Paul Attanasio

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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
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    • 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."
    • 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
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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
    • 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.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 12 Paul Attanasio
    Armed and Dangerous
    It takes a director with a true genius for disaster to put together SCTV veterans John Candy and Eugene Levy, the fine character actors Kenneth McMillan and Robert Loggia and the delicious new comic actress Meg Ryan and come up with a movie without a single laugh in it. Indeed, who but Mark Lester could have pulled it off? Lester's idea of directing is to turn up the music and wreck a lot of cars -- this isn't a movie, it's a Volvo ad.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    2010
    2010 is a one-man tour de fizzle, a yawnfest so plodding it seems to have been made by the famous monolith itself. [7 Dec 1984, p.D1]
    • Washington Post
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Clue
    Clue is based on the popular Parker Brothers board game in which the players try to guess, well, whodunit, and where, and with what weapon. You leave it with one conviction: stick with the game.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 37 Paul Attanasio
    Ninja III: The Domination
    Ninja III quickly falls off track.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Krush Groove
    Krush Groove is a kind of "Purple Drizzle," partly because of the story, which is scattershot; mostly because of the music, which isn't music at all, but rap, that tired fad of worn-out rock critics. [1 Nov 1985, p.B4]
    • Washington Post
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Paul Attanasio
    The Man with One Red Shoe
    Nearly unwatchable.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 25 Paul Attanasio
    Howard the Duck
    As you watch Howard the Duck, you get the vivid sensation that you're watching not a movie, but a pile of money being poured down the drain. [02 Aug 1986, p.G10]
    • Washington Post
    • 67 Metascore
    • 37 Paul Attanasio
    True Stories
    True Stories is united not by narrative, but by Byrne's sensibility, and this is where it descends from being a boring piece of whimsy into something reprehensible.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Pirates
    Pirates hasn't got an ounce of excitement -- or at least it hasn't excited composer Philippe Sarde, whose score is the symphonic equivalent of Muzak and is rarely wedded to what we see on the screen. So what's left is a pricey playpen for Polanski's sense of perversity. [19 July 1986, p.G1]
    • Washington Post
    • 22 Metascore
    • 10 Paul Attanasio
    Spies Like Us
    It's the kind of stuff you come up with when you're not trying very hard, and on Spies Like Us, nobody seems to be trying. And that can be very trying indeed. [09 Dec 1985, p.C3]
    • Washington Post
    • 38 Metascore
    • 25 Paul Attanasio
    Summer Rental
    Summer Rental is the kind of movie that could make you wish you had poison ivy -- at least the scratching would occupy your mind. [10 Aug 1985, p.D7]
    • Washington Post
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    A View to a Kill
    There is some magnificent stunt work, which only underscores how inadequate Moore has become. Moore isn't just long in the tooth -- he's got tusks, and what looks like an eye job has given him the pie-eyed blankness of a zombie. He's not believable anymore in the action sequences, even less so in the romantic scenes.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Soul Man
    Chong breathes some occasional life into Soul Man, as does Arye Gross, who displays a rich variety of comic attitudes as Mark's roommate. What surrounds them, though, is a black comedy with so little gumption, it ends up a vague shade of gray, composed of a collection of cheap jokes excused by smug platitudes about race -- in short, a movie called Soul Man whose soul, it seems, is quite lost.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    The Care Bears Movie
    The best cartoons recognize the dark side of kids, their penchant for violence, their fearful fantasies. The Care Bears Movie just patronizes them.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Crossroads
    So when the movie turns out drab and predictable, it's depressing -- you think Hill has become a stranger to his own sensibility. [24 March 1986, p.C3]
    • Washington Post
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    The Boys Next Door
    The Boys Next Door is just another exploitation movie about murderous nuts -- exactly what you wouldn't expect from Penelope Spheeris, the director of "Suburbia." [12 Nov 1985, p.B11]
    • Washington Post
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Johnny Dangerously
    Heckerling seems lost and distracted here -- the framing is careless, and the film moves with a stuttering pace. Why is this talented director being channeled into projects like this?
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    8 Million Ways to Die
    The movie is one of those can't-miss projects that, uh, misses...Altogether, this is about the most listlessly paced thriller you could imagine: Ashby's penchant for letting his actors improvise just results in endless dithering; and the image is weirdly flat -- the movie's shot almost entirely in profile. Actually, there aren't just 8 million ways to die -- now we know there are 8 million and 1. [25 Apr 1986, p.D2]
    • Washington Post
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Paul Attanasio
    Tough Guys
    You know something's wrong when screen writers James Orr and Jim Cruikshank have to jury-rig a couple of chase plots, involving an over-the-hill hit man (Eli Wallach) and an aging detective (Charles Durning) just to move things along.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 25 Paul Attanasio
    The Heavenly Kid
    Everything about The Heavenly Kid is ripped off, from a sprig of music that apes the Beverly Hills Cop theme to Gedrick, who was obviously cast because he looks like Tom Cruise, but cheaper. [26 July 1985, p.D2]
    • Washington Post
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