouns introduced without much context, with twists and betrayals that don't hit that hard. But it's also alive with excellent actors...
Posted Sep 12, 2018  Edit critic review
I'm Through With White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks) (2007) Amber Taufen I liked it a lot. Despite the title, the film isn't really about race; it's about finding someone to love and sticking with them, despite their quirks and crazy family members.
Posted Jun 13, 2008  Edit critic review
Jurassic Park III (2001) Luke Y. Thompson The ending in particular is weak and abrupt, involving a character suddenly knowing something that he explicitly did not know before, apparently as a result of sheer dumb luck.
Posted Jul 19, 2001  Edit critic review
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