Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes
Publications list

Film Daze

Film Daze is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Alisha Mughal, Farah Cheded, Katie Duggan, Shea Vassar.

Prev Next
Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Farah Cheded Though it’s not Lee's best, it’s perhaps the busiest movie he has made, and the first in a while to recapture the ecstatic tone of 25th Hour‘s rapturous final moments — meaning it ultimately lands closer to the first word of its title than the last.
Posted Jun 12, 2025  Edit critic review
The Mastermind (2025) Farah Cheded Kelly Reichardt's Cannes-closer is a portrait of a power-keg period of history glimpsed from the periphery, and a wry, withering film about living without integrity in an era that demands it.
Posted Jun 12, 2025  Edit critic review
All We Imagine as Light (2024) Farah Cheded Settling into All We Imagine As Light‘s warm, generous gaze is easy — it’s leaving it that’s difficult.
Posted Mar 05, 2025  Edit critic review
From Ground Zero (2024) Farah Cheded As moving a testament to cinema itself and the human ability to create as any.
Posted Mar 05, 2025  Edit critic review
8/10
Gülizar (2024) Alisha Mughal A masterfully crafted debut, Gülizar is unafraid to look you in the eye as it asks you to limn the contours of hope itself.
Posted Nov 18, 2024  Edit critic review
6/10
We Live in Time (2024) Alisha Mughal As it is framed as a story about a couple, 'We Live in Time' is an uneven endeavor that feels as though it’s a gender-swapped take on 'A Walk to Remember.'
Posted Nov 18, 2024  Edit critic review
9/10
Santosh (2024) Alisha Mughal Santosh’s brilliance is that it makes us feel culpable — it first has us feel persuaded by the easiness of prejudice, only to afterwards have us see that we have been beguiled.
Posted Nov 18, 2024  Edit critic review
7/10
Heretic (2024) Alisha Mughal This film works as a jubilantly irreverent exploration of a new breed of villain, and as such, it does an injustice to the killer’s victims.
Posted Nov 18, 2024  Edit critic review
8/10
The Girl With the Needle (2024) Alisha Mughal The Girl with the Needle is a lush playground of and for monstrous women, celebrating them by allowing them to roam audaciously, to become little insatiate horrors as they do what feels right, even if for a moment.
Posted Nov 18, 2024  Edit critic review
8/10
The Deep Dark (2023) Alisha Mughal The Deep Dark is sweeping and of a historical breadth, a film that is at once breathlessly engrossing and terrifyingly patient.
Posted Dec 07, 2023  Edit critic review
9/10
Late Night with the Devil (2023) Alisha Mughal The Cairnes have created an endlessly intriguing and beguiling gem of a film that not only is a hauntingly joyous watch, but also is a cerebral exercise leaving us with much to think about in our roles as consumers of media.
Posted Dec 07, 2023  Edit critic review
Deadline (1981) Katie Duggan The anthology structure can feel fragmented and the statement this film is ultimately trying to make on the horror genre gets buried under all the severed limbs. But we're here for blood, and we certainly receive a healthy infusion.
Posted Nov 08, 2023  Edit critic review
8/10
The Becomers (2023) Alisha Mughal A vibrant comedy, The Becomers is a revelation and gift not only for its depiction of the power of love, that it can abide through and survive world shattering tragedy, but also because it offers us hope in this love, that it exists at all.
Posted Sep 10, 2023  Edit critic review
9/10
New Life (2023) Alisha Mughal This film is not only a successful thriller, it’s also unforgettable and damning, and more than anything, it’s deeply, profoundly human.
Posted Sep 10, 2023  Edit critic review
8/10
Booger (2024) Alisha Mughal Booger is captivating and incisive for its understanding of the prickliness of grief, and for its understanding of Glowicki. The film allows Glowicki to shine, and Glowicki handles this character with the utmost respect.
Posted Sep 10, 2023  Edit critic review
9/10
Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) Alisha Mughal This is stunning, crawling body horror that understands that physical contortions and breaks in bones and faceless doubles in swift pursuit carry the meaningful, not to mention foreboding as a toothache, heft no belaboring dialogue can.
Posted Aug 09, 2023  Edit critic review
8/10
Attachment (2022) Alisha Mughal There is something so intuitively right about this whip-smart film. From its sharp sense of humour to a cunning grasp of its folklore — Attachment is a perfect movie.
Posted Aug 09, 2023  Edit critic review
Boys from County Hell (2020) Katie Duggan This tale of aimless youth finding purpose in slaying the undead will leave you thirsty for more of its black comedy, monster mayhem, and gruff Irish fathers.
Posted Apr 22, 2021  Edit critic review
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021) Katie Duggan Running at over three hours long, this film is as much a crash-course seminar introducing viewers to this mode of filmmaking as it is an indoctrination into the deliciously wicked cult of folk horror.
Posted Apr 03, 2021  Edit critic review
Cuadecuc, Vampir (1970) Katie Duggan Radically experimental Catalan filmmaker Pere Portabella creates a mesmerizingly metacinematic vampire story like no other.
Posted Mar 22, 2021  Edit critic review
Identifying Features (2020) Katie Duggan Valadez showcases a carefully crafted aesthetic emphasizing isolation in this debut feature, and there are plenty of "identifying features" that signal she is a remarkable talent to follow.
Posted Feb 09, 2021  Edit critic review
Starstruck (1982) Katie Duggan Gillian Armstrong's 80s Musical 'Starstruck' is a Fever Dream
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Wolfman's Got Nards (2018) Katie Duggan Wolfman's Got Nards is a joyful celebration of a movie capable of touching countless lives and unleashing the kid in all of us.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Wander Darkly (2020) Katie Duggan Wander Darkly is a fragmented and twisting story about a couple that shows us all the little pieces of happiness, sadness, anger, and love that form their realistic relationship, it sees the light.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Dinner in America (2020) Katie Duggan Dinner in America gets in your face, in your head, and under your skin with its tunes and thunderous characters, serving up a feast for the senses in a feast for the senses a delicious helping of anarchic energy.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
A Ghost Waits (2020) Katie Duggan While it's not loud and in-your-face in its spooks, A Ghost Waits has an irreverence and sweetness to its tale that's determined to bring a warm smile to your face if it doesn't chill you to the bone.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Detention (2019) Katie Duggan This game adaptation may be no fun for the characters forced to face each additional horror, but it offers viewers a supernatural thrill facing off against the most menacing ghosts of history.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Def by Temptation (1990) Katie Duggan Def by Temptation is a striking work of Black horror, endlessly cool in its groovy soundtrack, vibrant colors, and bloody boldness, and we wouldn't mind giving into its temptations, even if it spells our doom.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Nomadland (2020) Katie Duggan Zhao's powerfully poetic drama cements her as a groundbreaking talent, shaking the earth with her work's hushed intensity.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
French Exit (2020) Katie Duggan With a surreal sense of humor and flirtations with the supernatural, French Exit takes us to a heightened realm where the Prices are always out of step with reality and perform an offbeat dance of death and destitution with style.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
I Carry You With Me (2020) Katie Duggan Iván and Gerardo's story is riveting enough to make a gripping documentary as it is, and even as the format and aesthetic approach changes, it remains a tear-jerker. Ewing's astute eye for real emotion allows the love to come across in every moment.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Days (2020) Katie Duggan The latest from the great Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang is nearly wordless, but needs no dialogue to express sexual tension and suppressed desire.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Beginning (2020) Katie Duggan A harrowing revelation of a film, Beginning leaves us with ample spiritual uncertainty for its characters, but is undoubtedly the start of something major from Dea Kulumbegashvili.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Night of the Kings (2020) Katie Duggan Here, the men of MACA live to tell their own tales - and we had better listen.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
The Human Voice (2020) Katie Duggan Each word is scorching, and Swinton never chews the decadent scenery... even though there is plenty of it to chew on.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Isabella (2020) Katie Duggan In a potent meditation on perspective, Piñeiro creates a gorgeous atmosphere as the actors get lost in their roles, and in one another, beckoning us into the beautiful purple haze with them.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
The Last City (2020) Katie Duggan Emigholz is a master architect even if the layout of his dream logic isn't always visible to his audience as he carries us into seemingly endless dimensions that keep opening up in front of us.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Rose Plays Julie (2019) Katie Duggan This slow-burn thriller, with immersive and aura-generating visuals, is led by riveting performances from Skelly and Brady, and dives into a deeply unsettling situation.
Posted Dec 27, 2020  Edit critic review
Anything for Jackson (2020) Katie Duggan The film raises a sharp critique of privilege and which lives are worth prioritizing versus which lives are disposable in service of others.
Posted Nov 17, 2020  Edit critic review
Sputnik (2020) Katie Duggan Abramenko takes on the epic space narrative with fresh eyes and a steady hand. Sputnik has a professional finish even as it has a bit of a B-movie plot, and each stylistic influence is nodded to with profound affection.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Survival Skills (2020) Katie Duggan While still finding its footing, Armstrong's style is freaky, funny, and a bit foreboding. The distinct mix of tones and visual aesthetics signal that he is an imagination to watch out for; there is surely more weirdness from where this came from.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Fried Barry (2020) Katie Duggan We alternately feel like we are journeying through a surrealistic rabbit hole or a grotty bowel of the city, creeping and crawling and never quite sure what sludge will cover us when we make it out the other side.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Fuku-chan of FukuFuku Flats (2014) Katie Duggan Fujita recognizes the beauty within even the bit players and cares deeply for each eccentric in his ensemble - and Fuku-chan's tale deserves us stopping to look for a while at all these wonderful weirdos.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Random Acts of Violence (2019) Katie Duggan While laudable in its ambitions, this is by no means the sharpest or most original take on the fetishization of murder or violence in the media, and it still leaves something to be desired in doing these big ideas their full justice.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Katie Duggan If we choose one piece of culture ephemera to beam into space to let aliens know we're here, let it be this. The universe is filled with weirdos lost in time, lost in space, but through Rocky Horror perhaps we can find one another.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
The Prophet and the Space Aliens (2020) Katie Duggan The Prophet and The Space Aliens doesn't live up to the full wacky wonder that its title suggests, or take us to another dimension. But it does present a fascinating portrait of a powerful religious leader who remains a cipher.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Tezuka's Barbara (2019) Katie Duggan For all the exposed skin, the leads do not feel fully fleshed out, and the depths of their personas remain shrouded in darkness and lost amongst the outrageous outbursts. [...] Some things are indeed lost in translation from manga to movie.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Labyrinth of Cinema (2019) Katie Duggan This culmination of a career is jam-packed with pointed political statements even if it's absurd and whimsical - war is utter madness, after all. Dream on, Obayashi - and we will keep dreaming in vivid color, thanks to you.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Hail to the Deadites (2020) Katie Duggan Hail to the cast, hail to the crew, hail to all of the fans and supporters and film-lovers everywhere, hail to Villeneuve for making this wonderfully weird celebration of fandom and friendship.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
The Undertaker's Home (2020) Katie Duggan While it feels a bit like we are watching a story unfold in a painstakingly designed Victorian dollhouse, the film has enough in the way of bewitching production design and trance-like cinematography to enchant.
Posted Sep 22, 2020  Edit critic review
Prev Next