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Fred Barrett

Fred Barrett's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
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Plastic (2023) EDIT “There are numerous near-misses and multiple chance encounters punctuating the film’s runtime, but in Miyazaki’s hands, these don’t feel contrived, cruel, or in any way “cosmic,” but rather as true to life.” – In Review Online Oct 3, 2024 Full Review Strange Darling (2023) 96% EDIT “Strange Darling is plenty good for some twisty, nasty horror fun, and the fact that it takes care to give viewers something visually impressive to look at throughout goes a long, long way in a genre that too often fails to prioritize such artistry.” – In Review Online Aug 22, 2024 Full Review Sebastian (2024) 76% EDIT “In the age of confessional songwriting and autofiction, autobiography has become the presumed default... given what's put to screen here, it's hard to imagine Mäkelä being familiar with this subject matter through anything other than second-hand accounts.” – In Review Online Aug 2, 2024 Full Review Cuckoo (2024) 79% EDIT “The film neither sufficiently grounds itself in the emotional reality of its main character to work on a character level, nor does it seem particularly worried about playing off the audience’s fears. ” – In Review Online Aug 1, 2024 Full Review Chestnut (2023) 50% EDIT “Unfortunately, one wishes the film wasn't so well-behaved and would allow for these relationships to develop into something more profound, something more deeply felt — something passionate, something truly messy.” – In Review Online Jun 17, 2024 Full Review Lumberjack the Monster (2023) 60% EDIT “Contrasted with his best work, Miike's latest horror turn barely scrapes any interesting ideas.” – In Review Online Jun 12, 2024 Full Review The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023) 97% EDIT “Galluppi's skill as a screenwriter comes through... His command of tone is similarly assured, and the way Yuma County segues from indie quirk to genre violence... is remarkable. His disregard for pesky moralism is just icing on the cake.” – In Review Online May 7, 2024 Full Review New Life (2023) 94% EDIT “Rosman falls back on an all-too-familiar bag of tricks to conjure some would-be scares.” – In Review Online May 6, 2024 Full Review Egoist (2022) 73% EDIT “In the hands of a different director, Egoist could've well been a rousing melodrama, but with Matsunaga's antiseptic touch, the film offers little outside of easy-on-the-eyes blandness.” – In Review Online Apr 16, 2024 Full Review Miller's Girl (2024) 30% EDIT “In execution, there isn't a hint of sensuality, not even a morsel of sexual tension between the two leads... [and] any of the dangerous psychosexual mind games suggested by the synopsis never materialize. As a matter of fact, barely anything does.” – In Review Online Jan 23, 2024 Full Review Founders Day (2023) 50% EDIT “It certainly won't be the worst thing to come out this year, but it's not exactly making the case for horror cinema as an avenue for politically potent storytelling either.” – In Review Online Jan 16, 2024 Full Review birth/rebirth (2023) 95% EDIT “Moss’ problem is that they play things too safe. There’s some unflinching depictions of premature child birth, for instance, but their images only rarely feel charged with the kind of visceral power that horror can wield.” – In Review Online Aug 15, 2023 Full Review The Beasts (2022) 99% EDIT “The film works decently as long as it dwells in the realm of tension-building via not-so-passive aggression, but when it's all said and done, it's unclear what any of it... is supposed to mean.” – In Review Online Jul 26, 2023 Full Review Shin Ultraman (2022) 94% EDIT “The filmmaking duo feels at home with this material... and their brand of pop nostalgia feels alive, intelligent, and passionate in a way that Hollywood’s current onslaught of cynical IP rehashes and cinematic universes simply haven’t.” – In Review Online Jul 9, 2023 Full Review Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023) 94% EDIT “I Am Everything might well succeed in familiarizing a new generation with Little Richard — how much a younger and less lenient audience will be willing to forgive his homophobic heel turn is another question entirely. ” – In Review Online Apr 17, 2023 Full Review Call Me Chihiro (2023) 75% EDIT “As far as Netflix originals go, one could do a lot worse than this warm-hearted, empathetic, and yes, occasionally uneventful and saccharine slice-of-life drama.” – In Review Online Mar 6, 2023 Full Review EDIT “Given the dismal state of eroticism in film, it would be nice to have nothing but good things to say about a drama as unapologetically sexual as this, and indeed there are things to praise... Sadly, issues do come to the fore.” – In Review Online Mar 6, 2023 Full Review Animalia (2023) 100% EDIT “One or two moments of overt thematic signaling notwithstanding, Alaoui is content with letting the subtext be just that, communicating instead her most interesting ideas through visuals and tone.” – In Review Online Feb 27, 2023 Full Review The Outwaters (2022) 75% EDIT “Microbudget horror is having somewhat of a moment currently... But with this mini-boom comes the chore of wading through endless bunk to find the worthy, and The Outwaters isn’t it.” – In Review Online Feb 17, 2023 Full Review All Eyes Off Me (2021) 100% EDIT “Ben Aroya's… filmmaking eschews not only [Larry] Clark's conservative streak, but also the sex negativity of many (most?) of her peers.” – In Review Online Feb 10, 2023 Full Review In My Mother's Skin (2023) 86% EDIT “Kenneth Dagatan’s creepy body horror fairytale is a beguiling genre amalgam which combines folkloric terror, historical tragedy, and shades of J-horror.” – In Review Online Jan 28, 2023 Full Review LandLocked (2022) 67% EDIT “While Owens' unique spin on found footage horror is undeniably creative, his protagonist's endless wandering and constant tinkering with retro gadgets begin to wear thin eventually.” – In Review Online Jan 16, 2023 Full Review Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) 43% EDIT “The rote filmmaking on display here couldn’t be further removed from the layered sensitivity that has marked Lemmons’s previous work... I Wanna Dance, by contrast, plays more like a glorified clip show where none of the actors are given room to breathe.” – In Review Online Jan 9, 2023 Full Review My Policeman (2022) 44% EDIT “Styles, while unconvincing, isn't the film's only problem, as the romantic drama, set mainly in 1950s Brighton, relies too heavily on trite, tear-jerker clichés to register as anything other than flavorless, and perhaps even a little cynical.” – In Review Online Nov 8, 2022 Full Review Missing (2021) 96% EDIT “[Missing's] unfocused digressions are regrettable, but there is a lot of promise to Katayama's vision, and his second outing establishes him as a director who's worth keeping an eye on.” – In Review Online Nov 4, 2022 Full Review
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