Sean Patrick
Bio
Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.
Stories (1976)
Filter by community
Movie Review: 'Last Flag Flying'
Last Flag Flying is a rare movie. It’s a daring depiction of the aftermath of death in a modern war. It’s an exploration of the hearts and minds of the people left behind. It’s also a movie that feels at times as if it isn’t going particularly anywhere and manages past fits and starts to reach a deeply affecting end. It’s the kind of mainstream drama that you expect Richard Linklater’s idiosyncratic style might render inert in the same neutered manner of his mainstream take on The Bad News Bears.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
Movie Review: 'Good Time'
Why don’t I love Good Time? So many of my critical colleagues adore the film and yet I can’t see the full appeal. I love the look of the film, a grimy, color saturated chase through the underbelly of small-time Brooklyn crime, but the story just leaves me cold. Scene after scene I keep waiting for the film to find another gear and kick into the movie that so many of my colleagues have raved about and it just never comes. What I am left with is a fine looking movie with a terrific score that relies far too heavily on a contrivance-filled plot to get from one scene to the next.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
Movie Review: 'Dawson City: Frozen Time'
The awards season is an extraordinarily busy time for film critics. With hundreds of films big and small jockeying for our attention, it can be nearly impossible to get to everything. When you’re a critic who also has a day job, that task becomes even more daunting. That’s why I love year-end Top 10 lists. I follow as many as I can find from every place around the world so I can try to get to anything that deeply touched a fellow critic.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
The Top 10 Worst Movies of 2017
I realize that I should probably wait until I see Father Figures before I make my worst of year list (have you seen that trailer? Gah!), but I am going to take the risk. The 10 movies on this list set a very high bar for terrible that I feel good that nothing I see this year could possibly approach how awful these 10 movies are. This year I have seen two movies that are among the most inept, unwatchable movies that I have seen in nearly 20 years as a movie critic.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
Movie Review: 'Ferdinand'
Blue Sky Animation is the home of the truly mediocre in modern animation. The house that the awful Ice Age movies built is back again and apparently attempting to hide their latest bit of sub-par animation by opening Ferdinand opposite Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Smart move, Blue Sky. Burying Ferdinand is definitely the right call. No, the movie isn’t terrible, it’s just mediocre. And in a world where Pixar still rules, it’s not a bad idea to drop your more modestly ambitious products where few audiences will see it.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
Movie Review: 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'
The nostalgia is no longer mine when it comes to Star Wars. A new generation of fans has picked up the mantel and while I still have strong feelings for my childhood favorite film series, it no longer belongs to me and my generation. Star Wars: The Last Jedi affirms the fact that the franchise has transcended what George Lucas created and morphed into something new. Does that mean I didn’t enjoy it? No, it just means that all things pass and while Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a fine movie, it’s no longer something I have deep feelings about.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Futurism
The Shape of Water Dream Dance Is the Best Scene of 2017
The fantasy dance sequence in Guillermo Del Toro’s sublime, The Shape of Water, is the finest single scene in any movie in 2017. The scene begins with Sally Hawkins’ Elisa, just before she must deliver her new amphibian-man lover to the sea. Elisa is attempting to tell this creature, which likely cannot understand her beyond the most basic communication, that she is in love with him. Complicating things further is the fact that Elisa is mute.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
Movie Review: 'Just Getting Started'
Why does the movie Just Getting Started exist? Having seen this ghastly comedy, I can’t for a moment divine why anyone involved thought making this movie was a good idea. The jokes are creaky and unfunny; the story is past its sell by date and the direction is clumsy, bordering on amateurish? What type of blackmail was required to draw Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones to appear in this film? What kind of blackmail was required to get movie theaters to make space for this movie in the same month in which Star Wars The Last Jedi is being released?
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
Interview: Lady Bird Star Saoirse Ronan
This interview originally aired on WKAI FM Macomb, IL. Actress Saoirse Ronan is among the frontrunners to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards for her performance in Lady Bird. Written and directed by Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird stars Ronan as an iconoclastic teenage girl who clashes with her straight-laced mother, played by Laurie Metcalf, while trying to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her life. Ronan’s performance is remarkable in the way she transforms from a 24-year-old Irish woman into a 17-year-old from Sacramento with flawless detail.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
Movie Review: Gary Oldman Stunning in Darkest Hour
With the release of the movie Darkest Hour starring Gary Oldman, there has been a new reckoning with the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill, one that has brought to light some of Churchill’s more horrific qualities. On his podcast Revisionist History, journalist Malcolm Gladwell reflected on Churchill with specific criticisms about the legendary Prime Minister’s policies toward India, policies that many feel were driven by Churchill’s Hitler-like disdain for the Indian people. Then there was the policy of strategic bombing in Germany which may have actually extended the war by two more years even as Churchill is recalled as that war’s great, heroic leader.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
'The Shape of Water' Earns 14 Critics Choice Award Nominations
Nominations for the 23rd Annual Critics Choice Awards have been announced and it is a bonanza for Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water which earned 14 nominations including noms for Best Picture, Best Actress for Sally Hawkins, Best Director for Guillermo Del Toro, and many below the top line nominations. My favorite movie of 2017, The Big Sick, earned 6 much-deserved nominations including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Holly Hunter, and Best Original Screenplay for Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon’s lovely retelling of their true life love story.
By Sean Patrick8 years ago in Geeks
