Teo Bugbee

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The New York Times
For 242 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Teo Bugbee's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Milla
Lowest review score: 10 Broken Diamonds
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 112 out of 242
  2. Mixed: 108 out of 242
  3. Negative: 22 out of 242
242 movie reviews
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    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    Krystal
    At 93 minutes Krystal feels chaotic and thin, like a pilot that was also forced to be a series finale.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Teo Bugbee
    Midnight Sun
    Under the limp direction of Scott Speer, Midnight Sun suffocates its sentimental script, portraying passion without wonder, sacrifice without ecstasy.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 60 Teo Bugbee
    The Estate
    This is a comedy that takes a vicious, over-the-top look at family greed, and fortunately, the cast members are game to play their characters’ attempts at flattery in the most unflattering manner possible.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    The Possession of Hannah Grace
    Van Rooijen’s overreliance on herky-jerky jump scares is a pity, because the movie that exists in the silence is surprisingly satisfying.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 10 Teo Bugbee
    Broken Diamonds
    The movie treats illness as a series of contrivances, an engine that keeps the plot pistoning forward, and the result of this approach is a film that feels lifeless, or worse, reductive.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    The Tiger Rising
    The metaphors are so obvious that the film becomes trapped in its own cage of archetypes and clichés, and unlike the tiger, there is no champion to open the gates to a more original cinematic world.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    Show Dogs
    If Show Dogs sometimes betrays its shaggy charms, there is comfort in remembering that many movies are much dumber than this one, and so few of them have either the good taste or the good manners to compensate with puppies.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Teo Bugbee
    Blue Iguana
    In absence of either good humor or good set pieces, Blue Iguana is a heist gone bust.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    The Great Alaskan Race
    In addition to his acting duties, Presley also wrote and directed the film. But while he provides beard and brawn as the heroic musher, he struggles with the technical challenges of editing and staging the run.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Teo Bugbee
    Me Time
    There is a flatness that feels apparent in every shot — and not just because the movie is filmed in bright, low contrast lighting. The film’s experienced cast punches their lines in search of jokes that never materialize, leaving the comedy to nosedive.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    Playing with Fire
    It’s an unchallenging movie, but as far as unchallenging kids movies go, the actors ensure this one doesn’t fall into soullessness.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 30 Teo Bugbee
    On a Wing and a Prayer
    The images portray a weightless crisis, and the film’s emotional narrative feels similarly insincere, with the balance of fate seeming to sway on the placement of a well-timed prayer.
    • 9 Metascore
    • 10 Teo Bugbee
    Supercon
    Supercon offers lip service to fan culture, yet it is difficult to imagine who would enjoy watching this ill-conceived satire. Directed by Zak Knutson, who also contributed to the screenplay, the movie is careless with its setting, callous toward its characters and crass about its audience.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Teo Bugbee
    Cavale
    As a trio, Viance, Zaghouani and Pellizari are bright and full of energy, and Gourmel allows their scenes together to play with improvisational looseness. Their vivacity lends purpose to the entire film.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    Parkland Rising
    Parkland Rising passes the low bar of not undermining the people it covers, but by avoiding both research and conflict, it fails to provide a reason for its own existence.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Teo Bugbee
    In My Blood It Runs
    The director Maya Newell gains access to both worlds that Dujuan traverses — home and school — and the trust that she seems to have built with all participants is vital to the success of this film.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 100 Teo Bugbee
    River City Drumbeat
    Though the movie does include footage of drum performances, it doesn’t move at the clip of sticks on snares. Instead, the film listens for this community’s heartbeat, finding its steady pulse just as expected: healthy and strong.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    The Great American Lie
    The documentary fares better when it cuts the interviews and simply follows working class people in their daily lives.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Teo Bugbee
    American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules
    The original “American Pie” was tasteless; this version is flavorless.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    Markie in Milwaukee
    If Markie is undeniably compelling as a subject, the film doesn’t quite match her bravery and her willingness to explore uncharted territory. There are plenty of fly-on-the-wall observations, but little play or introspection besides what Markie is able to offer.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    Team Marco
    Marco’s sourness curdles the confection and his undercooked complaints clack against the movie’s warm tone, sending its simple pleasures into a scatter.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Teo Bugbee
    Un Film Dramatique
    It’s the cumulative effect of seeing the world through the eyes of these children that makes this movie so deeply joyful. This is a heartening project, a philosophical excavation of a school that abounds with playful optimism.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    LUZ
    The film’s writer and director, Jon Garcia, treats the physicality of their romance in a frank way, staging realistic love scenes that show the attraction between the characters. But Garcia is less adept at finding passion in between scenes of sex.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    Domino: Battle of the Bones
    With its deep ensemble, the movie doesn’t want for colorful characters, and Davis keeps his cast loose, unvarnished and unleashed. But the movie lacks focus when it moves between its larger-than-life plotlines.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    Tu Me Manques
    Though the movie’s aesthetics are tepidly pleasant, Bellott’s biggest success is freeing his film’s relationship to time. In this sense, the movie retains some of the vitality of theater, where the characters invite the audience into reverie.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    LFG
    Both films are conventional in cinematic style, and they constitute the kind of feel-good entertainment that is easy to recommend. But what is timely and interesting — even thorny — about these films is their focus on the economic opportunities generated by athletic achievement
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    The Legend of the Underground
    The filmmakers Giselle Bailey and Nneka Onuorah capture arguments as other activists wrestle with the contradictions of James’s motivations. But crucially, they don’t shy away from James.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 90 Teo Bugbee
    In Balanchine's Classroom
    There is a beautiful act of translation that this documentary observes, as Balanchine’s former students — now wizened teachers themselves — attempt to render his movements into speech.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    915: Hunting Hispanics
    The value of this demystifying film is its tactical breakdown of a form of violence that has become increasingly common in the United States. Here, both prevention and survival are a result of communal strategy.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles
    Despite the modern technology, the setting and the sound draws attention to what is retro about this young star’s style, the influences from bossa nova, jazz, and traditional choral music that pop up in her chart-topping records.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Teo Bugbee
    Suzanna Andler
    It’s a test of patience to watch these glass figurines discuss their romantic entanglements, the doll house on the Riviera that they will maybe rent, the bourgeois marriages they will maybe leave. Even the camera seems bored, as if it might wander off.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    Love Is Love Is Love
    The cumulative effect of so much enlightened sitting around is that the movie doesn’t move. There is a lack of action, both visually and emotionally.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Teo Bugbee
    More Than Robots
    Like many of the young inventors she documents, Jacobs has created a project that doesn’t fall apart at first touch. But her film doesn’t meet the mark for excellence, either.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    Love & Gelato
    It’s the kind of film that is more interested in the appeal of a good Italian accent than it is in finding novel, or even particularly beautiful, ways to shoot and see Rome. The conscious callowness is agreeable, but it lacks freshness, like a midnight pasta reheated in the microwave.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Teo Bugbee
    Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story
    This is a candid look at one person’s experience with coming out, a humane document that shows the bravery and resilience of queer people who seek relief from the categories that are imposed on them.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    We Might As Well Be Dead
    The images are artfully crafted, but the narrative lacks momentum. The film flirts with themes of surveillance and immigrant anxieties, but its allegoric ambitions are continually thwarted by yet another neighborly grievance.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    The Book of Delights
    If this erotic drama doesn’t break new cinematic ground, it also doesn’t cede its conviction in portraying relationships as a matter of serious consideration.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Teo Bugbee
    Being Thunder
    The film ‌is‌ gentle ‌yet indistinct, l‌‌eaving us to discern figures through a fog.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Teo Bugbee
    Lonesome
    Lonesome demonstrates a mature use of sex in cinema, a treatment that communicates narrative purpose without diminishing sex’s animalistic, physical side.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Teo Bugbee
    Nowhere
    It’s hard to care about Mía’s efforts to survive when coincidence drives the plot, and the production looks and feels cheap.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 90 Teo Bugbee
    Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later
    Peddle hews close to his original film’s style: he asks his subjects to define themselves and then he keeps watching, letting their actions color in the lines of their self-definition. It’s an approach which grants dignity to his subjects, an effect which is only amplified by the passage of time.
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