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Critics / Sean Burns
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SEAN BURNS

Agrees with the Tomatometer 73% of the time.

Biography: Since 1999 Sean Burns has been Philadelphia Weekly's lead film critic, and also currently writes for The Improper Bostonian. His work has previously appeared in The Boston Metro, Matinee Magazine, The Nashville Scene, Time Out New York and The House Next Door. Burns was a recurring guest on the late David Brudnoy's WBZ 1030 AM Radio Show, and in 2002 received an award for Excellence in Criticism from the Society of Professional Journalists. His writing has been called "jocular but serious, more like a 1940s daily reporter pounding out columns on a manual typewriter than a typical 21st century navel-gazing film critic." Burns has also been told that he "smokes too much and drives like an old lady." He and his cat live in Stoneham, MA.

Publications: Philadelphia Weekly

Total Reviews: 712

LISTING OF ALL REVIEWS & ARTICLES

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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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Showing 1 - 50 of 712
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Rating T-Meter « Title | Year Add Date (default)

Rotten

Rotten
31%

15 Minutes (2001)

" A mean, ugly exploitation picture with sophomoric delusions of grandeur."

Posted Jun 21, 2002

Fresh

Fresh
84%

2046 (2005)

" It's a gorgeous abstraction-- an epically sustained 129-minute sigh of heartache and regret."

Posted Aug 31, 2005

Rotten

Rotten
35%

21 (2008)

" One of those movies where the audience is always about 20 minutes ahead of the characters, chock-full of dopey inventions from a Screenwriting 101 manual."

Posted Mar 29, 2008

Rotten

Fresh
78%

25th Hour (2002)

" ...contains moments so raw, lyrical and playfully alert to the limitless possibilities of filmmaking that it takes a day or two to figure out the flick just ain't very good."

Posted Jan 7, 2003

Rotten

Rotten
40%

27 Dresses (2008)

" It's like porn, but for chicks."

Posted Jan 26, 2008

Fresh

Fresh
88%

28 Days Later (2003)

" It's a gorgeous piece of writing. It also happens to be about flesh-eating zombies..."

Posted Jun 26, 2003

Fresh

Fresh
87%

3-Iron (2005)

" The stillness of the film sticks with you...sometimes we speak volumes without saying anything at all."

Posted May 20, 2005

Fresh

Rotten
13%

3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)

" Gleefully preposterous and at times blissfully inane."

Posted Jun 5, 2002

Fresh

Fresh
88%

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

" Crowe adopts a stance of detached bemusement, his eyes alight at what he's watching, almost as if he's decided to play along with his adversary's dogged persistence... just to see where they'll end up."

Posted Sep 6, 2007

Fresh

Fresh
96%

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2008)

" A grinding, expertly crafted slice of Eastern European miserablism... an unquestionably overpowering experience that nonetheless left this reviewer with a nagging sense of unease."

Posted Feb 6, 2008

Rotten

Rotten
38%

40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)

" So wildly incoherent in tone, ambition and character motivation that it's hard to believe it was ever written out in longhand from start to finish."

Posted Jun 5, 2002

Fresh

Rotten
44%

50 First Dates (2004)

" But something strange happens once Drew Barrymore shows up -- the movie starts getting good. Really good. "

Posted Feb 25, 2004

Rotten

Fresh
86%

500 Days of Summer (2009)

" The movie keeps leaning toward some awful truths, only to sheepishly retreat into the safe comedy of fakey shopworn devices."

Posted Jul 25, 2009

Fresh

Fresh
74%

8 Mile (2002)

" Effective, if not more than a little dishonest. Think Blue Crush with swear words."

Posted Nov 6, 2002

Fresh

Fresh
78%

8 Women (2002)

" A gigantic, candy-colored genre-Cuisinart drunk on its own self-reflexivity, this improbably entertaining eruption most resembles a Reservoir Dogs for gay men."

Posted Sep 25, 2002

Rotten

Rotten
25%

9 Songs (2005)

" There's not much to take away from 9 Songs unless you're watching it at home... alone... preferably with some lotion."

Posted Oct 13, 2005

Rotten

Rotten
53%

A Dirty Shame (2004)

" All the dated satirical targets are hit during the first few minutes, and then the movie repeats the same joke ad nauseum -- it's like a record that won't stop skipping."

Posted Sep 22, 2004

Fresh

Fresh
74%

A Girl Cut in Two (2008)

" Chabrol keeps such rigid formal control of the material that it feels more momentous than such a tawdry tale has any right to."

Posted Oct 28, 2008

Rotten

Rotten
38%

A Good Woman (2005)

" Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the movies -- The Return Of Helen Hunt!"

Posted Feb 1, 2006

Rotten

Rotten
25%

A Good Year (2006)

" A leaden attempt at an upbeat romp from the downcast, feel-bad tag team of actor Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott, the movie is like hearing a knock-knock joke told by a mortician."

Posted Nov 14, 2006

Fresh

Fresh
87%

A History of Violence (2005)

" ...a pulpy, brilliant little neo-noir packed with disquieting sociological insights. Sure, it's an action movie -- but it's also an indictment. "

Posted Sep 29, 2005

N/A

Fresh
87%

A History of Violence (2005)

" Outside Looking In: A Conversation With David Cronenberg"

Posted Sep 29, 2005

Rotten

Rotten
49%

A Home at the End of the World (2004)

" Lovely interchanges abound... But the net effect is like watching the highlight reel from several seasons of an HBO show without seeing any of the episodes themselves."

Posted Jul 28, 2004

Rotten

Rotten
43%

A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)

" The film shares many qualities with its rambling and at times honestly endearing characters: it's sloppy, decent-hearted and most often embarrassing. "

Posted Mar 5, 2005

Fresh

Fresh
77%

A Mighty Heart (2007)

" Jolie delivers a performance that's astonishing in its control.... she's dialed down her natural histrionics and gone for something far quieter and deeper than expected."

Posted Jun 26, 2007

Rotten

Fresh
88%

A Mighty Wind (2003)

" Sure, the film is fitfully amusing on a moment-to-moment basis. But less than a week later, I'd already forgotten I even saw it."

Posted Apr 15, 2003

Fresh

Fresh
81%

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

" A small movie about big things, A Prairie Home Companion is a freewheeling grab-bag of moments both comic and tragic, tied together by Altman's stubborn, unyielding assertion that all good things --including life itself-- must soon come to an end."

Posted Jun 7, 2006

Rotten

Fresh
67%

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

" Linklater's low-key, meandering humanism is a bad match for Dick's obsessive, clammy suspicion. We never feel the desperation of these characters. They're merely painted figures on a screen -- shimmering somewhere far away. "

Posted Jul 18, 2006

Fresh

Fresh
87%

A Serious Man (2009)

" Grappling with massive cosmic mysteries on a deceptively mundane stage, it's a film about the silence of God, seething with profound existential panic... viewed through the hilariously cracked prism of everyday suburban minutiae."

Posted Oct 27, 2009

Rotten

Rotten
26%

A Slipping Down Life (2004)

" Well, I guess it's better than Van Helsing... slightly."

Posted Jun 2, 2004

Rotten

Rotten
7%

A Sound of Thunder (2005)

" Lobotomized from a Ray Bradbury short story, A Sound of Thunder stars Edward Burns as a scientist (insert raucous laughter here)..."

Posted Sep 29, 2005

Rotten

Fresh
77%

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

" The gifted, undisciplined Jeunet applies his trademark restless zigzagging to a story that's confoundingly complicated enough already. More fatiguing than exhilarating. "

Posted Dec 14, 2004

Fresh

Fresh
72%

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

" Spielberg has never walked such a dangerous tightrope, never made a movie so fearless."

Posted Jul 17, 2002

Rotten

Rotten
54%

Across the Universe (2007)

" I saw a film today, oh boy."

Posted Sep 13, 2007

Fresh

Fresh
91%

Adaptation (2002)

" Playfully profound... and crazier than Michael Jackson on the top floor of a skyscraper nursery surrounded by open windows."

Posted Dec 3, 2002

Fresh

Fresh
88%

Adventureland (2009)

" Like a John Hughes movie directed by Francois Truffaut...gangly, deeply felt and just lovely."

Posted Mar 31, 2009

Rotten

Rotten
19%

Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl in 3-D (2005)

" In order to review a movie, the first step is to look at the screen, which is sadly something I could not bear to do throughout most of Sharkboy and Lavagirl."

Posted Jun 7, 2005

Rotten

Rotten
19%

After the Sunset (2004)

" Slack, ambitionless Elmore Leonard-lite. Brett Ratner has matured into one of the dullest young filmmakers working today."

Posted Nov 16, 2004

Fresh

Rotten
16%

Alexander (2004)

" Alexander is Oliver's most stupidly awesome (and awesomely stupid) movie since The Doors."

Posted Nov 23, 2004

Rotten

Rotten
49%

Alfie (2004)

" This funnier, glossier Alfie is a mite too watered down. In the end, we're having so much fun we don't feel his soul-sickness. It's lightweight desolation. "

Posted Nov 8, 2004

Fresh

Fresh
67%

Ali (2001)

" A challenging, uncompromising film with the same hardheaded integrity as the man it profiles."

Posted Jun 4, 2002

Fresh

Rotten
34%

Alien 3 (1992)

" Fox's DVD restoration/mea culpa of Fincher's original edit is cause for celebration. The studio cut seemed glibly nihilistic --this time when she jumps, it means something."

Posted Jan 28, 2004

Rotten

Rotten
22%

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

" When not busy contradicting the lore we picked up in the previous pictures, Alien Vs. Predator is the world's murkiest, most incomprehensible video game."

Posted Aug 17, 2004

Rotten

Rotten
11%

All The King's Men (2006)

" Sometimes I wish they'd just cancel the Oscars, because then gaseous, lumbering elephants like All the King's Men would have no reason to exist."

Posted Sep 19, 2006

Rotten

Fresh
71%

All the Real Girls (2003)

" Girls is front-loaded with strange, offbeat non-sequitors subtly coloring in the lines of this community. Alas, the film shrinks as it goes along."

Posted Mar 26, 2003

Rotten

Rotten
26%

Along Came Polly (2004)

" Timid and predictable, yet almost worth seeing for two fantastic supporting performances (by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Alec Baldwin) that seem to have come from outer space."

Posted Jan 20, 2004

Fresh

Fresh
95%

Amarcord (1974)

" Watching the movie feels like flipping through a cartoon sketchbook of Fellini's vivid remembrances and formative experiences."

Posted Apr 14, 2009

Rotten

Rotten
21%

Amelia (2009)

" Eventually I just wanted her to crash the damn plane so I could go home already."

Posted Oct 27, 2009

Fresh

Fresh
79%

American Gangster (2007)

" Even a stale old tune can sound great if it's covered properly..."

Posted Nov 9, 2007

Fresh

Fresh
94%

American Splendor (2003)

" But it's hard to shake the feeling that the movie is less than the sum of its parts. I called it 'brilliant' the day I saw it, and I haven't thought about it once since then."

Posted Aug 20, 2003
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