Barry Hertz

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The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
For 1,051 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Barry Hertz's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 American Honey
Lowest review score: 0 Passengers
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 713 out of 1051
  2. Mixed: 200 out of 1051
  3. Negative: 138 out of 1051
1051 movie reviews
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    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
    Films about single film scenes, however, represent unexplored territory. Which is why 78/52 is such an enticing prospect – a deep dive into one of the most influential moments in cinema history: the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Humane
    Cronenberg offers a light touch to the material, spiking the deeply depressing dystopia with a sibling-rivalry battle royale that eagerly, if sometimes wobblily, shifts between sharp humour and slippery sentimentality.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Creed II
    Whatever you normally do during the rousing finale of a Rocky movie. It will feel familiar, but just go with it.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    You Don't Nomi
    Maybe arguing the merits of a quote-unquote bad movie through the means of an imperfect documentary is the only option that makes sense. I have the distinct feeling, though, that somewhere in Europe, Verhoeven is laughing his ass off.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Tully
    Cody’s third-act twist threatens to unravel Theron’s hard work; yet, somehow, the power of Tully remains firmly in Theron’s skilled and capable hands.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Ready or Not
    Despite its sometimes overwhelming sense of familiarity – including a conceit that feels lifted from last year’s Game Night, an impossible feat given both productions’ development timelines – Ready or Not is still energetic, inventive and bloody enough to permissibly coast on its influences’ fumes.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Kong: Skull Island
    It is the platonic ideal of big, smart-dumb B-movie filmmaking – and, like Kong himself, it must be seen to be believed.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Bodies Bodies Bodies
    An energetic, cockeyed, bloody, and sometimes delightfully vicious skewering of Millennial culture – or, more accurately, what Instagram-less tsk-tsk’ers imagine millennial culture to be – director Halina Reijn’s new film exists not only to meet late-summer slasher expectations, but to ever so slightly subvert them.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    The High Note
    This is still a light and frothy rom-com, predictable and charming in equal measure, and most comfortable when it fits the efficient mold of genre obligations. But when it wants to, it can really crank that charm up to 11.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    The Lighthouse
    While not a remotely pleasant viewing experience, the sensation of watching Pattinson and Dafoe drive each other to the brink is difficult to shake off.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Honey Bunch
    Glowicki and Petrie are immensely committed and often fearless performers – so much so that you can see them frequently bouncing against the constraints of the story surrounding them, the actors seemingly confident that if they pushed themselves just past the brink, the movie’s half-untapped potential might burst wide open.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    A Hidden Life
    When Malick reaches the end of Jaggerstatter’s story, A Hidden Life does reach something profound. Relief, maybe, that the film was over. But also a distinct pang that some filmmakers never change.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    The Little Stranger
    Gleeson and Wilson deliver tightly-wound performances, while the ending is more chilling, and perhaps perplexing, than audiences might expect.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Blaze
    It’s not that Blaze lacks tension or focus – it’s simply that Hawke is more fascinated with passion than profile. And here, that’s more than enough.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Shadow
    If "The Great Wall" felt like Yimou was turning his greatest hits into something dispassionately bland, then Shadow takes the familiar and makes it feel startlingly new.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Sundowners
    It is at times extremely uncomfortable, but captivating and engaging all the same.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
    The filmmakers even manage to introduce a tune as devastatingly ear-wormy as the original’s Everything Is Awesome, even though its title (Catchy Song) betrays the fact that everyone here is working both a little too hard, and not quite hard enough.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Blood Quantum
    It is as much a gusty dissection of colonialism as it is a gut-spilling splatter-thon.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Science Fair
    The film is rich in such positive messaging, and its subjects quickly endear themselves to the camera.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Nobody
    While the situation is played for dark laughs, Odenkirk’s commitment to the role is dead serious. He makes its ridiculousness believable. By the end of Nobody, I wanted desperately for the producers of the next Fast & Furious film to cast Odenkirk as the muscle-car-driving villain. In your heart of hearts, you know it would work, too.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    In Fabric
    In Fabric is a beautiful, unpredictable nightmare for those drawn to giggle in the dark.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    The Lure
    The result is hallucinatory and puzzling, but never anything less than captivating.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    The Accountant 2
    The easy back-and-forth chemistry between Affleck and Bernthal as they paint the town blood-red provides certain dividends.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Wonderstruck
    Haynes and Selznick do get a bit too, well, wonderstruck by their own project, which blinds them to one central narrative pivot that is more annoying than awe-inspiring.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Chuck
    It may not go the distance, but it’s surely worth a step into the ring.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Aniara
    Yet while last month’s Claire Denis drama "High Life" will go down as one of the year’s ultimate masterpieces, the Swedish soul-crusher Aniara will likely be remembered as an ambitious if ultimately weaker curiosity: the "Antz" to Denis’s "A Bug’s Life" (a sentence I never thought I’d be able to employ, but here we are).
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Unfriended: Dark Web
    Nasty in its narrative and nifty in its aesthetic, Stephen Susco’s new film is a solid argument against doing anything remotely illicit online.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    The Beekeeper
    By Cinema Stathama considerations, The Beekeeper is a masterpiece – the best B(ee)-movie of this cold-hearted season.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Wiener-Dog
    Overly sensitive pet owners, however, would be advised to take a walk.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Barry Hertz
    Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
    Van Sant has some fun with the briefly time-jumping narrative, but otherwise it’s shocking how little interest he seems to have in his subject. At least the director helps his star by filling out the supporting cast with performers who do their best to match Phoenix’s dedication, including a wonderful Jonah Hill as Callahan’s skeptical AA sponsor and Rooney Mara as the cartoonist’s off-and-on love interest.
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