Ryan Bordow

Critic for AZ Big Media and member of the Seattle Film Critics Society. I don't log everything I watch.

Favorite films

  • Before Sunset
  • Meshes of the Afternoon
  • Holy Motors
  • Peeping Tom

Recent activity

All
  • Blow Out

    ★★★★½

  • The Creator

    ★★

  • Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar

    ★★★★½

  • A Haunting in Venice

    ★★

Recent reviews

More
  • Blow Out

    Blow Out

    ★★★★½

    Blow-Up had a photograph, The Conversation had a recording, and in Blow Out the protagonist melds sound and image, splicing the perfect format to sell our screams back to us. Dynamic, exciting score; weirder about women than it knows it is.

  • The Creator

    The Creator

    ★★

    Conceptually fertile but emotionally and thematically vacant. It looks and sounds nice—Edwards is adept at capturing scale—but it has next to nothing to say about AI, and due to its shortcuts through nuance and blank-slate protagonist, even less to say about being human.

Popular reviews

More
  • Oppenheimer

    Oppenheimer

    ★★

    A chaotic, behemoth bore. In its most compelling moments, it captures in sound and image the cosmological sin of harnessing nature for slaughter, but the rest is plodding, dry, sub-Sorkin morality politics without enough insight or complexity to avoid hagiography.

    Full review here.

  • Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

    Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

    ★★

    "No one is meant to be cared about here, not the hitman, his wife, nor their bodyguard, who are all separate incarnations of the same comic relief. Darius Kincaid: loud and abrasive, with a spoonful of Sam Jackson’s vulgar shtick. Michael Bryce: loud and abrasive, with a spoonful of Ryan Reynolds’ vulgar shtick. Sonia Kincaid: loud and abrasive, but she spews vulgarities that (men imagine) women use. The new guy played by Frank Grillo is the same exact character but with an Interpol badge. If you’re a fan of shouting swears and sex words, everyone in this movie has you covered."

    Full review: azbigmedia.com/lifestyle/review-hitmans-wifes-bodyguard-lacks-visual-thrill/

Following

115