Serena Donadoni

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L.A. Weekly, Village Voice
For 156 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Serena Donadoni's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Casablanca
Lowest review score: 20 The Letters
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 96 out of 156
  2. Mixed: 56 out of 156
  3. Negative: 4 out of 156
156 movie reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Serena Donadoni
    Giant
    Key to Giant‘s enduring appeal is the meshing of outsize stars with Ferber’s characters: Closeted sex symbol Hudson’s towering Bick fills the big boots of his ranching family while struggling with the demands of traditional masculine authority. The taboo-breaking Taylor is the seductive, whip-smart Leslie, an assured reformer who views the injustices visited upon the ranch’s Mexican workers with maternal concern...And then there’s Dean’s most mannered, complex performance: Jett is at once transparent and enigmatic, hardening with age while the other characters mature. The actor’s death — a year before release — adds a keen poignancy to the character’s lost potential.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Serena Donadoni
    A River Below
    The intoxicating A River Below contains elements of immersive nature documentaries and shocking wildlife exposes (like Blackfish and The Cove), but director Mark Grieco’s profile of two driven conservationists tells a more slippery tale.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Serena Donadoni
    Casablanca
    Casablanca was filmed in the safety of the Warner Bros. lot, but the cast of immigrants and exiles who had fled the Third Reich conveyed their visceral fear. While the future was uncertain, the resolute characters of this exquisite wartime drama found peace through love and resistance.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Tampopo
    Everyone needs nourishment, and Itami found humor and poignancy in how it’s provided and received.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Truman
    The film is restrained and observational, its impact cumulative.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    The Watermelon Woman
    Funny and smart, full of biting humor and astute observations about identity and history, Cheryl Dunye's audacious, joyous debut feature captures the process of falling hopelessly in love with the movies.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan
    While acknowledging some missteps (such as jumping into a strenuous project too soon after surgery), Saffire and Schlesinger exhibit Whelan’s grace in dance and in life.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Ascent
    In Fiona Tan’s glorious ode to a Japanese volcano, Mount Fuji is both geological marvel and malleable symbol, its solidity and grandeur inspiring conquest and contemplation.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    The Phenom
    The Phenom unfolds as a series of quiet, incisive conversations that showcase subtle, insightful performances.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Tully
    Tully encapsulates the psychological process of maturity with pithy humor and vertiginous insight. Tully’s appearance may have seemed like a magical interlude, but she solidifies Marlo’s reality by exposing the path that led her there.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Miss Meadows
    Holmes and Dale are ideal together, turning a polite courtship and charged relationship (including a sex scene that's both giddy and profound) into a twisted, compelling expression of unconditional love.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Bridget Jones's Baby
    As much as this latest installment draws on affection for the snappy first film, it's the differences that make Bridget Jones's Baby the warmest and most satisfying of the series.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Valley of Saints
    Valley of Saints is a marvel of neorealism, with nonprofessional actors facing the same hurdles as their characters and writer/director Syeed improvising in shifting circumstances.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Cries from Syria
    His interviews are informative and captivating, but the film’s gut-punch immediacy comes from the astounding visuals caught by participants on digital cameras and cellphones, including shocking images of Assad’s torturers at work.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A.
    With Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., Loveridge celebrates the mashup aesthetic that enabled the artist to find a voice, and reveals that reconciling contradictions — like an outrageous sense of humor and earnest political activism — is key to both Arulpragasam’s music and the life she’s constructed with audacity and wit.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Dream Boat
    For all the outrageous cosplay and assless trunks on display, director Tristan Ferland Milewski is more interested in exploring the interior lives of gay men.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Holy Air
    The humor in Shady Srour’s Holy Air isn’t entirely satirical, but the bone-dry wit is breathtaking.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Left on Purpose
    An anguished and compassionate chronicle of Schein and Vishner's relationship.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    The Swan
    Anchored by a remarkable child’s performance, The Swan is a sensitive example of an overlooked element in coming-of-age films: awakening to the outside world.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Brahmin Bulls
    Brahmin Bulls focuses on the individual choices made by Ashok and Sid, but just as Gingger Shankar subtly weaves traditional Indian instrumentation throughout her lovely score, Pailoor touches upon how cultural expectations inform their relationship.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Strange Weather
    In a quivering, bone-deep performance, Hunter takes Darcy from a mother encased in guilt to a woman who can acknowledge her shattering loss while still recognizing her right to be alive.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Never Steady, Never Still
    Usually a tart-tongued scene-stealer, Henderson is devoid of her trademark hauteur in this remarkable performance.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Alive and Kicking
    The dancers in Alive and Kicking all share a rapturous expression, and Glatzer makes the case for this Depression-era diversion as a modern tonic for isolation.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Goldstone
    When the violence comes, as it must, Sen stages his shoot-outs with the physical and emotional wallop of the best westerns, but he’s more interested in restoring the faith of law enforcement officers whose belief in justice has eroded.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Jinn
    There’s nothing preachy about Jinn, even though Nijla Mu’min’s elegant debut feature is about a teenager coming to terms with her mother’s newly embraced religion.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Angels Wear White
    Qu unpacks much that matters in Angels Wear White, including the abuse of power and importance of status and wealth in Chinese society, but her most thoughtful, nuanced observations involve female sexuality.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Loving Vincent
    An engrossing exploration of the artist’s final days rendered in his signature painting style.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Sand Dollars
    Guzmán and Cárdenas present this tropical island as both Anne's romantic refuge and Noelí's exploitative landscape, a beautiful, enchanting — and realistic — Eden where snakes are merely snakes.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    After Auschwitz
    The structure of After Auschwitz may be simple (talking heads and archival footage), but the cumulative effect of six women revealing the physical, psychological, and emotional toll taken on Holocaust survivors is a powerful testament to individual humanity emerging from inhuman horrors.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    West
    Schwochow's intimate, handheld camerawork often feels like surveillance, which transforms mundane events into the menacing moments of a psychological thriller.
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