Kate Erbland

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Film.com, IndieWire, The Dissolve
For 698 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 35% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Kate Erbland's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 91 Little Women
Lowest review score: 16 The Vanishing Of Sidney Hall
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 403 out of 698
  2. Mixed: 253 out of 698
  3. Negative: 42 out of 698
698 movie reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Kate Erbland
    Introducing, Selma Blair
    Introducing, Selma Blair often feels a bit messy and unfinished by its final act, but that’s also part of its charm (and realism).
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Kate Erbland
    Here Before
    While Gregg offers a cheeky sense of what it really means to gaslight someone, no one will feel as injured by the film’s final-act choices than its audience.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Kate Erbland
    Come True
    In just his second feature, Burns exhibits a real knack for world-building, mythology-making, and crafting real tension, but a series of stumbles in the film’s final act — the worst of which is run through with icky implications Burns seems terribly unaware of — end the film on a wearisome final point.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Kate Erbland
    Sophie Jones
    Director Barr’s intimate filmmaking finds the space to cover a multitude of moments in Sophie’s life that add up to something profound, from the mundane sequences that see her fully engaging with her grief to brief moments of respite.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 58 Kate Erbland
    Moxie
    The film is entertaining enough for most viewers, although some audiences might balk at a perceived lack of comedy from comedic superstar Poehler. That’s not its aim, however, and the film is charming, even without big laughs.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    Raya and the Last Dragon
    As the Disney princess brand has continued to evolve, from the introduction of newbies like Moana to the continuing popularity of classics like Tiana and Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon is a sterling example of how the trope still has room to grow — while proving that some of the original ingredients can still deliver the goods.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Kate Erbland
    Language Lessons
    Morales and Duplass are both appealing enough that their charm shines through in even this seemingly limited format, and the result is an intimate feature that earns that closeness through every stilted video message and free-flowing video conference.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Kate Erbland
    Crisis
    These stories are all tragic and sad and complex, and more than worthy of innumerable explorations. Many of them are even present in this film, even if nothing about them satisfies. Consider this one a crisis of its own: a well-meaning look at a world that never goes deeper than the surface.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 50 Kate Erbland
    Blithe Spirit
    It’s the cinematic equivalent of day-old champagne: the taste is almost there, but the bubbles disappeared long ago.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    Test Pattern
    Despite the density of their subject, Ford avoids heavy-handed platitudes and dramatic tropes, instead relying on a strong script and a pair of sneakily powerful performances from stars Brittany S. Hall and Will Brill. The result is a showcase for the film’s central trio, one that resonates long after the film’s slim running time concludes.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Kate Erbland
    Flora & Ulysses
    We can’t all have a supeheroic squirrel to help find our own purposes in life, but Flora & Ulysses posits that we don’t need one — just a willingness to welcome their special kind of magic, in whatever shape it may take. Cynics, beware, “Flora & Ulysses” is coming for you.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Kate Erbland
    To All the Boys: Always and Forever
    Things grow slacker and a touch sillier by its middle act, which both does away with big problems and introduces entire new ones in their place. Still, Condor remains such a genuinely adorable leading lady and Lara Jean such a special character that fans will undoubtedly embrace the messy ride.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Kate Erbland
    Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
    It seems odd to deem any film an instant cult classic, but “Barb and Star” is such a giddy outlier, a dense, flawed assemblage of zany humor that people will happily tear into for years to come.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    I Blame Society
    The eventual twists might shock, but Horvat lands it all with a bruiser of an ending, as funny and scary as anything Hollywood itself has churned out in recent years. If this is do-it-yourself cinema, more filmmakers would benefit from being as laser-focused as Horvat is on making something that truly has something to say.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 33 Kate Erbland
    Bliss
    Life might be messy and weird and scary, but it possesses more honesty than this cinematic misery.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    We're All Going to the World's Fair
    By the film’s end, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair proves its ASMR-like power: It’s impossible to shake, even when it makes you want to do just that.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Kate Erbland
    R#J
    R#J certainly looks new, but flashy graphics can’t detract from the problems that lurk inside its structure and its script
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
    “Street Gang” may lightly gloss over some of the tougher elements of its genesis and legacy, but the staggering amount of material on offer makes the case that a good heart was always meant to be the best part of the show.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Kate Erbland
    Passing
    Hall made many good choices for her debut — her entire crafts department turned in rich period production elements — but the casting of her leads might be the best of the bunch.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Kate Erbland
    Judas and the Black Messiah
    Mostly, though, it’s Kaluuya and Stanfield — two actors who seem destined to be hailed for career-best turns with every subsequent project — who make Judas and the Black Messiah such an incendiary watch.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Kate Erbland
    Land
    While Wright, making her feature directorial debut with tough material, exhibits an appealing unfussiness, so much of Land is painful not for its subject matter, but because of its predictability.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    How It Ends
    The pandemic spawned plenty of run-and-gun projects. Many of them chart the circumstances that made them possible, but Wein and Lister-Jones’ winsome spin on a well-trod concept is as fresh and funny as anything inspired by the last few wretched months.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    CODA
    It’s a crowd-pleaser that works its formula well, even as it breaks new ground.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Kate Erbland
    Identifying Features
    While the trauma of a missing child makes for the film’s heart, its spine is something much more difficult to effectively put on film: the horrible waiting, the in-between times, the stretched moments when no news — good or bad — is available.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 33 Kate Erbland
    Fatale
    What’s most deadly about Taylor’s latest isn’t a miscast Swank or her character’s demented arc, or even the uncomfortable Ealy and his character’s insane idiocy, it’s the sense that this sub-genre should still be able to have plenty of naughty fun doing very bad things. Just not this kind of bad.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 75 Kate Erbland
    Wonder Woman 1984
    Wonder Woman 1984 is all about playing with magic and wishes and desires, only to see them lead to horrible ramifications, instant gratification, and the revelation that lying is never without consequence. Those are some big swings, and not every single one lands, but the ones that do are both joyous and genuinely worth pondering.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 33 Kate Erbland
    The Stand In
    Whatever The Stand In wants to announce itself as, no amount of bald-faced lies and winking observations about Hollywood can change what it really is: a bad movie, made worse by all the wasted possibilities.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 42 Kate Erbland
    Godmothered
    Godmothered has all the pieces for at least an amiable enough production. Instead, the result is a paradoxical combination of sweet messages and dull execution, good-hearted ideas and bizarre subplots, a dull affair that very clearly sprang from a good place.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Kate Erbland
    Black Beauty
    Sewell’s book has always been a better fit for piecemeal storytelling — the book itself is divided up by Beauty’s owners — and while Avis’ script does keep the relationship between Beauty and Jo at its center, that lends an uneven treatment to many of Beauty’s later adventures.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Kate Erbland
    The Croods: A New Age
    The Croods: A New Age ultimately spins that off into a wacky adventure that somehow involves aforementioned punch monkeys (cute, but very punchy indeed), a revelation that the “Croods” franchise might intersect with the world of “Mad Max,” and a generous dash of female empowerment (plus awesome fake heavy-metal music to go with it). It’s a little silly, very colorful, and entertaining enough to deliver some good-hearted ideas that aren’t beholden to any period in time. Worth nearly a decade of push-pull to get here? Probably not, but on its own merits it’s a charming throwback — not necessarily a “new age,” but the remnants of a classic one.
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