Betsy Sharkey

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Los Angeles Times
For 635 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1 point lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Betsy Sharkey's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Prisoners
Lowest review score: 0 Nothing Left to Fear
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 342 out of 635
  2. Mixed: 255 out of 635
  3. Negative: 38 out of 635
635 movie reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    I'll See You in My Dreams
    Director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the film with Marc Basch, has managed to create a film about those final years that gets to the heart of things like loss and love without patronizing or parody. No small thing to create a movie whose cast is mostly in their 70s yet whose story is so relatable whatever your age.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story
    From the beginning, the filmmakers promise an affectionate look at the man, and in that they deliver.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Pitch Perfect 2
    The comedy choir wars are more intense, more absurd and more lowbrow fun than ever in Pitch Perfect 2. It is almost impossible not to be amused by the cutthroat world of competitive a cappella.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
    There is a great deal of silliness about Allan's journey from start to finish and no real message other than to never stop taking life as it comes. But there is also a great deal of fun in watching a 100-year-old man climb out a window and disappear.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    Between the sheer on-screen beauty and the finely wrought performances of Mulligan and Schoenaerts, Far from the Madding Crowd has its appeal. Yet like unrequited love, one can't help but lament what might have been.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Welcome to Me
    Though some of the jabs "Me" takes at reality TV are clever, the film, like Alice, tends to fracture at key moments. What makes it worth watching is Wiig.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    24 Days
    Knowing the outcome behind the true-life tragedy 24 Days doesn't diffuse the horror, the tension or the sadness of watching one family's drama unfold day after agonizing day when a son is kidnapped and hope dies.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Adult Beginners
    The kind of comedy that goes down easy even as it looks at the hard stuff.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Clouds of Sils Maria
    Stewart does exactly what Valentine describes as Jo-Ann's great gift — she becomes the character, completing disappearing inside Valentine. It makes the interplay between Binoche, a master of that sort of disappearing act as well, and Stewart mesmerizing to watch.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Ned Rifle
    When the writer-director is on his game, as he is in Ned Rifle, the effect is bizarre black comedy that is designed to set you thinking about what his satire is really saying.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Furious 7
    Furious 7 is the fuel-injected fusion of all that is and ever has been good in "The Fast and the Furious" saga.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Seymour: An Introduction
    Ethan Hawke's documentary on pianist Seymour Bernstein is very much like the sonatas Bernstein plays so beautifully, teaches so insightfully — quietly moving, infinitely deep.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
    Though it might not sound it, watching Kumiko brood is mesmerizing. Kikuchi uses her mournful eyes to take us to dark places, though she's equally adept at surprise and confusion, even joy when it comes along.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Cinderella
    As pure of heart as its heroine, Cinderella floats across the screen like a gossamer confection, full of elegant beauty and quiet grace.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Focus
    The film is breezy from start to finish.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
    The tragedy here is not a single story but that a process so inequitable and so inane continues in a place that is considered to be enlightened. Gett, in moving and infuriating ways, exposes a very bleak corner of that world.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Kingsman: The Secret Service
    Directed by "Kick-Ass" action specialist Matthew Vaughn with slightly more vigor than necessary and a shade less restraint than needed, it's a bit too too to be "brilliant," as the Brits say. But it's not half bad either.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Timbuktu
    The screenplay — by the French Mauritania director and Malian co-writer Kessen Tall, in her feature debut — is a mesmerizing blend of the horrific and the humorous as it boils ideology down to the personal level.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Winter Sleep
    Like so much of Ceylan's work, Winter Sleep is a haunting piece.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Paddington
    Artfully and cleverly, the sweet spirit of that young bear from darkest Peru and his many London misadventures materializes brilliantly on screen in the very good hands of writer-director-conjurer Paul King.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Two Days, One Night
    That Two Days, One Night retains such an organic sensibility, even with a major star in the lead, is credit to both filmmakers and actress.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Into the Woods
    What makes Into the Woods so entertaining is the cleverness of the tale itself and the way specific characters match the talents of its storytellers.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Top Five
    Top Five is fully loaded. The laughs are earned, the intelligence never disappears, all the performers shine. But Rock is the diamond — raw, rough and rare.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Inherent Vice
    Joaquin Phoenix and the terrific acting ensemble that joins him in this pot-infused '70s-era beach noir create such a good buzz you can almost get a contact high from watching.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Wild
    Though there are occasional stumbles along the 1,100-mile hike, the peaks in Wild make the journey more than worth it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Babadook
    The film is quite serious about pushing its players and its audiences through the mental, as well as emotional, meat grinder. Many times along the way, you fear you know where things are going. But Kent is clever in choosing unexpected spots to pull the rug out from under you.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Invisible Front
    We look to documentaries like The Invisible Front — dense with detail, straightforward in laying out the issues — to put history in perspective. And in this case to illuminate a little-known page from it.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
    It is the way in which the writer-director uses the specter of vampires and vices to take an off-center cut at Iranian gender politics and U.S.-Eurocentric pop culture that sets the film apart.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    National Gallery
    In a time when so many documentary filmmakers take on advocacy roles, National Gallery represents the heart of what Wiseman does best — step back and let the place and its people lead the story.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The Homesman
    The film's difficulties are in the roiling emotions that run through it. Intimacy and the interdependence required to survive a harsh environment are more easily achieved. Swank and Jones, in particular, are a very good odd couple, playing saint and sinner, sometimes reversing the roles.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Big Hero 6
    Amid all the nerd-inspired firepower that gives the movie much of its flash, the big boy's droning tone proves to be the film's stealth weapon, perfect for pulling off highly targeted comic strikes.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Elsa & Fred
    Though the issues are heavy, the execution is light, enjoyable, but it keeps Elsa & Fred closer to "Sleepless in Seattle" than Fellini's deliciously deep Roman affair.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Listen Up Philip
    While the intolerance fueling this dark, existential comedy won't be to everyone's liking, the film's cerebral beat-down is a strange and sardonic thing of beauty.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Laggies
    The director is increasingly adept at getting her actors to bask in emotions without any pretensions. It makes for easy watching. Seigel's breezy script makes the dialogue easy listening.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
    The director's surrealist portrait of modern times and the cult of celebrity is brilliant on so many levels that even the occasional downdraft can't keep Birdman from soaring.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Whiplash
    It is one of those scorching films that burns through emotions, uses up actors, wrings out audiences. And the jazz, well, it has its own moments of brutal, breathtaking fusion.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    St. Vincent
    In a roundabout way, St. Vincent delivers, though less as a film than a platform for an object lesson by St. Bill in effortless acting.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Lilting
    Teasing out the vagaries of language, how confusing communication can be, is such a good idea. Despite a strong start, the filmmaker doesn't exactly know where to go with it. Still, there are moments before things get away from him that are captivating to watch and lovely to listen to.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The Good Lie
    The pieces don't always fit together as neatly as you might wish, but if you let it, The Good Lie's heartwarming soul will win you over.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Two Faces of January
    Amini has a powerful acting triumvirate in Mortensen, Dunst and Isaac to help him deal with the capricious nature of this particular tangled web.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    This Is Where I Leave You
    When the grown-up going gets tough, the one thing you know is that the Altmans won't abandon one another. Which makes "This Is Where I Leave You" not earthshaking by any stretch, but somehow reassuring.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Tracks
    The desert trek in Tracks is as brutal as it is beautiful; the performance by Mia Wasikowska as raw as the reality. And the camels? If they don't steal your heart it must be stone-hinged.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    The Skeleton Twins
    One of the better movies to come along this year.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The One I Love
    Though the indie falls short of its grandest ambitions, it is inventive in constructing its conceits. As to Moss and Duplass? It's hard not to love them — for better or worse.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Love Is Strange
    In the hands of two of the craft's best, the most ordinary of moments become illuminating, penetrating.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    The Trip to Italy
    Brydon and Coogan's discourse over breakfast, lunch and dinner is captured with a casualness that makes the eavesdropping delicious.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Happy Christmas
    All in all, Happy Christmas is a good deal like cartoon Charlie Brown's classic tree — scraggly, plenty of heart and much to enjoy, especially if you prefer your presents homemade.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Magic in the Moonlight
    The séances are great fun, and the cast is charmingly eclectic. But as to whether "Moonlight" is magical — it is, but ever, ever so slightly.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    The Empty Hours
    Like everything else about this lovely film, life, love and emotional growth are marked out in lush, languid, luminous terms.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger
    Joe Berlinger's densely detailed new documentary about the legendary Boston mobster is disturbing on so many levels it's hard not to wonder why Bulger was the only one on trial.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Land Ho!
    Land Ho! is full of surprises, rich in the way it noses around the rocky terrain of aging in an indifferent world through the engaging performances of its two stars.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Boyhood
    An extraordinarily intimate portrait of a life unfolding and an exceptional, unconventional film.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Venus in Fur
    It is a caustic, comic, cerebral romp for a long time before it hits you with its best shot — some Polanski-worthy darkness.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Gabrielle
    Though the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve, the music and the cast, many of them members of the real Les Muses, as Marion-Rivard was for a time, are simply so charming that it makes Gabrielle hard to resist.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Snowpiercer
    [Bong Joon-ho] combines a great cast, a gripping idea and a gorgeously grimy retro aesthetic to keep this eerie examination of the train wreck of humanity racing along.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    How to Train Your Dragon 2
    What DeBlois has deepened in No. 2, is the film's emotional core. Though there are moments when the tension goes slack, the cast steps up to keep things afloat.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    22 Jump Street
    A great deal of insanity ensues, none of which would work if Tatum and Hill weren't so disarming in their roles. Their level of comfort with the characters and each other helps 22 click.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Obvious Child
    As Obvious Child stumbles its way to the final punch line, it echoes Donna's onstage musings — funny but rough around the edges. A work in progress that somehow hooks you anyway.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The Fault in Our Stars
    What sustains the film through the rockier times are its challenging themes, offering real issues for the young protagonists to wrestle with, rather than whether anyone will be carded trying to buy beer.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Night Moves
    What happens when a seemingly righteous operation goes wrong and anxiety threatens to overtake ideals? It is the question Night Moves asks and answers in chilling ways.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Maleficent
    Though it never plays like a polemic, the film has so much it wants to say the emotional power that might have made it a classic is undercut.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Cold in July
    Tense and violent, it grabs you from the first moments and rarely loosens its hold until the last body drops.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    X-Men: Days of Future Past
    There is action galore, but Future Past is a deeper, richer, more thoughtful film, more existential in its contemplations than earlier Xs, all rather nicely embedded in the mayhem churned up by the mutants' altered states.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Retrieval
    The Retrieval comes at you like a haunting slip of a memory, one that writer-director Chris Eska retrieves from a mostly forgotten era in unforgettable ways.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Immigrant
    Though the film is sometimes as fraught as the immigrant experience, in the end the ideas are so rich, the look so lovely, Ewa's journey so heartbreakingly real, even the flaws seem to suit it.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Neighbors
    This raunchy unrooting of a settled suburban idyll exposes the considerable angst of emerging adulthood with a kind of scatological fervor designed to elicit oodles of inappropriate laughs. It succeeds.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    The Double
    It is the interplay between Wasikowska and Eisenberg that gives "The Double" both its tension and its charm... Their struggle captivates, the resolution shocks, and you can't help but wonder what windmills Ayoade will tilt next.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Blue Ruin
    Blue Ruin is an uneven film, and there are slip-ups along the way, but the tension that settles in slowly like a low-grade fever keeps you with it.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Fading Gigolo
    While Fading Gigolo periodically threatens to come apart at the seams, it is Turturro's most disciplined and delightful work yet.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Small Time
    Don't let the title of this indie gem fool you, Small Time has humor and heart big time.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Joe
    Though Joe occasionally slips and falters, the filmmakers and actors get all the hard-luck details right.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Alan Partridge
    In taking Partridge to the movies, the writers go broader and deeper than they typically do with the story.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Under the Skin
    Watching this film feels like a genesis moment — of sci-fi fable, of filmmaking, of performance — with all the ambiguity and excitement that implies.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The Raid 2
    As inventive as the action sequences are, there are too many of them and they tend to go on far too long — the movie is just shy of two-and-a-half hours. Still, Evans' filmmaking has undergone some impressive fine-tuning for The Raid 2. It is something to see — if you have the stomach for it.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Muppets Most Wanted
    Though there are many delicious little moments tucked inside, the action heads in so many directions it can be dizzying to keep up.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Veronica Mars
    It is clear in every frame that the filmmakers and actors really appreciate that loyalty. It doesn't make for a particularly ambitious film, but it is a satisfying one as it moves easy, breezy over familiar terrain.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Bad Words
    Sarcastic, sanctimonious, salacious, sly, slight and surprisingly sweet, the black comedy of Bad Words, starring and directed by Jason Bateman, is high-minded, foul-mouthed good nonsense.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Ernest & Célestine
    A magically understated mash-up, Ernest & Celestine has a comforting storybook effect and proves a refreshing departure in an age of high-tech, hyperkinetic animation set to soaring pop ballads, as entertaining as they can be.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Omar
    What happens when Omar is outside the prison walls, and how his world and his relationships are reshaped by the realities of broken trust and betrayal, make for gripping and heartbreaking watching.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    In Bloom
    You can feel how personal a film In Bloom is and how promising a first feature this is for one of the country's new wave artists.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    The LEGO Movie
    The Lego Movie is strikingly, exhilaratingly, exhaustingly fresh.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Stranger by the Lake
    The filmmaker constructs a growing sense of dread with the calculated precision of a classic horror movie.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Gloria
    Between Lelio's ingenuity in staging the film, an extremely clever script co-written with his frequent collaborator, Gonzalo Maza, and the pumping disco that interjects its opinions and assessments of each situation, Gloria is one of the most enjoyable movies to come along in a while.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Labor Day
    The film finds its footing as the weekend progresses and the temperature and tension — outside and in — rise.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Lone Survivor
    Berg, who wrote and directed, is more interested in how men deal with battle than the ideals or the politics that put them there. What the movie achieves, with a gruesome energy and a remarkable reality, is a firefight.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    The Wolf of Wall Street
    A very fast three hours, Wolf is a fascinating, revolting, outlandish, uproarious, exhilarating and exhausting master work on immorality.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Tim's Vermeer
    Like art itself, words can't fully capture what it is like to see the Vermeer emerge under Jenison's brush. Or to see Jenison's obsession with the idea run its course.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
    Jackson's latest go at Tolkien's treasured "Hobbit" story gets closer to that rich alchemy of fantasy, adventure, imagination and emotion that made his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy such a triumph.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Paradise: Hope
    The most hopeful — and the best — of this solid and unsettling series.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Out of the Furnace
    Bale, Affleck and Harrelson are in their element as men battered by life, delivering exceptional performances that hold nothing back. Bale and Affleck are as nuanced as Harrelson is unhinged. It is among the finest work done by all three.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    These Birds Walk
    Deeply moving and devoid of melodrama, These Birds Walk is as pragmatic as its subjects.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Oldboy
    Oldboy suggests a filmmaker doing almost as much soul-searching as the main character. There is a brashness in the risks taken, the very imperfections revealing an artist finding new inspiration. For Lee, this weird, brutal film seems to have freed him.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Delivery Man
    Delivery Man, a heart-tugging new comedy about fatherhood and family, is warm as well as wry.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Frozen
    Frozen is fabulous.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
    I don't know whether the tall man is happy, but I do know that Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? is intellectually and visually groundbreaking, and most certainly a film.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Ghosts in Our Machine
    The Ghosts in Our Machine, a heartfelt meditation on animal rights, comes at you as a whisper. It depends on the persuasive powers of creatures great and small — in their natural habitat or in cages — to argue that we stop using them for food, clothing, research and entertainment.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Sunlight Jr.
    Though this is an emotionally driven movie, it never drifts into melodrama. Collyer is as pragmatic in her approach as her characters. But it is Dillon and Watts' nuanced portrayals that make "Sunlight's" darkness so appealing.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Dallas Buyers Club
    Even with some flaws and flailing, Dallas Buyers Club is a rough, raw, ragged and exhilarating ride.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Enzo Avitabile Music Life
    In Enzo Avitabile Music Life, Demme has not given us an expansive film, and there are spots you wish he'd dug deeper. But there is such a well of emotion that the music alone is almost enough.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
    It's amazing what a little story and a little substance add to a movie. It might not be a giant leap for mankind, but it is a small step for one old man.
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