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Tim Appelo
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications:
Official Website:
http://www.laweekly.com
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) |
The sequel doesn’t quite pack the exhilarating punch of the 1988 original, and the plot is scattershot even by director Tim Burton’s standards. But he hasn’t lost his gloriously ghastly/silly visual imagination. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Sep 09, 2024
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Reagan (2024) |
The movie as a whole isn’t awful, and it’s interesting to see Reagan’s life and anti-communist crusade through the lens of his religious faith. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Aug 30, 2024
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It Ends With Us (2024) |
The frothy romance comedy lands better than the dark parts about men’s scary tempers, but on the whole, it’s one of the year’s more satisfying films. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Aug 09, 2024
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Touch (2024) |
It’s romantically melodramatic, but in a quiet way that is quite touching. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jul 19, 2024
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Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot (2024) |
It’s likely less fictionalized than the controversial Sound of Freedom. But it plods, and lacks that film’s propulsive plot. Still, it definitely is heartwarming. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jul 12, 2024
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June Zero (2022) |
The parts don’t quite cohere, but they resonate, and it makes you think. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jul 12, 2024
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The Dead Don't Hurt (2023) |
Mortensen gives and gets unusually deep performances, and despite a cliched script and a way-too-moseying pace, it’s Mortensen’s best-directed film yet, with his richest cast - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted May 31, 2024
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Sight (2023) |
Hyatt is a powerhouse of faith filmmaking, but this one is marred by a weak script with many confusing flashbacks. Still, it’s one heck of a tale. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) |
The movie takes its own sweet time, and would be better minus half an hour. But even the longueurs are eye-poppingly watchable and serve the purpose of building a world that envelops us. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted May 10, 2024
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Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill (2022) |
A must-see for fans of the ’70s singer-songwriter scene. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Wicked Little Letters (2023) |
The cartoonish script, broad satire, obviousness and constant f-bombs may annoy you, but Anglophile fans of Calendar Girls or The Full Monty will probably like it. It’s sure worth watching for the fabulous acting duel of Colman and Buckley. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Apr 05, 2024
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Cabrini (2024) |
Though it’s a maddeningly slow 140 minutes long, it’s also an inspiring true story, with good performances by Dell’Anna, Giannini, David Morse... and John Lithgow. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Mar 08, 2024
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Dune: Part Two (2024) |
It’s an eye-popping, sonically stunning, highly original story with massively more action, character and plot than the 2021 Dune: Part One. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Mar 01, 2024
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Ordinary Angels (2024) |
It’s earnest and predictable, also absorbing and moving, thanks to the acting punch Swank packs, and the sweet fact it actually happened. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Feb 23, 2024
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This Is Me... Now: A Love Story (2024) |
The musical production numbers, with over-the-top sets, costumes and choreography, look epic. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Feb 21, 2024
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Driving Madeleine (2022) |
Driving Madeleine doubles as a French history lesson from WWII to Vietnam to today. Quite the sentimental journey. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jan 19, 2024
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Role Play (2023) |
You have to admit it’s a fun, silly romp with excellent actors. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jan 19, 2024
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The Book of Clarence (2023) |
The tone wildly lurches from raucous comedy to serious engagement with the Jesus story, and most faith audiences will be offended. But some will see glints of wisdom between the flashes of satire. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jan 12, 2024
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Memory (2023) |
A film full of Oscar-worthy performances. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jan 06, 2024
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Waitress: The Musical (2023) |
Watch the film version of the musical, and you’ll find out what baking can do. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 08, 2023
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May December (2023) |
The Joe-Gracie dynamic is like Gus Van Sant’s To Die For; the Elizabeth-Gracie clash recalls Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. The result is a creepy master class in acting. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Nov 18, 2023
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Maestro (2023) |
Director and star Bradley Cooper dazzlingly embodies the contradictory whole of conductor and West Side Story composer Leonard Bernstein... And as his Costa Rica-born Broadway star wife, Felicia Montealegre, Carey Mulligan is even better. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Nov 18, 2023
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The Holdovers (2023) |
It’s a Christmas movie as uplifting as the saddest of Christmas songs, and as full of hope against all odds. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Nov 06, 2023
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Stop Making Sense (1984) |
It’s the greatest concert film ever made, a Jonathan Demme masterpiece capturing Talking Heads at the peak of its powers in 1984. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Oct 06, 2023
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Carlos (2023) |
Carlos shows why he belongs to the ages. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Oct 06, 2023
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023) |
The laughs are fewer than before, but the story’s always been less about ha-ha than “awww” moments, which this one has aplenty. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Sep 08, 2023
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Sound of Freedom (2023) |
A gripping, if maddeningly slow-paced, fact-inspired story. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jul 21, 2023
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What's Love Got to Do with It? (2022) |
A winsome throwback to the rom-com era from the studio that made the Bridget Jones movies and Four Weddings and a Funeral. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted May 05, 2023
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Somewhere in Queens (2022) |
It’s like a funny (but deeper and more dramatic) takeoff on Everybody Loves Raymond. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Apr 21, 2023
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Paint (2023) |
Owen Wilson is a master of deadpan comedy, but if his performance as Carl Nargle, a nature painter on a Vermont PBS show, were any more deadpan, it would be dead. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Tetris (2023) |
It’s a bit confusing, and not a killer of a thriller, but it’s a fun way to learn some tech history. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Mar 31, 2023
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The Magic Flute (2022) |
The romance plot is lame, but the film looks terrific, and the singing, especially by real-life opera stars Morris Robinson and Sabine Devielhe, is sublime. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Mar 17, 2023
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Sharper (2023) |
The Crown director Benjamin Caron presents a nifty little thriller in the tradition of The Usual Suspects that might have been titled Con vs. Con. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Saint Omer (2022) |
Somewhere in the Law & Order archive there must be an infanticide episode, but none as measured, probing and intimate as Saint Omer. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jan 19, 2023
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Women Talking (2022) |
he cast is fantastic, led by Judith Ivey, Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley. For a film that’s basically all talk, it’s highly dramatic, and gorgeously photographed. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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Wildcat (2022) |
It’s an amazing nature documentary that’s also about humans. Don’t you wish you could pat your shoulder and a wild ocelot who’s crazy about you sprints out of the jungle and jumps onto your shoulders? - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 27, 2022
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The Whale (2022) |
What makes it a must-see is Fraser’s daring, difficult, deeply moving performance as an infinitely kind and regretful man at the end of his rapidly fraying rope - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 08, 2022
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Armageddon Time (2022) |
It’s a thoughtful meditation on class, race and national decline. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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The Son (2022) |
The script is lacking, but the acting is aces. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Neil Young: Harvest Time (2022) |
Seeing his creative process in a movie that takes you back to a groovier time is wonderful. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Emancipation (2022) |
Smith’s performance and Fuqua’s gift for grueling spectacle carry the film. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
Rian Johnson, who’s evidently incapable of directing a movie that isn’t fun, brings you the season’s most fun film. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Nov 29, 2022
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She Said (2022) |
In the most gripping thriller about newshounds since Spotlight, Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan are superb. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Nov 19, 2022
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My Policeman (2022) |
It’s an honest tearjerker with terrific actors. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Nov 10, 2022
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
In a way, the irresistible dialogue is the main character. See it and you’ll speak Irish for a week. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Halloween Ends (2022) |
The good news: There’s more of Jamie Lee Curtis than in the last movie about her tussles with Michael Myers... The bad news: This Halloween ends her horror franchise with more of a whimper than a bang. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Oct 14, 2022
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Loving Highsmith (2022) |
This sensitive documentary peels back her mysteries, quoting her eloquent diaries along with vivid bits of her movies and the keen insights of her family and several of the many loves of her life. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Sep 09, 2022
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Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (2022) |
It’s a messy film but a lively slice of life. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Sep 02, 2022
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Beast (2022) |
Beast delivers its jolts effectively. It’s 90 minutes well spent. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Aug 19, 2022
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A Love Song (2022) |
Spare and minimalist as it is, A Love Song touches some deep emotional chords. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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