ROTTEN TOMATOES: Andrew L. Urban

ANDREW L. URBAN

Agrees with the Tomatometer 69% of the time.

Biography: Andrew L. Urban is Publisher & Editor of Urban Cinefile, Australia’s award winning online weekly movie magazine (est. 1997). Specialising in film journalism, Andrew was Australian bureau chief for London based film trade publications from 1985 to 1994. He was Channel Host for the World Movies subscription movie channel (2002-6), and with his publishing partner and wife Louise Keller, he co-produced and hosted Movies This Week, a short movie review program, broadcast on World Movies and the Ovation arts & entertainment channel (2004-5). Since July 2005, Andrew has presented Movies Now, a contemporary movie appreciation course at Sydney University’s Centre for Continuing Education. In January 2007, Andrew was commissioned by the Australian Film Television and Radio School’s Centre for Screen Business to produce an extensive series of in depth on camera interviews with film and TV industry practitioners, for the CSB website; the series continues into 2008. Andrew is a regular guest on ABC Radio 702 Drive’s Critics Forum with Richard Glover.

Publications: Urban Cinefile

Total Reviews: 389

Location: Sydney, Australia

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# a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r (S) t u v w x y z

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date (default)

Fresh	Rotten 40%	Streets of Blood ()	" All in all, a devil of a cocktail for an evening's bullet ridden entertainment" Posted Nov 28, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 87%	A Serious Man (2009)	" Often subtle, often outrageous and perhaps selfish film (they didn't make it for us, they made it for themselves but we can share it); those who approach the film with a genuine curiosity will get something out of it" Posted Nov 13, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 89%	Séraphine (2008)	" As far as biopics of painters go, Séraphine is one of the very best" Posted Sep 19, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 55%	The Soloist (2009)	" This film isn't as much about homelessness as about helplessness - and how some people are able not necessarily to overcome it, but to manage it. And how people like Steve Lopez, unintentionally help themselves when they try to help others. That's a great" Posted Aug 28, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 84%	The September Issue (2009)	" More a snapshot then a full blown insight into either Vogue, its September 2007 issue or its famous editor, Anna Wintour, the film has many positives and a few irritants. But it does take us at leat half way into the world of fashion bible" Posted Aug 17, 2009
Fresh	N/A	Special Delivery (2008)	" The screenplay has a sense of fun, which director Michael Scott translates well onto the screen, so the action and tension is spiced with hip humour." Posted Aug 5, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 100%	Saturday Night & Sunday Morning (1960)	" It's in black and white, or rather a grimy English factory grey, but Albert Finney is superbly colourful as Arthur, a defiant and raging young bull of a man, suffocating in a remorseless, working class purgatory" Posted Jun 12, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 72%	Sunshine Cleaning (2009)	" The irony of the Sunshine named small enterprise specialising in cleaning up post-death mess suggests the filmmakers may be aiming for a tone of dark comic entertainment, but the film does not play out that way." Posted Jun 5, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 76%	Shall We Kiss? (2008)	" The addiction of French cinema to stories of love, lust, betrayal and romance continues unabated in the hands of Emmanuel Mouret, playing unassuming characters on screen in his own films, like this one" Posted Jun 5, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 100%	Samson and Delilah (2009)	" Non-actors Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson don't so much perform their roles as live out the lives of those who have been around them. Their ability to involve us and to make their characters real is astonishing." Posted Jun 3, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 84%	State of Play (2009)	" This is a well executed, compelling political thriller with plenty of relevance in today's warring world, where war to some means an opportunity to get very rich. Power and money are always an explosive combination" Posted May 21, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 67%	Synecdoche, New York (2008)	" Kaufman's directing debut is as intricate and thought provoking as all his writings, an often surreal, sometimes obtuse and occasionally funny work of great complexity. It's a challenge for audiences, who will no doubt divide into heated camps." Posted May 1, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 95%	Star Trek (2009)	" A stupendous production, Star Trek goes where no movie sequel or prequel has gone before in bringing intelligence and invention to a peak in cinematic storytelling." Posted Apr 7, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 92%	Summer Hours (2009)	" The cast is outstanding; the three siblings, played by Berling, Binoche and Renier, deliver an ensemble performance of great complexity, yet with clearly defined characters." Posted Mar 27, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 52%	Shuttle (2009)	" Well conceived thriller, Shuttle takes the familiar situation and develops it into terrifying ordeal" Posted Mar 21, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 58%	The Secret Life of Bees (2008)	" A dense story about a little girl and the impact her mother's death has on her makes terrific cinema in this beautifully realised film" Posted Feb 27, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 98%	A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)	" Has a permanent place amongst the classics, not only for the performances but for Tennessee Williams' raw writing about people raw with pain, fear, longing and complicated feelings" Posted Feb 20, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 73%	Stuck (2007)	" You could see it all as a darkly bizarre tale that just might be true" Posted Feb 6, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 27%	Seven Pounds (2008)	" It's the kind of premise that a writer will lovingly nurture and probe, but it fails the truth test. As a love story it's unsatisfactory and as a redemption story it's slightly ridiculous" Posted Dec 22, 2008
Fresh	N/A	The Secret (2006)	" David Duchovny, something of a specialist in roles involving the paranormal and supernatural, delivers a well judged characterisation of Benjamin, father and husband faced with the inconvenient truth of his daughter's body inhabited by his dead wife's per" Posted Dec 20, 2008
Fresh	N/A	Soulkeeper (2001)	" In many ways the Jung/Spielrein affair is an extraordinary story, not only as an illicit romance but as one that is linked to Jung's first attempt at using Freud's psychoanalytical methods to help a patient." Posted Dec 20, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 92%	Sweetie (1990)	" a helter skelter ride through the offbeat life of a suburban Australian family whose youngest daughter is 'abnormal'" Posted Dec 19, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 93%	Slumdog Millionaire (2008)	" Compelling and moving, bitter sweet and haunting, it's one of the best films of the year. Any year." Posted Dec 13, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 93%	Shotgun Stories (2007)	" The credentials of many festival screenings might suggest to alert viewers that this isn't a shoot 'em up between two hill billy clans" Posted Dec 4, 2008
Rotten	Rotten 45%	Sex Drive (2008)	" Penis gags, poo and bum-driven gags, masturbation embarrassments and the consistent use of crude expletives are not nearly as hilarious when over-used as the filmmakers seem to think" Posted Nov 8, 2008
Fresh	N/A	Scorched (2008)	" It's a terrifying scenario, and given Sydney's history with bush fires, not all that far fetched." Posted Nov 5, 2008
Rotten	Rotten 15%	Saw V (2008)	" It's questionable who suffers more in this torture porn sequel - the victims or the audience. But glib lines aside, there is no point in continuing the franchise unless the filmmakers can up the ante in the gruesome/anguish/torture stakes" Posted Oct 22, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 68%	Silent Running (1971)	" Visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull (notable for his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind), made his directorial debut with this eco-themed sci-fi classic" Posted Sep 18, 2008
Fresh	N/A	Suddenly (2008)	" The film's rich but subtle textures, the deliberate pace and the sparse yet glorious setting all combine to make this a truly satisfying film for the discerning cinephile." Posted Sep 15, 2008
Rotten	Fresh 74%	Son of Rambow (2008)	" I was not so engaged as to be moved . . . and felt impatient at the lack of dramatic pace" Posted Aug 29, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 88%	Son of a Lion (2008)	" An elegantly simple story and the telling is effective, magnified by a great sense of place that is part of the film's appeal." Posted Aug 19, 2008
Fresh	N/A	Strays (2007)	" Diesel is credible as Rick, a stray in Manhattan trying to go straight, and Lanza delivers a likeable girlfriend from a world far away from Rick's." Posted Aug 8, 2008
Fresh	Rotten 44%	The Strangers (2008)	" The film's most potent claim to success is its lengthy and cleverly edited stretches of spookiness, which it tends to extend to almost breaking point, keeping us in heightened suspense." Posted Aug 7, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 64%	Stop-Loss (2008)	" Following the harrowing and superbly made opening sequences of hand to hand combat in Iraq, we can feel the frustrations and the anger through the film, and we sympathise. But the film has a confused message ..." Posted Aug 4, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 69%	The Secret Life of Words (2006)	" Heartache is guaranteed. And so it is in The Secret Life of Words, a strangely beautiful film about an ugly memory that Hanna (Sarah Polley) carries for the rest of her life" Posted Jul 25, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 100%	The Square (2009)	" For all intents and purposes a film noir of classic proportions, The Square has such a good story it deserves to be seen without knowing too many details about the plot. So I'll avoid plot points, but to say that it is driven by love, betrayal, greed %u20" Posted Jul 21, 2008
Fresh	N/A	Salute (2008)	" This wonderful humanitarian story -- especially relevant on the eve of the Beijing Olympics -- deserves to be told and it's a bit of a surprise it hasn't been told before, while Peter Norman was still alive." Posted Jul 21, 2008
Fresh	Fresh 90%	Saving Private Ryan (1998)	" The diverse effects that war has on human nature has never been captured with such aching reality." Posted Jan 1, 2000

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ANDREW L. URBAN

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