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HOLY MOTORSMovie Reviews
French and English language drama about a shadowy character who frequently changes identities, accompanied by a woman driving a limousine that transports him around Paris. Cast:Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue, Michel Piccoli, Elise Lhomeau, Jeanne Disson, Cordelia PiccoliDirector:Leos CaraxRelease Date:October 17, 2012DVD Release:February 26, 2013From:Indomina ReleasingLength:1 hr. 55 min.
Holy Motors played in key cities to sensational reviews. • Patrick Z. McGavin wrote for Cinema 24/7, "...spellbinding, often extraordinary.... captures the poetry of terror with a foreboding visual acuity about collapse and disorder." • And Peter Keough wrote in the Boston Phoenix, "...the most brilliant and exhilarating film of the year." More Reviews Below...
Richard and Mary Corliss, Time: OUTSTANDING "...an exhilarating trip of movie madness and sadness.... runs mad, hysterical, naked through Hollywood and continental film tropes... explodes, exasperates, astounds..."(See all of Richard and Mary Corliss's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 790 words, 10/19/12
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...crazy-beautiful... everything is exactly as it should be in such an exhilarating puzzle, one of the grand cinematic eruptions of the year."(See all of Lisa Schwarzbaum's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 126 words, 10/26/12
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...wondrous and wicked... 'Holy Motors,' fueled by pure feeling, is a dream of a movie you want to get lost in. It's a thing of beauty."(See all of Peter Travers's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 320 words, 10/26/12
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...exasperating, frustrating, anarchic and in a constant state of renewal. It's not tame. Some audience members are going to grow restless. My notion is, few will be bored."(See all of Roger Ebert's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 602 words, 11/09/12
James Rocchi, MSN Movies: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...mixes compassion, chaos and comedy to startle us into seeing and celebrating how improbably lovely and sad our improbable lives on this unlikely planet are."(See all of James Rocchi's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 868 words, 11/08/12
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NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES/CHICAGO/TORONTO (12 Reviews)
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: OUTSTANDING "It's a gift for moviegoers to have this much freedom... you never know where Mr. Carax will take you and you never know what, exactly, you're to do once you're there."(See all of Manohla Dargis's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 939 words, 10/17/12
Miriam Bale, New York Daily News: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...autumnal and tragic, revealing that one of the hardest things about death is how it keeps coming -- relentlessly -- before one's own mortality arrives."(See all of Miriam Bale's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 137 words, 10/19/12
Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: EXCELLENT "...thrillingly outré... With his elastic physicality and fearlessness, Denis Lavant is 'what if' incarnate, digging beneath identities that are all too easily fixed."(See all of Sheri Linden's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 437 words, 11/16/12
Lou Lumenick, New York Post: MODERATE(cg) "...exhaustingly wacky... is the WTF ending scene -- in the garage that gives the film its title -- an homage to 'The Love Bug'?"(See all of Lou Lumenick's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 175 words, 10/19/12
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: OUTSTANDING(cg) "Lavant is splendid in the film, and he's essentially the entire film -- and yet, the movie is somewhat more than a contraption built for a fearless performer."(See all of Michael Phillips's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 500 words, 11/09/12
David Edelstein, New York Magazine: VERY GOOD "...confounding but on every level that matters a work of unfettered -- and liberating -- imagination... it emerges as a cry for intimacy..."(See all of David Edelstein's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 490 words, 10/15/12
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...exasperating, frustrating, anarchic and in a constant state of renewal. It's not tame. Some audience members are going to grow restless. My notion is, few will be bored."(See all of Roger Ebert's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 602 words, 11/09/12
Melissa Anderson, Village Voice/LA Weekly: OUTSTANDING "Unclassifiable, expansive, and breathtaking... if it is partly an elegy for cinema, it is also perhaps a melancholic glance back that draws from more personal anguish."(See all of Melissa Anderson's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 773 words, 10/17/12
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: OUTSTANDING(cg) "You must give yourself over to this film, even if you ultimately reject it... the most exhilarating cinema ride of 2012, a marvellously mobile mystery trip."(See all of Peter Howell's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 873 words, 11/16/12
Rick Groen, Toronto Globe & Mail: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...a potent display of imagination that cuts with its own double edge: Imagination can incarcerate and it can liberate."(See all of Rick Groen's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 728 words, 11/16/12
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...an electrifying, confounding, what-the-hell-just-happened exercise in unbounded imagination, unapologetic theatricality, bravura acting and head-over-heels movie-love."(See all of Ann Hornaday's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 545 words, 11/09/12
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: EXCELLENT(cg) "...nutty, beautiful... its audacity will leave you exasperated and thrilled, but not in equal measure.... features an amazing performance by Denis Lavant..."(See all of Bill Goodykoontz's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 460 words, 11/02/12
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: VERY GOOD(cg) "...ought to be seen to be believed, on the largest screen you can find... a vehicular picaresque that deserves a permanent parking spot in the Lynch-Cronenberg garage."(See all of Wesley Morris's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 804 words, 11/02/12
Stephen Whitty, New Jersey Star-Ledger: GOOD (NOT GREAT)(cg) "...a movie which can feel willfully obscurantist and deliberately disjointed. Some scenes go on for far too long, and the styles of the performers don't always mesh."(See all of Stephen Whitty's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 508 words, 10/19/12
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: VERY GOOD(cg) "...a thoroughly unclassifiable film... Cinema is full, life is empty. Cinema is easy, life is mysterious. Perhaps that's Carax's message. Whatever it is, he has our attention."(See all of Mick LaSalle's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 356 words, 11/16/12
Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...thrilling, disarmingly surreal... a prizewinner at Cannes... identities come and go for our bittersweet entertainment."(See all of Tom Keogh's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 306 words, 11/23/12
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: MODERATE(cg) "...so strewn with stalled ideas that audiences who care about character and plot are liable to take the exit to a movie that makes sense."(See all of Joe Williams's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 291 words, 11/30/12
Tom Long, Detroit News: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...a meditation on the bridge between reality and fantasy.... you're shaken, intrigued and reminded that art doesn't need to add up to be entrancing."(See all of Tom Long's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 491 words, 01/25/13
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: VERY GOOD(cg) "People who demand logic and narrative from their movies are better off staying away and perhaps hiding under their beds, just to be safe."(See all of Rene Rodriguez's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 500 words, 11/16/12
ALTERNATIVE/INDIE PRESS (8 Reviews)
Melissa Anderson, Village Voice/LA Weekly: OUTSTANDING "Unclassifiable, expansive, and breathtaking... if it is partly an elegy for cinema, it is also perhaps a melancholic glance back that draws from more personal anguish."(See all of Melissa Anderson's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 773 words, 10/17/12
Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...the most brilliant and exhilarating film of the year.... Denis Lavant delivers a tour-de-force performance that's on a par with Carax's."(See all of Peter Keough's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 373 words, 11/01/12
Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...electrifying... delightfully absurd... a bravura, go-for-broke exploration of what movies can do -- it is so thrillingly, defiantly alive... a visionary, jaw-dropping spectacle."(See all of Mike D'Angelo's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 1,002 words, 10/17/12
Chris Barsanti, Pop Matters: EXCELLENT(cg) "Whoever is acting, whatever Levant might put on, wherever that limo might take him, he both finds and conjures comedy, curiosity and a healthy dose of despair."(See all of Chris Barsanti's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 743 words, 11/01/12
Ed Gonzalez, Slant: GOOD (NOT GREAT)(cg) "...sets up a funny, anarchic, and self-referential tone... to quote Jonathan Rosenbaum on Buñuel's 'The Milky Way,' 'dangerously close to being all notations and no text'..."(See all of Ed Gonzalez's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 826 words, 09/19/12
Curt Holman, Atlanta Creative Loafing: EXCELLENT(cg) "...fascinating... Mesmerizingly strange, the film uses cinema as a distorted mirror to offer an enigmatic yet wise perspective on life and human nature."(See all of Curt Holman's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 545 words, 11/26/12
HIGHBROW PRESS (6 Reviews)
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: OUTSTANDING "It's a gift for moviegoers to have this much freedom... you never know where Mr. Carax will take you and you never know what, exactly, you're to do once you're there."(See all of Manohla Dargis's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 939 words, 10/17/12
David Denby, New Yorker: FAIR "...full of larks and jolts, but the movie is so self-referential that it's mainly aroused by itself. The audience, though eager to be pleased, is left unsatisfied."(See all of David Denby's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 453 words, 10/15/12
Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: EXCELLENT "...thrillingly outré... With his elastic physicality and fearlessness, Denis Lavant is 'what if' incarnate, digging beneath identities that are all too easily fixed."(See all of Sheri Linden's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 437 words, 11/16/12
Dana Stevens, Slate: VERY GOOD "...a movie that teaches you how to watch it as you go along... from sentimentality to bitterness to cheekiness to despair.... beyond weird, and beyond beautiful."(See all of Dana Stevens's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 1,035 words, 10/19/12
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon: OUTSTANDING "...mesmerizing... constantly surprising... the coolest and strangest movie of the year, and once it gets its druglike hooks in your brain, you'll never get them out again."(See all of Andrew O'Hehir's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 1,265 words, 10/18/12
MOVIE INDUSTRY (5 Reviews)
Rob Nelson, Daily Variety: VERY GOOD "...narratively unhinged, beautifully shot and frequently hilarious... coheres -- arguably, anyway -- into a vivid jaunt through the auteur's cinematic obsessions."(See all of Rob Nelson's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 710 words, 05/22/12
Megan Lehmann, Hollywood Reporter: EXCELLENT "Exhilarating, opaque, heartbreaking... a deliciously preposterous piece of filmmaking that appraises life and death and everything in between, reflected in a funhouse mirror."(See all of Megan Lehmann's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 579 words, 05/22/12
Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: EXCELLENT "...thrillingly outré... With his elastic physicality and fearlessness, Denis Lavant is 'what if' incarnate, digging beneath identities that are all too easily fixed."(See all of Sheri Linden's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 437 words, 11/16/12
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: OUTSTANDING "It's a gift for moviegoers to have this much freedom... you never know where Mr. Carax will take you and you never know what, exactly, you're to do once you're there."(See all of Manohla Dargis's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 939 words, 10/17/12
17.3 Percentage Points Average Difference Between Reviews (Norm is 18.4pp; <18.4pp = More Consistent; >18.4pp = More Mixed)
Holy Motors's reviews are separated by an average 17.3 percentage points. The norm for this measure is 18.4 percentage points. Less than 18.4 indicates more consistent reviews; greater than 18.4 indicates more mixed reviews. In the chart below, each dot represents a review, with the dots at the top more positive than the dots at the bottom. From left to right, the dots represent reviews in big, bigger and biggest publications. Roll over each dot for more detail.
Holy Motors (37 reviews) Roll over dots for each review
Coverage:Holy Motors's reviews cover 59.8% of potential readers (average is 67.9%). Volume:The film's reviews total 21,739 words involume (average is 20,172 words). Length:The film's reviews average 588 words in length (the norm is 517 words).
Reviews Broke 7 Days After Release (Norm is 1.2 Release)
Holy Motors's reviews on average broke 7 days after opening. Norm for this measure is 1.2 hours before. The chart below shows reviews on opening day and the days before and after opening; the left side is earlier and the right side is later. The red bars extending above the horizontal mid-line represent more positive reviews, and the red bars extending below represent more negative reviews. The white space/red bar in the middle is Holy Motors's opening day. Click on any bar for a list of the reviews for that day.
Holy Motors (37 reviews, click on bars for reviews)
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