Daniel Schindel

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Paste Magazine, The Film Stage
For 107 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 19% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 79% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Daniel Schindel's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 56
Highest review score: 100 Kate Plays Christine
Lowest review score: 0 Southbound
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 40 out of 107
  2. Mixed: 58 out of 107
  3. Negative: 9 out of 107
107 movie reviews
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Angels Are Made of Light
    The sections about the school are good enough on their own that trying to fold them into a larger statement on Afghanistan as it is now dilutes the potency of those smaller stories. Still, as a fresh view of life in a country Americans may too easily dismiss as a hopeless hellhole, it’s a welcome piece of work.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    Of Fathers and Sons
    Of Fathers and Sons is a vital addition to the cultural picture of the Syrian conflict.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    306 Hollywood
    When it works, the movie strongly evokes the feeling of sorting through a loved one’s possessions after their death.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Daniel Schindel
    Hale County This Morning, This Evening
    Structurally, Hale County This Morning, This Evening does not do much to distinguish itself from other contemporary vérité documentaries which focus on quotidian details within a certain milieu. But even so, it still finds value in the unique incidents it captures.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Daniel Schindel
    Bisbee '17
    Bisbee ’17 collapses past and present into one another, and in doing so achieves a singularly strange and unsettling vision of apparently intractable American hatreds.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 91 Daniel Schindel
    Lu Over the Wall
    It’s an energetic, frequently hilarious, always visually riveting ride.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Daniel Schindel
    Pass Over
    Once again, Spike Lee has found an innovative theatrical production and brought it to blistering cinematic life.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Mary and The Witch's Flower
    Mary and the Witch’s Flower is safe, containing no assertion of Ponoc as an artistic force beyond its overall technical accomplishment.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Daniel Schindel
    Blade Runner 2049
    Blade Runner 2049 marries its ideas to its narrative in a way that blockbusters too often fail to these days. More importantly, it puts these ideas to a poignant end, bringing its characters to tragic or bittersweet reckonings in a manner that would do any of the old sci-fi masters proud.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Thirst Street
    Vivid and mordant, Thirst Street imperfectly defines its lead, but makes her journey distinct.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 72 Daniel Schindel
    The Wound
    Against the backdrop of a coming-of-age ritual, The Wound finds its greatest insights in contrasts between tradition and modernity.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 65 Daniel Schindel
    After Love
    Despite these sharp moments, there’s a frustrating looseness to Lafosse’s narrative, feeling as though many of After Love’s scenes could be rearranged without changing the film’s flow. In turn, a slackness undercuts the tension the film is otherwise trying to build.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Daniel Schindel
    Raising Bertie
    Raising Bertie is a moving chronicle, and a potent treatise on institutional failings that knows to demonstrate said problems instead of merely preaching them.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    The Challenge
    With this raw animal rush, you can understand the appeal of the sport, and how one might deign to spend part of a fortune on vicariously experiencing it. But it also demonstrates the ultimate hollowness of extreme consumption.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Daniel Schindel
    Rat Film
    Rat Film stalks between being repellent, riveting, and darkly humorous.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    The LEGO Batman Movie
    Crucially, the emotional scenes are some of the ones in which the film lets off the throttle for a bit.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Split
    The problem with its mystery setup is that, since we’re simply waiting for The Beast to show up, the revelations are less driving plot progression than they are filling time, and that “ticking clock” is arbitrary
    • 81 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Moana
    This is one of the better-directed CG films in the Disney canon. But next to all the solid noisy bits, Disney still demonstrates trouble in slowing down properly.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    Prevenge
    Conceived out of Lowe’s own experiences with pregnancy and shot while she was herself seven months along, the movie is a distinct blend of black humor, viciousness, body horror, and pathos.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    The Illinois Parables
    The documentary’s vision of history as tied to spaces is more difficult to dismiss than its apparent weaknesses would suggest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Daniel Schindel
    Into the Inferno
    Into the Inferno is a memento mori aimed at the whole human race, and only Herzog could make one this non-pretentious, funny, curious, and respectful at the same time.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    The Edge of Seventeen
    The Edge of Seventeen isn’t John Hughes for a new generation – it’s much more honest than that.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Daniel Schindel
    Cameraperson
    The connective tissue between the different shots is sometimes thin, and some images are of course far less interesting than the others. But those hiccups can’t degrade the unique, involving effect of the documentary as a whole.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Star Trek Beyond
    The rebooted Star Trek film series finally hits a fun median between big-budget bombast and classic Trek bigheartedness with Star Trek Beyond.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Sand Storm
    While Zexer might not yet have a directorial voice, her story sense is sharp.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Hooligan Sparrow
    Hooligan Sparrow struggles with the entrenchment of injustice both thematically and narratively, as it can’t quite find a way to cohere its story beyond sticking to the time Wang was with Ye. But that doesn’t diminish the courage of either filmmaker or subject.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Unlocking the Cage
    This film is especially good at making courtroom scenes engaging, where many would hurry through the choicest soundbites before moving on to the next part.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Daniel Schindel
    The Nice Guys
    Half of the best gags in The Nice Guys are of the physical variety. Some of the action scenes escalate into full-on live-action Looney Tunes madness.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    Krisha
    Krisha showcases artistry that’s quite accomplished for a debut feature. That it’s all in service of a story that doesn’t seem to know what it really wants to do or say (other than dismantle its lead) is a shame, but there’s true promise here.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Men Go to Battle
    Where many historical films are concerned with the movers and shakers of well-known events, Men Go to Battle is all about the micro view. It tells a story that happens to be set against a volatile backdrop, but is more about what it was like to live day-to-day in such a time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    10 Cloverfield Lane
    10 Cloverfield Lane is a fun one-location, three-person play, and each new twist it takes only makes it more exciting.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    Love & Friendship
    [Stillman's] dry sense and cutting sensibility are suited to the meaner edge this story has in comparison with the rest of Austen’s oeuvre.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    Little Men
    Little Men could have been so much more if its perspective leaned towards the opposite direction.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Daniel Schindel
    Kate Plays Christine
    As an exploration of identity as it is felt, projected, and interpreted, this is masterful.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    American Animals
    American Animals is a legitimately exciting, funny, suspenseful, and at one point deeply upsetting crime film, ably demonstrating a command of genre trappings in service of a narrative about people warped by those very clichés.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Our New President
    This doc may actually benefit more from a viewing outside any contemporary hype vortex.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Daniel Schindel
    Shirkers
    Shirkers finds the emotional grounding and even universality in a very strange story.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    Blindspotting
    There is undeniable craft here, and an impossible-to-ignore signal that everyone involved in the project deserves attention going forward. What does work is strong, sometimes powerful.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 67 Daniel Schindel
    The Death of Stalin
    This may be Iannucci’s weakest-written film, but it’s by far his best-directed one.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Daniel Schindel
    Leave No Trace
    Leave No Trace’s acute sense of place and how people relate to it makes for great, emotion-laden naturalism.

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