Rita Kempley

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Washington Post
For 1,005 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 42% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 57% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Rita Kempley's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 56
Highest review score: 100 City Hall
Lowest review score: 0 Boxing Helena
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 432 out of 1005
  2. Mixed: 329 out of 1005
  3. Negative: 244 out of 1005
1005 movie reviews
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    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Rita Kempley
    The Lover
    Annaud, who wrote the adaptation with frequent collaborator Gerard Brach, showed more consideration for the cub in "The Bear" than he does for young Miss March, who is shamefully overexposed. True, Leung's bodacious, cantaloupe-colored bottom is showcased, but the only thing we miss of March's is the skin between her toes. Never mind that in portraying passion, the two seem to be demonstrating the proper use of the Salad Shooter.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 88 Rita Kempley
    Firstborn
    Michael Apted (who was due for a hit film) directed this fiery film, brilliantly layered scene-on-scene without a wasted frame. The odd camera angles presage the evil that will infect the happy home and put us on an eye-level with the boys whose spats gradually disappear as the two come to rely on each other. [26 Oct 1984, p.21]
    • Washington Post
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Rita Kempley
    Brother's Keeper
    A documentary as compelling as the best whodunit.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Rita Kempley
    Night Shift
    Michael Keaton's the live wire and Henry Winkler's the deadbeat in director Ron Howard's new hit, Night Shift, a whorifying undertaking that solicits its laughs by pairing the quick and the dead.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Rita Kempley
    Seven
    A decidedly medieval enterprise, darker in text and tone than a Gothic cathedral by the light of the moon.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Rita Kempley
    In the Name of the Father
    Based on Gerry Conlon's own account of his arrest and subsequent incarceration, the film takes forever to do what "60 Minutes" does with the same meat in a single segment.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Rita Kempley
    Chasers
    The screenplay, by the team of Joe Batteer and John Rice and doctored by Dan Gilroy, is standard issue, as insufferable in its situations as it is in its characterizations. Berenger, who tries to growl some life into his role, sounds as if he's been gargling cat litter, while McNamara shows off the work of his orthodontist a la Tom Cruise. For Eleniak, there's always Hooters.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Rita Kempley
    Bring It On
    A spoofy paean to cheerfolk that has more bounce per flounce than most tales about teen queens.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 20 Rita Kempley
    But I'm a Cheerleader
    Relentlessly offensive.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Rita Kempley
    Dead Poets Society
    It's a literate though strained uplifter.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Rita Kempley
    The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear
    Zucker, who collaborated with his brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams on such comedies as "Airplane!" and "Ruthless People," is working solo here. And aside from a flat patch midway through, he delivers as faithfully as Domino's pizza. In the limbo of comedy, few can go lower than Zucker without visibly straining. And the movie has a message: "Love is like the ozone layer; you never miss it until it's gone."
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Rita Kempley
    Psycho II
    Psycho II is only a shadow of the master, a technical scare without the original's life-long grip on the subconscious. It fades as soon as the house lights go up. [10 June 1983, p.21]
    • Washington Post
    • 59 Metascore
    • 63 Rita Kempley
    Junior
    A fleecy romantic caper with a dusting of feminism, the picture is basically a one-joke movie successfully nursed by director Ivan Reitman.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 80 Rita Kempley
    Sidewalks of New York
    The chatty, romantic roundelay takes a lighthearted look at the misadventures of six in the city.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Rita Kempley
    Swimming to Cambodia
    It's not the monotonous, neurotic's ego trip you'd imagine, but a karate-chop crawl against a rising tide of complacency.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Rita Kempley
    Not Without My Daughter
    This real-life case of Misery sets your teeth on edge, your blood boiling, your adrenaline surging with the subtlety of a World War II propaganda film.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Rita Kempley
    The Fugitive
    A flurry of stunts, close shaves and deeds of desperate daring, it easily transcends its television origins to become a stylish pacemaker-buster.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 10 Rita Kempley
    Me, Myself & Irene
    If you choose to see this puerile tripe, check your dignity at the door.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Rita Kempley
    Hope Floats
    Despite its hopeful title and a warm inland location, this dawdling family dramedy proves as sodden as a bed-wetter's mattress.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Rita Kempley
    Something Wild
    Despite the quirky trappings, Something Wild is often as tame as its star couple.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Rita Kempley
    The Brady Bunch Movie
    The movie is as insistently bubbly as the Bradys themselves, but it does run out of carbonation before the end. "Bunch" fans won't mind a bit, while others will be amused by the juxtaposition of the family's wholesome idyll with the harsher realities of life in the '90s, as evidenced by "Roseanne," "Married ... With Children" and "Grace Under Fire." [17 Feb 1995, p.F01]
    • Washington Post
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Rita Kempley
    The Gingerbread Man
    The trouble is that the picture is far from over when suddenly we find ourselves watching another movie -- a punishing, overly complex melodrama in which the Gingerbread Man receives his comeuppance.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Rita Kempley
    Contact
    In some ways, Contact is just like the universe: big, star-bright and seemingly endless. Not to mention that it begins with a big bang, gradually falls into a lull and finally succumbs to entropy.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Rita Kempley
    Indecent Proposal
    He's obsessed with the physical details instead of the human emotions. The actors are really just part of the scenery.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Rita Kempley
    Body of Evidence
    A bland, utterly silly, curiously provincial courtroom drama.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 70 Rita Kempley
    Stay Tuned
    Sometimes the material's rather too gruesome for a family-oriented film, but as one HVTV intern says to the Devil, "It isn't the blood that bothers me, so much as the lack of subtext."
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Rita Kempley
    Howards End
    Merchant and Ivory have regathered many of the cast and crew from their earlier films to work on this reproduction to exquisite effect.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Rita Kempley
    Serendipity
    The ultimate in deja viewing:an overfamiliar and exasperating game of cat-and-mousie.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Rita Kempley
    The Distinguished Gentleman
    Alas, it's too coarsely drawn and broadly directed by Brit Jonathan Lynn to effectively skewer what ought to have been an easy target.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Rita Kempley
    The Jewel of the Nile
    The sparkly but flawed sequel to the couple's last caper. [13 Dec 1985, p.29]
    • Washington Post
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