Bob Strauss

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San Francisco Chronicle, The Wrap, TheWrap
For 157 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Bob Strauss' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Emergency
Lowest review score: 0 Poolman
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 84 out of 157
  2. Mixed: 58 out of 157
  3. Negative: 15 out of 157
157 movie reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Maddie's Secret
    Early claims a number of influences for his movie, with the most prevalent seemingly the overwrought, problem-of-the-week TV specials he watched as a gay kid with his female friends in the 1990s. But with its colorful yet shadowy lighting (the cinematographer is Max Lakner) and Gordon Landenberger’s vibrantly painted, hipster Los Angeles production designs, “Maddie’s Secret” is a real work of cinema.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    The Death of Robin Hood
    This “Robin Hood” transitions into contemplative, philosophical registers while never slacking in suspense. It is, at its core, a redemption story, simple in persuasive ways yet richly complicated by difficult personalities and atrocious revelations. Coincidences that would seem narratively convenient in lesser narratives are imbued with a classical feeling of fate.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Power Ballad
    While the movie may not get the overall music business as right as it could have, Carney sure can cut the beast where it hurts. His blend of ruthless, observant Irish humor and admirably restrained vein of sentimentality doesn’t make for the cuddliest cinematic singalong, but it delivers a message every daydream rock star ought to hear.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Mortal Kombat II
    Mortal Kombat II is a sterling example of an action movie that starts out dumb but gradually becomes kind of awesome — and a little bit smarter.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    Hokum
    Uncertainty is a genre trope this director is particularly gifted at manipulating. So many horror films are incoherent due to a lack of good writing; if anything in McCarthy’s script isn’t fully clear, it’s in the same manner that life itself fails to make sense.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    40 Years of F—in’ Up
    In honor of NOFX’s final performances, the punk band produced and candidly participated in the documentary “40 Years of F—in’ Up.” The result is even wilder than expected and more heartfelt than it has any right to be. Even still, it will likely be more appreciated by fans of the veteran California punks than by anyone new to their music.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    The President's Cake
    Winner of both the Camera d’Or and an audience award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, writer-director Hasan Hadi’s feature debut is both beguiling and unforgiving, culturally specific yet universal, funny and heartbreaking.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    The Testament of Ann Lee
    This is a transcendent cinematic vision you can dance to. By God, it’s inspired.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not
    The director succeeds most at giving an inkling of the real Chase, now somewhat frail in his 80s. But she also makes a case that at past points, when the public consensus was “God, he’s being an ass again,” the truth may have been rather more poignant.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Anaconda
    This is at its core a story that understands misguided aspirations. Yes, they’re ridiculous, but without them there’d never be movies like the ’90s “Anaconda” — and we wouldn’t have this “Anaconda” to enjoy.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Song Sung Blue
    Grafted onto a true underdog story, it makes for a salvation show that could move Brother Love himself — as well as those of his who think we can resist such things.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    Predator: Badlands
    Inhuman though it may be, this is far-and-away the most humane of “Predators,” expanding rather than skimping on the series’ blood hunt fundamentals. That kind of daring and intelligence makes “Badlands” the coolest science fiction adventure seen in eons.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
    It may not be as perfectly clever or uproarious as it was in Tap’s heyday, but we all get old and neither need nor want humor as loud as we used to.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Nobody 2
    Funnier, sunnier and even more violent than its predecessor, “Nobody 2” ups the ante in the cinematic action department as well.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    Weapons
    An innovative and intriguing plot, credible characters with edgy relationships navigating increasingly insane situations, plus jokes and scares built up with care or blasted out of disruptive nowhere with equal effectiveness — it’s all here, and even better.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Together
    It’s the actors’ emotional intelligence, though, that creates the movie’s true onscreen magic. This is like an Ingmar Bergman scenario directed by Sam Raimi. However you slice it, Together is a great love story. The ghastliness of it all is the chef’s kiss.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    Sally
    Utilizing plentiful archival footage, contemporary commentary, recent interview observations from people who were there and some dramatized recreation, director Cristina Costantini gets some sly laughs, edged with appropriate anger, out of the sexist mindsets Ride deftly steered her career through in the 1970s and ’80s.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Predator: Killer of Killers
    Killer of Killers continues the concept co-director Dan Trachtenberg applied to his 2022 live-action “Prey,” only with the more elaborate action, wider scope and graceful, graphic kineticism animation can accommodate.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Bad Shabbos
    Neither too “oy vey” nor “Weekend at Bernie’s” but steeped in the best aspects of both Jewish and black comedy, Bad Shabbos is a treat any night of the week.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Bob Strauss
    Mountainhead
    Armstrong crams just about every strategy and justification late capitalism can produce into densely packed dialogue that the film’s core quartet of actors make sound remarkably organic.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Final Destination: Bloodlines
    This particular package has a lived-in quality that doesn’t just counterpoint the set piece mutilations but complements the franchise’s premise that death — or here, the never-seen personification Death — can come from anywhere, anytime.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse
    Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse, the latest installment of the venerable PBS “American Masters” series, does a thorough job of laying out and appreciating all of the cartoonist’s significant, consistently subversive works, as well as the psychological factors that informed them.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Riff Raff
    If Quentin Tarantino ever made a family film, it might look like “Riff Raff.”
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    My Dead Friend Zoe
    Fundamentally, though, “My Dead Friend Zoe” is a tricky story told exceedingly well. It earns our attention — and a few salutes.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    The Brutalist
    The suffering artist story is as old as time. Yet “The Brutalist” tells it with such specificity and visceral conviction, it feels entirely fresh. Modern, even.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever
    Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever goes a long way toward humanizing the Venmo multimillionaire best known for pumping his teenage son’s blood plasma into his own veins.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Strauss
    Porcelain War
    Backed by a feral, driving score from Ukrainian folkloric quartet DakhaBrakha, “Porcelain War” makes the case for art as another protective weapon against imperialism. Like Ukraine, the film concludes, the delicate but resilient sculptures may break easily — but are very hard to destroy.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    The Six Triple Eight
    Grading on the Tyler Perry curve, though, “The Six Triple Eight” respects its noteworthy topic — and its audience — as much as it possibly could.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    Separated
    Despite any weaknesses, the movie still does what Morris does best. It digs deep into the details of how some terrible idea was mismanaged in execution.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Strauss
    All Shall Be Well
    Naturally, laws protecting LGBTQ+ rights are quite different in the United States, especially in California and the Bay Area. Nonetheless, “All Shall Be Well,” in addition to being a skillful, absorbing story, serves as a gentle reminder. After dabbing your tears as the credits roll, your next move should be to send an email to the family lawyer.
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