ROTTEN TOMATOES: Kamal Al-Solaylee

KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE

Agrees with the Tomatometer 74% of the time.

Biography: Globe and Mail writer

Total Reviews: 44

LISTING OF ALL REVIEWS & ARTICLES

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

Rotten 2/4	Rotten 33%	Knowing (2009)	" Its breathlessness and permanent state of confusion make you long for the assured touch of M. Night Shyamalan." Posted Mar 20, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 25%	Rip!: A Remix Manifesto (2009)	" A forceful, vibrant and immensely entertaining call to action." Posted Mar 13, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 23%	Fired Up (2009)	" A teen comedy that views sex as an all-you-can-gorge buffet." Posted Feb 20, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 81%	Examined Life (2009)	" A hugely successful and provocative attempt at elevating the tone of public discussion, and inviting some great minds along to help smooth the bumpy ride ahead of us all in 2009." Posted Jan 23, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 71%	Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis (2008)	" There's nothing revolutionary or artistically groundbreaking here, but there's something reassuring in the fact that this is what the French have anointed as their biggest hit. Vive la (low-key) diff�rence." Posted Jan 23, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 39%	Inkheart (2009)	" As an adventure flick, Inkheart is not all that adventurous. It goes to places and falls on tropes that many fantasy films -- most notably but not exclusively the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- have covered." Posted Jan 23, 2009
Rotten 2/4	N/A	Saving Luna (2008)	" The film about an animal that doesn't respect boundaries has set none for itself." Posted Dec 8, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 28%	The World Unseen (2008)	" It doesn't leave you cold, but it doesn't exactly make an impression, either." Posted Nov 7, 2008
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 5%	College (2008)	" *In the battle for the hearts, minds and fat wallets of North American teens, College* fights dirtier and sinks lower than most gross-out screen comedies.**" Posted Sep 2, 2008
Rotten 2.5/4	Fresh 88%	Beaufort (2008)	" Clearly something has gone MIA in moving from the small pictures into a cohesive big one." Posted Sep 1, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 91%	Boy A (2008)	" Even its structurally weaker moments give Garfield an opportunity to expand on Jack's physical and mental dislocation. Given Boy A's final floating reel, it's an anchoring performance in every sense of the word." Posted Aug 29, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 90%	Tuya's Marriage (2008)	" *For those who are still reeling from the forced exuberance of Mamma Mia!* but have room for one more film about a woman with multiple suitors, may I recommend Tuya's Marriage?**" Posted Aug 22, 2008
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 100%	Man On Wire (2008)	" [Director] Marsh creates a transfixing documentary feature that doubles as a celebration of one man and an elegy to two buildings that are no more." Posted Aug 8, 2008
Rotten 2.5/4	N/A	Last Continent (2008)	" You can't help wondering whether less telling and more showing would have served this film and its politics better." Posted Aug 4, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 27%	Closing the Ring (2007)	" Closing the Ring needed to find a context for its free-flowing emotions." Posted Aug 1, 2008
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 75%	The Last Mistress (2008)	" *Despite an austere budget and some minor anachronisms, The Last Mistress* proves that Breillat has found something in the luscious language of the 19th century that makes sense to us today.**" Posted Jul 25, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 74%	A Jihad for Love (2007)	" [An] important but rudderless documentary." Posted Jul 18, 2008
Rotten 2/4	N/A	The 4th Life (2008)	" There's a depth that is hinted at but constantly beyond Miron's reach." Posted Jul 11, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 64%	The Unknown Woman (2006)	" This is a case where style has not only trumped substance, but negated it as well." Posted May 9, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 31%	The Babysitters (2008)	" *Despite the racy content and the alarmist 18A classification, The Babysitters* is a remarkably restrained and decent film. It's polished, smoothly edited and shot with simple elegance.**" Posted May 9, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 88%	It's a Free World (2007)	" The film's bleak but powerful ending is a wake-up call to Britain and a measure of the pessimism of Loach, one of its most trenchant critics. I fear things must be really bad over there." Posted Apr 25, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 88%	Young@Heart (2008)	" The doc may indeed be too cute for some, but Walker knows when to step back and let life, with all its harshness and disappointments, into the picture." Posted Apr 18, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 67%	Ben X (2008)	" It's not the overarching naturalism of the performance that stands out but the conceptual breakdown of the portrayal into smaller, loosely connected segments." Posted Apr 18, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 48%	Run, Fat Boy, Run (2008)	" *From storyline to characterization to style of comedy, everything about the directorial debut of former Friends* star David Schwimmer is a nod to accommodation, compromise and consensus.**" Posted Mar 28, 2008
Rotten 2.5/4	Rotten 57%	Married Life (2008)	" A curious, provocative if unsatisfying little movie." Posted Mar 21, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 49%	CJ7 (2008)	" The message, at least, is consistently and passionately delivered. But it's safe to say that this 90-minute flick doesn't require a very big thinking cap or much by way of analysis." Posted Mar 14, 2008
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 53%	Viva (2008)	" Its triumph is that of style -- gloriously and revoltingly tacky style -- over substance." Posted Mar 7, 2008
Rotten 1/4	N/A	Love and Other Dilemmas (2008)	" Methinks the movie theatres where Love and Other Dilemmas is playing will be as deserted as the Vancouver depicted in it. And frankly, fans of independent Canadian films are getting tired of these vanishing acts." Posted Feb 1, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 14%	Untraceable (2008)	" *The makers of Untraceable* don't have that high an opinion of you.**" Posted Jan 25, 2008
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 91%	Still Life (2008)	" Spare, motionless and silent as a still-life painting. But what [director] Jia is documenting is nothing less than a civilization in a state of flux. Chaos wouldn't be an overstatement." Posted Jan 25, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 20%	Death Sentence (2007)	" Awesomely bad." Posted Aug 31, 2007
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 23%	Balls of Fury (2007)	" It may look episodic and disgracefully low-budget in places, but there's also a theatrical quality in the way scenes are blocked, and punch lines delivered." Posted Aug 29, 2007
Rotten 2.5/4	Rotten 29%	Klimt (2006)	" Whatever its flaws may be (and, frankly, they are legion), Raoul Ruiz's latest film is a biopic that mixes and matches visual and narrative styles boldly, wildly, madly enough to invigorate the genre, but not enough to save the movie." Posted Aug 10, 2007
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 13%	I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry (2007)	" An equal-opportunity offender, slapping right wingers on the wrist while, much to said right wingers' expectations, reducing homosexuality to its lowest common denominators." Posted Jul 20, 2007
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 57%	Interview (2007)	" The end result of this showcase for Buscemi's writing, acting and directing chops is so uneven and mixed in small details and overall tone that it's anybody's guess if it's one for the Oscars or the Razzies next year." Posted Jul 20, 2007
Rotten 1/4	N/A	Bolly Double (2007)	" Bolly Double replicates the broad strokes of Indian film but has nothing funny or intelligent to say about it." Posted Jun 11, 2007
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 44%	Angel-A (2007)	" *Feels like a mash-up of It's a Wonderful Life* and Xanadu, without the wholesome sweetness of the first and the campy excesses of the second.**" Posted Jun 8, 2007
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 74%	La Vie En Rose (2007)	" A sweepingly melodramatic and, in [director] Dahan's words, 'tragic, romantic blockbuster' of a movie that not only captures the (soap) operatic life of its subject with unflinching honesty but refuses to see her any other way." Posted Jun 8, 2007
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 33%	Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)	" [Director] Gutierrez sustains a heightened mood of sex and violence that, without breaking new ground, entertains in the way Gothic flicks do: a combination of cheap thrills and a good old-fashioned crusade against evil." Posted Jun 1, 2007
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 90%	Knocked Up (2007)	" Look at what else is playing in multiplexes across North America at the moment and, if you can find a film that entertains and touches as effectively, give us a call." Posted Jun 1, 2007
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 59%	Bug (2007)	" It's one helluva movie that makes Ashley Judd look ugly and demented, while turning Harry Connick Jr. into the most frightening screen thug since Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast." Posted May 25, 2007
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 67%	Close to Home (2007)	" Both [main actresses] show their characters' growth while steadfastly and, sadly, unsuccessfully trying to hold on to the last vestiges of their innocence. If that's not the real tragedy of life in the Middle East, I don't know what is." Posted May 18, 2007
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 29%	Provoked (2007)	" [Director] Mundhra can't control the expansiveness of the melodrama or focus on the terseness of realism. Every character in Provoked, from victims to tyrants, Indian to English, loud to quiet, ends up as a grossly exaggerated comic creation." Posted May 18, 2007
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 82%	Broadway: The Golden Age (2004)	" *It takes more than a fan to analyze the legacy of a period. But a fan is just what it takes to indulge in that legacy, which is exactly what Broadway: The Golden Age* is all about.**" Posted Sep 24, 2004

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KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE

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