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Christian Zilko
Christian Zilko's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
Publications:
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Never Let Go (2024) |
Never Let Go should resonate with both horror junkies seeking fall escapism and parents looking to see their struggles visualized. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 17, 2024
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Pedro Páramo (2024) |
Even when the storytelling falls short, Pedro Páramo never fails to offer up ideas worth pondering. The theme of forgiveness unsurprisingly looms heavily over the film, which oozes Catholicism from every frame. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 16, 2024
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The 4:30 Movie (2024) |
It’s nice to see his characters behave in a developmentally appropriate way for a change. Rather than sad looks into grown men who stubbornly refuse to grow up, Smith is able to give us a cute portrait of kids who just haven’t gotten there yet. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 13, 2024
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William Tell (2024) |
There’s no unprecedented spectacle or unique angle to draw in those on the fence about the genre, but more than enough to satisfy anyone who can’t stop counting the days until “Gladiator II” hits theaters. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 11, 2024
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The Assessment (2024) |
A compelling genre thriller that manages to build a world that feels both genuinely new and depressingly realistic if human society goes too far down the wrong path. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 10, 2024
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On Swift Horses (2024) |
A cinematic love story that unfolds with the kind of beautiful uncertainty that its gambling heroes face every day. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 09, 2024
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¡CASA BONITA MI AMOR! (2024) |
Sometimes it’s difficult to fathom this level of altruism coming from the voice of Eric Cartman. But when Parker chokes up talking about the joy that he receives from watching children run around Casa Bonita... it’s hard not to believe him. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 03, 2024
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The White House Effect (2024) |
The power struggle between Reilly and Sununu provides the bulk of the narrative structure, but the film is less about these two specific men than the flaws in human nature that led them to clash. - indieWire
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| Posted Aug 31, 2024
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Greedy People (2024) |
Gordon-Levitt’s electrifying buffoonery is an easy highlight of the ensemble crime comedy. He steals the show as crass and dim-witted cop Terry, whose corruption can’t overcome his utter lack of ambition. - indieWire
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| Posted Aug 21, 2024
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The Union (2024) |
Its convoluted MacGuffin and predictable twists ensure that no amount of expensive action sequences from director Julian Farino or genuine chemistry between Wahlberg and Berry can elevate The Union into something worth watching. - indieWire
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| Posted Aug 16, 2024
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Mary Heilmann: Waves, Roads & Hallucinations (2023) |
While stories of artists adapting to changing times and counterculture evolving into big business are universal, “Mary Heilmann: Waves, Roads & Hallucinations” is ultimately a work best left to the artist’s hardcore fans. - indieWire
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| Posted Jul 30, 2024
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The Convert (2023) |
The Convert manages to combine an entertaining portrayal of an often ignored historical era with universal questions about whether it’s ever possible to build a human society on the foundation of something other than violence. - indieWire
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| Posted Jul 12, 2024
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Touch (2024) |
The result is a film whose elegance is all the more staggering because it came from the man who directed “2 Guns” and “Beast.” - indieWire
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| Posted Jul 11, 2024
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The Nature of Love (2023) |
Monia Chokri‘s brilliant feature is one of the sharpest cinematic examinations of the paradoxical expectations we place on our relationships in the 21st century. - indieWire
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| Posted Jul 08, 2024
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A Sacrifice (2024) |
[A Sacrifice] isn’t quite as interesting as the towering questions that it asks. But the fact that it bothers to ask them at all puts the film in a rarified class above many of its Hollywood counterparts. - indieWire
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| Posted Jun 26, 2024
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Fancy Dance (2023) |
Tremblay’s film deserves to be appreciated as more than a mere addendum to a bigger movie [Killers of the Flower Moon]. On its own terms, the film is an exquisite star vehicle for one of Hollywood’s best rising actresses and an engaging thriller. - indieWire
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| Posted Jun 21, 2024
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Just the Two of Us (2024) |
A rare thriller whose setup is more compelling than its climax... But the film’s ability to trace a hellish case of domestic abuse back to its blissful origins makes it well worth watching. - indieWire
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| Posted Jun 14, 2024
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Bang Bang (2024) |
The washed-up fighter archetype who spits poetry about the demons he now battles has been done to death. Yet it becomes clear those cliches are the point. - indieWire
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| Posted Jun 12, 2024
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A Desert (2024) |
Rather than trying to understand exactly what it means, you’re better off appreciating it like one of Alex’s photos. Just like an abandoned roadside diner becoming overrun by fungi and rodent’s nests, sometimes the emptiness is the point. - indieWire
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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The Great Lillian Hall (2024) |
While it doesn’t pull punches about the challenges that lie ahead, The Great Lillian Hall ultimately makes it clear that its protagonist is lucky to have something that’s so hard to let go. - indieWire
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| Posted May 31, 2024
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Gazer (2024) |
Gazer is the kind of debut that should restore your lost faith in independent cinema. - indieWire
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| Posted May 22, 2024
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Black Dog (2023) |
Depending on how you look at it, Black Dog is either the most violently depraved feel-good animal movie in recent memory or the most wholesome neo-noir we’ve seen in a while. - indieWire
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| Posted May 21, 2024
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Eephus (2024) |
Many a true devotee will tell you that part of the game’s charm lies in its ability to facilitate socialization... Eephus is a film that understands this, and the script shuffles along with the rhythm of a baseball game. - indieWire
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| Posted May 19, 2024
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Savanna and the Mountain (2024) |
Even those among us who are optimistic about our species’ prospects of rising to the occasion ought to heed films like Savanna and the Mountain as a reminder that old habits die hard. - indieWire
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| Posted May 19, 2024
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In Our Day (2023) |
It’s the kind of film that might be described as a “crowdpleaser” with minimal irony in niche indie film circles. - indieWire
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| Posted May 17, 2024
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Ghost Trail (2024) |
[Jonathan Millet and Adam Bessa's] combined efforts allow the film to marry some of the best aspects of spy thrillers and slow cinema in a portrait of the ways that wars haunt us long after we escape them. - indieWire
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| Posted May 15, 2024
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Lost Soulz (2023) |
For all of its cliched youthful exuberance, the film finds its footing in the third act when it offers a bittersweet look into the tradeoffs of fame and how their conflicts with personal obligations can derail even the most promising artists. - indieWire
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| Posted May 03, 2024
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Little Empty Boxes (2024) |
The film’s determination to shed light on systemic causes of dementia is admirable, but the real takeaway of Little Empty Boxes is that caring for a parent in a state of serious decline is an impossible task. - indieWire
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (2024) |
The true flaw at the heart of “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” is that its title implies a dark comedy before squandering most of its potential on a simple story about kids learning to fend for themselves. - indieWire
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| Posted Apr 09, 2024
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Lousy Carter (2023) |
Lousy Carter might be a reminder that middle age is filled with monotony and unsolvable problems, but that doesn’t mean our movies have to be. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 29, 2024
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Free Time (2023) |
Rather than a spirited diatribe about the need to step away from our desks and live life, it’s a thoughtful little comedy about how those soul-crushing hours in the office have the unintended benefit of giving us a personal life that’s worth missing. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 22, 2024
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Things Will Be Different (2024) |
Alternating between grandiose mythology and unvarnished thrills, “Things Will Be Different” is a promising directorial debut that embraces its creative limitations to put a fresh spin on familiar time-travel tropes. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 17, 2024
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The Uninvited (2024) |
A clever directorial debut that straddles the traditions of theater and independent film with ease. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 12, 2024
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Arcadian (2024) |
Arcadian is another solid addition to Cage’s genre filmography. What starts as a simple survival story finds its footing as a nuanced exploration of the value of safety and security and the moments when we decide it’s worth giving up. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 12, 2024
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Audrey (2024) |
“Audrey” is a prescient warning that we should all treat our rooftop excursions with more caution than ever before. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 11, 2024
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Y2K (2024) |
A computer apocalypse was never realistically lurking underneath us, but “Y2K” is a reminder that the return of the high concept comedy always was. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 11, 2024
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Babes (2024) |
After a decade of speaking for fans who threw the old-fashioned steps of the success sequence out the window, it’s fitting that Glazer is now showing them which ones might be worth bringing back into the fold. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 11, 2024
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Azrael (2024) |
“Azrael” is a comforting reminder that even after seven million years, humans are still finding new ways to put their own spin on our first primordial fears. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 10, 2024
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We Strangers (2024) |
Valia masterfully illustrates the tensions among the complex system of social graces that fuel elite society and how utterly pointless it all seems when we stare death in the face. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 10, 2024
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Road House (2024) |
“Road House” is a fitting update to its predecessor’s legacy. Not because it’s better, or even because it’s all that similar, but because it moves with the same unselfconscious stupidity that fueled so many of the ’80s blockbusters we remember so fondly. - indieWire
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| Posted Mar 09, 2024
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Here (2023) |
With a plot so sparse that even a one-sentence summary threatens to spoil an hour of the movie, “Here” manages to present some of the most striking moving images in recent memory. - indieWire
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| Posted Feb 12, 2024
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Molli and Max in the Future (2023) |
Even if its script hits familiar lulls and the actors lack the chemistry it would take to compensate, the mere fact that it got made is a testament to the type of indie film craftsmanship we should all be celebrating. - indieWire
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| Posted Feb 10, 2024
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War Game (2024) |
There’s a certain breed of political junkie who will be profoundly moved by the film, but that person already follows all of its “cast” members on Threads and has purchased 60 percent of their memoirs. Every scene simply preaches to the converted. - indieWire
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| Posted Jan 24, 2024
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10 Lives (2024) |
Even if some script and visual elements would surely have been smoothed over by a more conventional development process, the flaws add a human touch that makes the film strangely endearing. - indieWire
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| Posted Jan 21, 2024
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I.S.S. (2023) |
It comes with a level of absurdity that no self-respecting cinephile would tolerate in the other 11 months of the year, but could be exactly what you need to dull the pain of a painful NFL playoff loss. - indieWire
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| Posted Jan 19, 2024
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Frida (2024) |
"Frida" offers an addition to Kahlo’s legacy that was long overdue. While it’s far from a definitive study of her achievements, the film brings the painter back to life in a manner sure to initiate further study from fans and novices alike. - indieWire
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| Posted Jan 19, 2024
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Driving Madeleine (2022) |
While each flashback gets more and more grating, Line Renaud’s charm makes the present an increasingly welcoming place to return to. - indieWire
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| Posted Jan 12, 2024
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Your Fat Friend (2023) |
Your Fat Friend succeeds in offering a nuanced portrayal of a writer and the views that made her beloved. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that the film actively infantilizes the very demographic that it wants to elevate. - indieWire
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| Posted Dec 11, 2023
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Concrete Utopia (2023) |
While the film lacks the originality of many of the films it tries to emulate, it’s still a solidly crafted reminder of the absurdly tragic fate that our current housing system appears to be guiding us towards. - indieWire
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| Posted Dec 08, 2023
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Pianoforte (2023) |
The film’s greatest achievement is the way it highlights the joylessness that can emerge from devoting one’s life to the pursuit of perfection. - indieWire
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| Posted Dec 01, 2023
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