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Peter Sobczynski
Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:
Writer. Film Buff.
Publications:
Favorites:
All-Time Faves:
Buckaroo Banzai
It's a Wonderful Lif
eDuck Soup
Dumbo
GoodFellas
Heathers
Jaws
Vivre Sa Vie
The Shining
Rio Bravo
Blow Out
Critics' Group:
Location:
Chicago, IL
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Wolfs (2024) |
A staggeringly banal star vehicle that will no doubt lure a lot of eyes to Apple TV for a couple of weeks before being completely and blessedly forgotten by everyone who saw it and, more likely than not, by many of those who made it as well. - Auteurist Class (Substack)
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| Posted Sep 19, 2024
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King of Kings: Chasing Edward Jones (2023) |
“King of Kings” is a story of someone exploring their familial roots and coming to terms with the unexpectedly vast and far-reaching legacy they manage to uncover along the way. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Sep 18, 2024
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The Substance (2024) |
I can’t really say that the result is great—there are stretches when I am not even sure that it is even good—but it certainly is something and even when it doesn’t work, it continues to hold your interest, - Auteurist Class (Substack)
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| Posted Sep 18, 2024
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Dead Money (2024) |
It isn’t necessarily a bad movie, just a mediocre one that only reminds you of all the better films it aspires to be like. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Sep 13, 2024
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The Killer's Game (2024) |
While Bautista is still as engaging as ever ... not even he can save this dud from quickly devolving into 100 minutes of blood-drenched tedium. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Sep 13, 2024
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Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (2023) |
While “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” is a marked improvement over the previous incarnation, it still has several fundamental problems so baked in that no revision can overcome them. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Aug 16, 2024
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Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024) |
A film that pays lip service to the importance of creativity without ever displaying a demonstrable shred of it during its seemingly interminable run time. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Aug 02, 2024
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Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024) |
This is an examination of cinema history so rich in detail and observation that it rivals most current film school curricula while being uncommonly watchable and entertaining. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Jul 14, 2024
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Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024) |
This installment is a wheezy, depressing collection of franchise tropes that have long exhausted their comedic value. - The Spool
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| Posted Jul 03, 2024
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A Sacrifice (2024) |
It isn’t even awful so much as it is intensely forgettable—the kind of film whose title eludes you even as you watch it. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Jun 28, 2024
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The Bikeriders (2023) |
The Bikeriders, would seem to be an ideal use of [Nichols'] particular talents. But that makes the failures of the structurally confused, dramatically inert, and ultimately meandering project seem all the more baffling. - The Spool
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| Posted Jun 21, 2024
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Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) |
Although not as bad as Bad Boys II (the second-worst film ever made), Bad Boys: Ride or Die is deeply forgettable. - The Spool
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| Posted Jun 04, 2024
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Jim Henson Idea Man (2024) |
As is the case with Henson’s legacy as a whole, I liked a lot of what I saw in this film—I wish that there had been more to it. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted May 31, 2024
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Slow (2023) |
[A} quietly affecting work, one of the more engaging romantic dramas to come along in a while. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted May 05, 2024
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Stress Positions (2024) |
If the film concentrated more on this and less on the increasingly chaotic proceedings on display, it might have become more than an endless litany of smug obnoxiousness. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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On the Adamant (2023) |
This is a soft-spoken but ultimately powerful work that makes the case for the importance of empathy in treating those with mental illnesses, and makes you hope that programs like the one depicted here will one day become the norm. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Mar 29, 2024
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The Fox (2023) |
Yes, it says all the right things about love and humanity and the folly of war. My problem is that it doesn’t say any of those things in ways that are particularly interesting or ultimately moving. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Mar 22, 2024
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Outlaw Posse (2024) |
Van Peebles clearly knows a good Western when he sees it, but he hasn’t quite made one himself as his effort proves to be an occasionally intriguing but too often unwieldy work that is unlikely to make anyone’s list of classic Westerns anytime soon. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Mar 02, 2024
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Stopmotion (2023) |
An undeniably grisly but ultimately tedious tiptoe through the genre tropes. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Feb 23, 2024
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The Tiger's Apprentice (2024) |
A movie that has a couple of amusing moments and nice visual flourishes but not nearly enough to combat the resounding mediocrity of the storytelling. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Feb 02, 2024
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The Goldfinger (2023) |
A curiously uninvolving work that takes what sounds like a potentially fascinating story and somehow manages to render it mostly inert due to a disappointingly shallow treatment. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Dec 29, 2023
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Migration (2023) |
“Migration” may pass the time, but my guess is that those kids will retain more lasting memories of whatever their parents got for them at the concession stand than anything up there on the screen. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Dec 22, 2023
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Immediate Family (2022) |
Serves as both a warm and undeniably tuneful nostalgia bath for those who grew up listening to their work and an effective oral history of a particular place and time in the history of American popular music. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Dec 15, 2023
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A Disturbance in The Force (2023) |
[I]t does a decent job of dissecting a show that never should have logically existed, exploring the circumstances that allowed it to exist and reminding us that the Boba Fett cartoon contained therein was genuinely cool. - The Spool
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| Posted Dec 14, 2023
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The Inventor (2023) |
While The Inventor does not wholly work, it is still ultimately worth seeing. - The Spool
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| Posted Nov 28, 2023
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Wish (2023) |
For a film that spends much of its time talking about magic, it's too bad that Wish displays so little of it. - The Spool
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| Posted Nov 28, 2023
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Memory (2023) |
Saarsgard and Chastain are both wonderful. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 28, 2023
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To Kill a Tiger (2022) |
"To Kill a Tiger" tells an important story in a compelling manner that makes it worth watching, but its journey is so intense at times it might prove to be too much for some. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Oct 27, 2023
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Dream Scenario (2023) |
As the proceedings get stranger, [Cage] finds Paul’s humanity, ensuring the audience views the character as more than just a joke. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 27, 2023
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Limbo (2023) |
The director makes the procedural narrative compelling by unflinchingly exploring the legal system’s abuses of the Indigenous people. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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Evil Does Not Exist (2023) |
The narrative takes a big turn, culminating in a finale so random and oblique some viewers may come away unsure what they have just seen and what it means. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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Nyad (2023) |
The big flaw is that the screenplay by TV writer Julia Cox is a flat and curiously uninvolving piece of writing. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 22, 2023
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Departing Seniors (2023) |
[T]here have been Scooby-Doo episodes with more complexities than what's presented here. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 22, 2023
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La Chimera (2023) |
This film is clever, ambitious, and funny throughout, but it also works as an intelligent meditation on our attitudes toward life, love, and death. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Oct 20, 2023
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Fallen Leaves (2023) |
[A] weirdly beguiling delight. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Oct 20, 2023
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The Taste of Things (2023) |
When it finally ended, I found myself hungry for a good meal and a better movie. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Oct 20, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) |
is as fresh, vital, and in tune with the concerns of today as anything else out there and made by a director who is still in total command of their considerable artistic powers. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 19, 2023
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TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR (2023) |
Some rock stars struggle to make the charisma of their live appearances show up on camera or vice versa. Not Swift. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 14, 2023
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Rules of Engagement (2000) |
Stephen Gaghan’s screenplay...huffs and puffs but never really gets anywhere. - The Spool
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| Posted Oct 05, 2023
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Expend4bles (2023) |
[A] laughably lazy exercise in utility-grade meat-and-potatoes filmmaking. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Sep 22, 2023
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Je'vida (2023) |
This is a strong and assured filmmaking debut that ... shines a light on the myriad ways in which an entire culture has been systematically threatened with eradication and how it has still managed to survive those efforts. - The Spool
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| Posted Sep 21, 2023
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Deal of the Century (1983) |
Nonetheless, in the end, the best thing that can be said about it is that it is slightly better than Best Defense. - The Spool
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| Posted Sep 20, 2023
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The Brink's Job (1978) |
Despite it being clear Friedkin is not 100% comfortable with the material, his work is not without interest. - The Spool
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| Posted Sep 20, 2023
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Retribution (2023) |
A film so devoid of thrills, excitement, or purpose that it seems to have been custom-made to play in empty multiplexes during the traditionally dead last weeks of summer. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Aug 25, 2023
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Winter Kills (1979) |
It seems to have grown even bolder with age in its willingness to take on sacred cows in the craziest manner imaginable. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Aug 11, 2023
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The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) |
An often striking take on the tale that makes up for what it lacks in surprise with a lot of style and some undeniably effective scare moments. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Aug 11, 2023
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The League (2023) |
[A] smart and revelatory look at a piece of American history, - The Spool
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| Posted Jul 08, 2023
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Joy Ride (2023) |
[The jokes] will inspire laughter from all but the most churlish and easily offended of viewers. - The Spool
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| Posted Jul 06, 2023
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Mad Heidi (2022) |
The problem with Mad Heidi isn’t that it’s trash—it’s that it’s cut-rate trash that tries way too hard without being near as wild or as provocative as it seems to think it is. - The Spool
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| Posted Jun 20, 2023
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Rather (2023) |
[F]or the most part, Rather is an admirable portrait of a more-than-admirable man and his work. - The Spool
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| Posted Jun 16, 2023
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