Paul Attanasio

Select another critic »
Washington Post
For 189 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 31% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 68% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 15.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Paul Attanasio's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 50
Highest review score: 100 'Round Midnight
Lowest review score: 0 Silver Bullet
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 44 out of 189
  2. Mixed: 95 out of 189
  3. Negative: 50 out of 189
189 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Three Amigos!
    The script of Three Amigos (Martin's collaborators were producer Lorne Michaels and singer Randy Newman) plays like it was slapped together by a few friends with a tape recorder enjoying a charming weekend at the beach. You can't tell one amigo from another, the gags are silly (a "singing bush") and far between, the dialogue full of inane wordplay. Sample: "We could take a walk and you could kiss me on the veranda." "The lips would be fine."
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    Agnes of God
    Agnes of God offers little besides its jury-rigged suspense. Oh, there are oodles of cigarette jokes -- Livingston is a chain smoker, Mother Miriam a reformed one -- till you wonder why the acknowledgment to Benson & Hedges in the closing credits didn't come above the title.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Paul Attanasio
    Children of a Lesser God
    To appreciate Children of a Lesser God, you only have to imagine how it could have patronized the deaf by celebrating their pluck, or become a heartwarming tale of little people who solve their big problems. That's exactly what it isn't, and that's quite an achievement.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 10 Paul Attanasio
    Maximum Overdrive
    Watching Maximum Overdrive is like sitting alongside a 3-year-old as he skids his Tonka trucks across the living room floor and says "Whee!" except on a somewhat grander scale...It's hard to even imagine a movie so impeccably devoid of everything a movie ought to include. [29 July 1986, p.C2]
    • Washington Post
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    The Wraith
    The Wraith is essentially a wall-to-wall car chase that writer/director Mike Marvin attempts to enliven with TV commercial visuals, tough-guy dialogue and modestly inventive casting.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Stick
    Reynolds never figures out whether he's making a thriller or a spoof, which for years has been the problem with his performances, too. His acting swivels from gravelly, glowering tough-guyness to nudge-and-wink appeals to the audience -- Mr. T and Johnny Carson in one. And he's way too polished for the character Leonard wrote; when he enters the slick world of Miami finance, he blends right in.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    The Bedroom Window
    Yet another tiresome pastiche of old Hitchcock films, particularly "Rear Window" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much." We've seen it before, done (needless to say) better. The craftsmanship of the film aspires to the second rate. And it's a little wiggy to try to create a silky kind of glamorous intrigue in Baltimore.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Paul Attanasio
    Day of the Dead
    Romero has some fun with cackling frat-style boors in the background, all of whom get their comeuppance. But by and large, the acting is extremely flat and strident, and shot in a much more conventional style than Romero's other movies. Romero, in other words, seems bored by the whole enterprise, less interested in the story than in sausage-making. [23 July 1985, p.E2]
    • Washington Post
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    Oh, God! You Devil
    The movie is full of half-witted Hollywood satire (the Devil's an agent -- get it?), lame wordplay, and easy moralism about family being more important than career blah blah blah. [09 Nov 1984, p.F8]
    • Washington Post
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Paul Attanasio
    A Room with a View
    If amusing, A Room With a View is little more than a lark, a series of skits, a two-hour tribute to the rich British eccentric.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    National Lampoon's European Vacation
    Heckerling directs this mess with no sense of pace and less sense of where to put the camera. There are pixilated, MTV-style sequences that simply slow up the story, car chases and car crashes, and, of course, aerobicizers boinging out of their leotards. The best thing in the movie is the catchy theme from the last Vacation, which, unfortunately, hasn't the slightest thing to do with Europe.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Paul Attanasio
    Salvador
    Salvador, Oliver Stone's drama based on the recent strife in that country, has an irresistible brassiness, a swing-at-the-moon quality -- it's big and loud and bold, all primary colors, and it has more energy than any 10 films this year. [4 Apr 1986, p.D1]
    • Washington Post
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    Quicksilver
    According to the press kit, "Producer Daniel Melnick's personal stamp on films has always been to avoid the obvious, the cliche'." Uh, Dan . . . you lost your stamp.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 37 Paul Attanasio
    Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation
    Like the original "Care Bears Movie," Care Bears Movie II is nothing but an insidious feature-length toy commercial. But since Funshine Bear has taught me to look on the bright side, I will admit that the animation in the sequel is of a higher quality.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Paul Attanasio
    Firstborn
    Director Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) settles for a movie of pat moralism, a pamphleteer's parable of how drugs destroy families.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Paul Attanasio
    The Flamingo Kid
    The movie has an engaging surface, but it's all surface -- it's like watching an outsize TV.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Pale Rider
    This new western is less than a success for Eastwood, who directs as well as stars. It's Eastwood riding on earnestness, and running on empty. [28 June 1995, p.D1]
    • Washington Post
    • 24 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Solarbabies
    Solarbabies is a hilariously bad movie that doesn't make much sense and isn't much good when it does. Director Alan Johnson has stolen most of his visual ideas from Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner") and George Miller ("The Road Warrior"), and he hasn't the slightest idea how to direct actors. That said, the movie has its campy pleasures.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
    When he crushes a patrolman's head between his hands, you think you're watching a happy campesino lusty for coconut milk; when he skewers a depraved camp counselor with a knife in the temple, he is the happy barbecuer on a sunny Sunday afternoon. "Soup's on!" he might have cried. Then he tears a girl's head clean off. Well, the head probably wasn't doing her much good anyway. [6 Aug 1986, p.D10]
    • Washington Post
    • 36 Metascore
    • 37 Paul Attanasio
    Under the Cherry Moon
    An unconscionable mess of unyielding crassness, from the overall tone, which celebrates gaucherie all the while it's saying that love is what really counts, to the sound mix, which makes most of the dialogue, which is larded with impenetrable slang, doubly impenetrable. [04 Jul 1986, p.C2]
    • Washington Post
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Morons from Outer Space
    The gags just aren't very funny, relying overmuch on the usual British understatement...Morons From Outer Space has, by my count, eight laughs (which works out to 62 cents a laugh). [21 Nov 1985, p.C16]
    • Washington Post
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Paul Attanasio
    Tuff Turf
    Tuff Turf is a youthsploitation movie that has fun with its formula, and for that, two cheers. But director Fritz Kiersch's twists promise more than they deliver -- it's just more grist for the run-of-the-mill.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Paul Attanasio
    Light of Day
    Light of Day is crippled by its confused intentions, a crazy quilt of the good, the bad and the ugly.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    Silent Night, Deadly Night
    Silent Night, Deadly Night takes off from the notion that Santa Claus is an ax murderer, but it never quite lives up to the delicious perversity of its premise. An idea this shocking has to be earned; instead, director Charles Sellier Jr. ("The Boogens") gives us another casually constructed splatter flick that has more to do with morbid arithmetic (the body count continues!) than movies.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Paul Attanasio
    The Killing Fields
    The Killing Fields is the best movie about journalism since "All the President's Men," re-creating with an understated ease the atmosphere of the poolside bonhomie of the correspondents, the mechanics of getting and filing a story, and the moral quandaries of a reporter's professional detachment.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Paul Attanasio
    Sweet Dreams
    Thrumming with the electric rapport between Jessica Lange and Ed Harris (and screen writer Robert Getchell's sparky dialogue), the movie's darn near irresistible.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Paul Attanasio
    Runaway Train
    Runaway Train isn't just bad -- it's bodaciously bad, grotesquely overblown, lurid in its emotion, big ideas on its brain. And anyone with a taste for camp will have a glorious good time. [20 Jan 1986, p.C4]
    • Washington Post
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Paul Attanasio
    Jagged Edge
    Despite handsome performances by Glenn Close, Jeff Bridges and a good supporting cast, Jagged Edge isn't a movie -- it's a director's exercise. [10 Oct 1985, p.C12]
    • Washington Post
    • 26 Metascore
    • 0 Paul Attanasio
    Silver Bullet
    What follows is about as suspenseful as looking at your watch to see which minute will pop up next.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Paul Attanasio
    The Golden Child
    The action sequences are cloddishly orchestrated. And for the most part, the movie simply doesn't make sense.
prev
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »