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Joshua Polanski

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Joshua is a freelance film and culture writer based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His interests include the technical elements of filmmaking & exhibition, slow & digital cinemas, and cinematic sexuality. He writes a lot about non-English cinemas, and his column on Baltic cinema is the only column with regular coverage of Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian film in the English language.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Borderline (2025) EDIT “The distinctive geography makes it a perfect match for the gritty and ominous noir subject material. ” – Boston Hassle Mar 13, 2026 Full Review Fränk (2025) EDIT “Fränk is a difficult and dark watch, but seeing it a second time I was fixed by how much more hopeful it felt. Nobody is unlovable, not even the film’s worst offenders. The same scenes that frustrated me the first time, moved me the second.” – Boston Hassle Mar 13, 2026 Full Review Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart (2025) EDIT “Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart is a thematically rich film with no easy answers...In a world where simple narratives and social media platforms push black and white dichotomies, stories like this bring back nuance.” – Boston Hassle Mar 10, 2026 Full Review AURORA: What Happened to the Earth? (2026) EDIT “a boorishly conventional record of the final performance of her multi-year tour,” – In Review Online Mar 9, 2026 Full Review Cloak and Dagger (1946) 80% EDIT “Cloak and Dagger, in its original form, is best understood as a frightened warning against World War III more than a political commentary on World War II. We still need this warning. Fearfully so.” – Midwest Film Journal Mar 7, 2026 Full Review The Bluff (2026) 54% EDIT “Flowers’ approach to the industry of piracy de-romanticizes the rogue seafarers and uses grim social conditions to realize pirates that a smart viewer can root for without guilt or reprise. ” – In Review Online Feb 26, 2026 Full Review Moonfleet (1955) 64% EDIT “[One] reason why Moonfleet makes for a poor children’ s film is because of how terribly boring it is.” – Midwest Film Journal Feb 9, 2026 Full Review Worldbreaker (2025) 41% EDIT “Devoid of curiosity.” – In Review Online Feb 9, 2026 Full Review All That's Left of You (2025) 100% EDIT “The violence of history never becomes a dramatic spectacle; it stays a tragedy. ” – The Rapidian Jan 29, 2026 Full Review Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025) 100% EDIT “Sexuality, race, and even worker rights emerge as important sub-themes to gender equality and, more importantly, celebrating the undertold legacy of Lilith Fair.” – Offscreen Jan 15, 2026 Full Review 100 Sunset (2025) EDIT “100 Sunset tenderly wanders the tight-knit world of Tibetan Ontario. Kunsang Kyirong, the film’s director and a Tibetan-Canadian herself, casts non-actors and lets the world enrapture viewers more than drama and intense emotion.” – Offscreen Jan 15, 2026 Full Review Youngblood (2025) 71% EDIT “Hockey is a game of geography, timing, and spatial relationships, though—and when the cinematography erases the relations of these things to each other, the sport ironically loses its watchability through its cinematization.” – Offscreen Jan 15, 2026 Full Review People We Meet on Vacation (2026) 76% EDIT “These two are one Christmas setting away from stumbling onto a full Hallmark set. ” – In Review Online Jan 14, 2026 Full Review The Great Flood (2025) 58% EDIT “A half-baked science fiction thriller” – In Review Online Jan 6, 2026 Full Review Clash by Night (1952) 61% EDIT “Simply serviceable as a scandalous seaside noir.” – Midwest Film Journal Jan 3, 2026 Full Review Stalker (1979) 100% EDIT “This self-restraint is alien to our present culture of instant gratification, and it’s also a lesson we could always hear again: we don’t always know what is best for ourselves. ” – The Rapidian Dec 30, 2025 Full Review Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) 66% EDIT “The incredible capstone to one of the finest sagas in blockbuster history.” – There Were No Gods Left Dec 16, 2025 Full Review No Other Choice (2025) 97% EDIT “It’s not Park [Chan-wook's] best. But Park is one of our very best. ” – There Were No Gods Left Dec 13, 2025 Full Review Good News (2025) 92% EDIT “Following suit with the slow Marvelization of the South Korean [film] industry, every 10 minutes requires a joke, which only functions to numb the thriller at Good News' core.” – In Review Online Nov 5, 2025 Full Review Yi Yi (2000) 97% EDIT “It’s an impossible task to summarize human life in three hours. And that’s why Yi Yi is often considered one of the greatest films ever made: because Edward Yang tests the impossible.” – Beam from the Booth (Substack) Nov 3, 2025 Full Review The Birds (1963) 95% EDIT “His bird attacks invite an array of valid interpretations, and anyone can well garner new theories ready to be applied to the classic. That’s the genius of the film: they all work and none of them work at the same time. ” – The Rapidian Oct 29, 2025 Full Review The Threesome (2025) 77% EDIT “The Threesome is thematically rich for a film with such a sultry premise.” – In Review Online Oct 2, 2025 Full Review One Battle After Another (2025) 94% EDIT “Maybe the personification of the crisis makes it easier to empathize. It also neutralizes the film’s ability to galvanize.” – The Rapidian Sep 30, 2025 Full Review Dead Lover (2025) 83% EDIT “ Even without the scratch-off cards that the audience can scratch and sniff during a film, the on-screen images are pungent on their own.” – Rue Morgue Magazine Sep 27, 2025 Full Review Karmadonna (2025) 60% EDIT “[Aleksandar] Radivojević has quickly established himself as one of the world’s most obscene filmmakers. If this appeals to you, you already know who you are. Everyone else should stay clear.” – Rue Morgue Magazine Sep 27, 2025 Full Review
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