Peter Canavese Movie Reviews & Previews

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Peter Canavese

""I got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it." ?Groucho Marx in Duck Soup "

Agrees with the Tomatometer 81% of the time.

Biography:: Since 1987, Peter "Groucho" Canavese has been writing film reviews and articles in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. Peter authors and maintains an exhaustive website called GrouchoReviews and is the chief film critic for monthly ON Magazine (since 1995), and Celluloid Dreams, a weekly radio show devoted to film (Celluloid Dreams runs on KSJS?90.5 FM?every Monday at 5pm). Since 2009, he has regularly contributed film reviews to Palo Alto Weekly. His reviews have also appeared in the San Jose Mercury News (1991-1994), in Bay Area weekly Alternate101 (2007-2008), and on Portland's 1190 KEX drive-time show Mark & Dave (2008).
Favorites:: Citizen Kane, Brazil, Duck Soup, Ikiru, North by Northwest, 8 1/2
Publications:: Groucho Reviews , ON Magazine , Palo Alto Weekly

Total Reviews:: 1780
Total QuickRatings:: 3

Location:: San Jose, CA

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 1780

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
2.5/4	33%	A Star is Born (1976)	" While in its romantic and romanticized particulars, this A Star Is Born can often seem silly, hoary, disjointed or meandering, the essence of the showbiz narrative still exerts a powerful pull... [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 25, 2013
2.5/4	56%	Snitch (2013)	" In its modern way, Snitch is almost Dickensian in its intent, missing no opportunity for melodramatic confrontation as it puts a (baby) face on a social ill." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 21, 2013
2.5/4	71%	Bless Me, Ultima (2013)	" The material calls out for a more expressive cinematographic treatment. Had the film been less antiseptic and more bold in its visuals and the emotional depths of its performances, it could have been a classic; instead, it's a rather ordinary indie." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 21, 2013
3.5/4	93%	The Gatekeepers (2013)	" The 'other' Oscar-nominated feature about a war on terror, Dror Moreh's documentary The Gatekeepers proves more intellectually engaging than Hollywood's Zero Dark Thirty, and at least as unsettling." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 21, 2013
3/4	82%	Our Man Flint (1966)	" To the extent that Our Man Flint works, it does so due to its tossed-off wit...and the sheer oddity of Coburn, the toothy, gangly character actor who nevertheless charms his way into stardom here with laid-back cool. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 20, 2013
2.5/4	75%	In Like Flint (1967)	" It's a shame that In Like Flint plays as such a defensive reaction to on-the-rise American feminism...in most other respects, it's a worthy-enough sequel to Our Man Flint. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 20, 2013
3/4	69%	Gypsy (1962)	" Even when it's not quite running on all cylinders, LeRoy's Gypsy is never less than cute, and sometimes, it's a good deal more. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 19, 2013
3.5/4	75%	Deathtrap (1982)	" It would be criminal to reveal how the plot unfolds, other than to say it's impressive dramatic origami, manipulated deftly by an ideal cast and one of Hollywood's all-time top directors. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 19, 2013
.5/4	13%	Safe Haven (2013)	" Does Sparks have to treat people like total idiots...?...[A] soulless-cash-grab." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 15, 2013
2.5/4	24%	Identity Thief (2013)	" McCarthy is a worthy successor to John Candy, who also had a gift for warming up caricatures with loveable humanity." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 8, 2013
1.5/4	——	Vs (2013)	" Written in four days and shot in fifteen, this homegrown indie shows its seams...in cinematic terms, it's pretty weak sauce." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 7, 2013
2/4	36%	Stand Up Guys (2013)	" The awfulness of the narrative is plain to see, and yet...no one can say Stand Up Guys lacks personality." — Groucho Reviews Posted Feb 1, 2013
3/4	79%	Quartet (2013)	" Doesn't avoid all of the traps of the genre, but Hoffman does show good taste, particularly in casting." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 23, 2013
3/4	81%	Rust and Bone (2012)	" Has significant blemishes that don't quite come out in the wash...but the picture persists on the strength of its committed performances." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 17, 2013
1.5/4	31%	Gangster Squad (2013)	" The sheer bulk of talent involved (top-tier technicians and designers included) turns out to be a case of water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 10, 2013
2.5/4	94%	Zero Dark Thirty (2013)	" By most cinematic measures, Zero Dark Thirty is one of the best-made films of 2012. It also probably shouldn't exist." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 3, 2013
3/4	81%	The Impossible (2012)	" Takes dicey material—the story of one privileged family's suffering during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami—and transcends its political incorrectness by focusing on the human condition." — Groucho Reviews Posted Jan 3, 2013
3/4	70%	Les Mis�rables (2012)	" A mixed bag of suitable and not-so-suitable choices. On balance, though, it's about as compelling a screen version of Les Mis as we have any right to expect...Pop a dramamine and you'll be fine." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 26, 2012
.5/4	19%	Parental Guidance (2012)	" The Baby Boomer teaming no one was asking for—Billy Crystal and Bette Midler—melded to that most moribund of genres, rugrats "comedy"..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 26, 2012
3.5/4	88%	Django Unchained (2012)	" There's a case to be made that blood-spattering revenge pictures, no matter how evil the villain, are cultural poison, but if this is what it takes to [get] Don Johnson as a dyed-in-the-wool racist done up as Colonel Sanders, well, so be it." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 25, 2012
2.5/4	52%	This is 40 (2012)	" Mostly succeeds on its own merits...[but] many comedic and musical distractions pad the 134-minute running time and stray from the implicit promise of that title: the film has little to say about middle age..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 21, 2012
2/4	37%	The Guilt Trip (2012)	" Silly and nice, basically unfunny but basically innocuous—so as satisfying as your average leftovers." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 21, 2012
2.5/4	62%	Jack Reacher (2012)	" [McQuarrie] spreads a unearned veneer of intelligence over...a plot one character aptly describes as 'grassy-knoll ludicrous.'" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 21, 2012
2.5/4	95%	Chasing Ice (2012)	" While more detailed scientific analysis and greater discussion of impacts would have been welcome, the film's visual rhetoric is solid." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 13, 2012
3.5/4	90%	Holy Motors (2012)	" As playful as it is...Holy Motors has the power to haunt as much as to amuse." — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 7, 2012
.5/4	4%	Playing for Keeps (2012)	" Another day at the Romantic Comedy Factory: '...Pull me down a Gerard Butler and a Jessica Biel, will ya?'" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 7, 2012
3.5/4	——	Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Celebration Of Season 2 (2012)	" Trek became famous in large part for its (often corny) science-fiction morality plays...Few episodes of either series achieve this goal more elegantly than Melinda Snodgrass' 'The Measure of a Man.' [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 3, 2012
3.5/4	99%	Finding Nemo 3D (2012)	" Though some scary parts may make the very young fret unduly, the film also puts forward some thoughtful messages for both children and their parents. [Blu-ray 3D]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Dec 3, 2012
2/4	63%	Hitchcock (2012)	" Reenactment cinema...On balance, Hitchcock is about as entertaining and as trustworthy as a tabloid." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 29, 2012
2.5/4	74%	Rise of the Guardians (2012)	" Even if the cause and effect of the plot proves fairly impenetrable...one can't deny the film is frequently visually resplendent and imaginative..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 21, 2012
2/4	64%	Anna Karenina (2012)	" Who's for 130 minutes of alienation?...We're able to intellectualize why we should care (those social strictures are crushing hearts!), but we're too distracted to be moved." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 21, 2012
1.5/4	11%	Red Dawn (2012)	" John Milius' 1984 original may not have been a paragon of clear-headed foreign policy, but...Dan Bradley's remake predictably sidesteps-and, in one case, mocks-its source material's most interesting moments..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 21, 2012
3.5/4	88%	Life of Pi (2012)	" In the hands of Ang Lee, a true film artist, Life of Pi elegantly walks Martel's philosophical line while also brilliantly using every modern cinematic tool to spin an epic yarn." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 21, 2012
3.5/4	89%	A Royal Affair (2012)	" Supplements its palace intrigue with the good old-fashioned pull of romance and costume drama...Mikkelsen's magnetism and sly expression hold the film's center with a quiet potency." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 16, 2012
2/4	48%	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)	" Heavenly shades of night are falling: it's Twilight time...[for a series which] has always been borderline comical in its moments of greatest sincerity..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 15, 2012
2.5/4	81%	Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)	" 'Be excellent to each other.' Out of the mouths of babehounds... [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 14, 2012
3.5/4	92%	Skyfall (2012)	" Playful...the most conspicuously repeated word is 'game,' the most dangerous of which Bond typically is, pursues, or plays." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 7, 2012
3/4	——	Company (2012)	" This version...won't be remembered as a major one-it's too faithful and too wobbly for that-but it's an entertaining novelty version, largely justified by the casting and Gemignani's slavish devotion to the original Broadway orchestrations. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 7, 2012
3/4	78%	Flight (2012)	" Despite...misguided commercial instincts, Flight offers much that's productively unsettling, anchored by Washington's old-school movie-star performance..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 1, 2012
3/4	86%	Wreck-it Ralph (2012)	" Built for fun...in its dazzlingly elaborate production design and kinetic 3D action...perfect casting...Who Framed Roger Rabbit-esque video-game-character cameos, and a cramming of clever comic touches..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 1, 2012
3/4	94%	The Sessions (2012)	" Gets it right, in the essence of its true story as well as the social discomforts surrounding disability and sane discussion of sexuality." — Groucho Reviews Posted Nov 1, 2012
2.5/4	53%	Simon and the Oaks (2012)	" Foreign-film comfort food...at its best in exploring the psychology of the adopted." — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 25, 2012
2.5/4	33%	Chasing Mavericks (2012)	" There’s a nobility in a well-made teen movie, not least because of the rarity of the breed...[this] sports movie concerned with the physical, emotional, and moral development of a young man fruitfully aspires to the likes of Breaking Away." — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 25, 2012
1/4	67%	Cloud Atlas (2012)	" The Wachowskis and Tykwer are determined to make you understand eternity, and in that and only that, they succeed: by the time you get to the film's endless series of endings, you'll feel as if you've lived lifetimes." — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 25, 2012
1/4	29%	Pocahontas II - Journey to a New World (1998)	" Strikes familiar notes of how the true 'savages' are the Englishmen...but in the end, the princess gives herself over to an Englishman and literally drifts away in the wrong direction of history. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 15, 2012
2.5/4	56%	Pocahontas (1995)	" It's hard to excuse the reconception of the eleven or twelve-year-old Pocahontas...as a statuesque supermodel, especially as kids don't need their stories to be hung on romance to deem them, err, shapely. [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 15, 2012
3/4	82%	Seven Psychopaths (2012)	" Smart enough to work on multiple levels: as a witty salute to masculine '70s cinema...as a deconstruction of same...and as an existential consideration of the role of self-expression in ascribing meaning to life..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 12, 2012
2/4	41%	The Paperboy (2012)	" Like Anatomy of a Murder, The Graduate, and Daniels' own Precious rolled into one wacked-out bloody Southern Gothic that's considerably less than the sum of those parts..." — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 12, 2012
3/4	58%	Magical Mystery Tour (1967)	" Entirely larky...for Beatlefans, what's not to like? [Blu-ray]" — Groucho Reviews Posted Oct 10, 2012

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