Michael Nordine

Select another critic »
IndieWire, TheWrap, Variety, Village Voice
For 278 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 6.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Nordine's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 59
Highest review score: 100 Metalhead
Lowest review score: 10 108 Stitches
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 131 out of 278
  2. Mixed: 116 out of 278
  3. Negative: 31 out of 278
278 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 60 Metascore
    • 90 Michael Nordine
    Butter on the Latch
    There are no jump-scares in this sensuous thriller, and the lack of anything corporeal on which to focus our unease only makes Butter on the Latch more darkly exhilarating.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Michael Nordine
    Thou Wast Mild and Lovely
    Our glimpses of what's already occurred and what will soon come are vivid and impressionistic, prophetic warnings about which everyone seems powerless to do anything other than silently observe.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    Starry Eyes
    The film is far less successful once it delves into body horror that makes Sarah's transformation as ghoulishly physical as it is mental.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Nordine
    Death Metal Angola
    While hardly the first or most accomplished film of its kind, Death Metal Angola's focus on the ability of abrasive music to act as a healing agent builds toward genuine moments of renewal and serenity.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Michael Nordine
    Scream at the Devil
    Stachura turns everything up to 11 almost from the outset, and all escalation from there feels overwrought.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Nordine
    Revenge of the Green Dragons
    Green Dragons wants to be spaghetti with marinara, but it's closer to egg noodles and ketchup.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    Low Down
    There are too many notes that, while not false, are neither satisfactorily resolved nor left interestingly unresolved.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Nordine
    Bitter Honey
    Lemelson's interviews can be repetitive in their direct staging, but there's inspiration in his conceit of using a shadow-puppet performance set to gamelan music as interludes.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    I Am Ali
    It’s unfortunate that, even with this wealth of uncovered materials, I Am Ali still plays as a greatest-hits version of its subject’s life, offering little depth or insight into any one element of it.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    Botso
    Too bad the filmmaking never rises to the level of its subject.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 10 Michael Nordine
    108 Stitches
    Its utterly predictable narrative and lazy sexism make for a toxic combination.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Nordine
    Fort Bliss
    [Michelle Monaghan's] at her best as Army medic/staff sergeant Maggie Swann in writer-director Claudia Myers's Fort Bliss.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Nordine
    The Frontier
    Co-writer/director Matt Rabinowitz doesn’t artfully withhold information so much as lay it all on the table a bit earlier than he might have.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Nordine
    Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering
    Like many docs with activist undertones, Second Opinion tells a potentially interesting story in a bland way.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    Kundo: Age of the Rampant
    With its harmonica-heavy score and rousing shots of these horse-riding antiheroes, Kundo's early and late scenes resemble a Western as much as the historical epic its middle section gradually turns into.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 30 Michael Nordine
    Ironclad: Battle for Blood
    Co-writer/director Jonathan English ups the viscera and nudity at the expense of a compelling narrative, which was hardly the original’s strong suit (if indeed it had one) anyway.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Nordine
    The Purge: Anarchy
    It's better than the first.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Nordine
    The Battered Bastards of Baseball
    That Battered Bastards is practically a hagiography doesn't negate the fact that it has more anti-establishment joie de vivre in any given scene than most talking-head docs about previously unheralded mensches contain in their entire run times.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Michael Nordine
    Think Like a Man Too
    Returning director Tim Story lays out the narrative wares with all the subtlety of a neon sign on the Strip, not that the screenplay from Keith Merryman and David A. Newman (who also co-wrote the first one) gives him much to work with.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Michael Nordine
    No Tears for the Dead
    There are more tears than the title lets on, and even more blood, but it's a reason to truly be invested that's missing from No Tears for the Dead, which is rarely any better or worse than serviceable.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Nordine
    The Human Race
    One test for movies like this is whether they bemoan the inevitable gore or revel in it; The Human Race too often falls into the latter, amplifying and focusing on the bloodshed.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Nordine
    Policeman
    Lapid is so unconcerned with crafting a conventional crime drama that merely titling his film Policeman reads as a minor subversion, a way of defining the narrative in relation to a genre it hardly fits into.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Michael Nordine
    Broken
    Jung Jae-young gives a physical, full-bodied performance in the main role.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Nordine
    Wolf
    It's refreshing that director Jim Taihuttu is more interested in the humdrum goings on of those who split their time between illegal and legitimate activities.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    Clutter
    We get a glimpse of who these people are and what makes them tick, but never know them in a way that helps us truly understand them or become especially invested in finding out what became of them.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Nordine
    God's Pocket
    The story... could have worked well as a pitch-black comedy, but first-time director John Slattery (Mad Men's Roger Sterling) takes the material so seriously that the mood never changes much after leaving the funeral home.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    Mr. Jones
    Mr. Jones is the stuff of both conspiracy theories and collegiate discourse, and Mueller's elliptical exploration and creation of that mythology sets the bar a bit too high for his much-less-interesting protagonists to fully clear.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Nordine
    Walking with the Enemy
    As with many other WWII films, it takes genuinely stirring source material -- a young Hungarian man poses as a Nazi to find his dislocated family -- and reduces it to its most shopworn components.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Michael Nordine
    The Anonymous People
    There's little new information here, and the structural monotony of The Anonymous People's voiceover and talking-head presentation often makes it feel less like dynamic, insightful filmmaking and more like a well-intentioned PSA.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Michael Nordine
    Fray
    The main strength of writer-director Geoff Ryan's film is its quietude; too many movies exploring the neither-nor status occupied by vets whose experiences "over there" have altered their ability to function back home turn shrill in order to get their point across.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »