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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
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) 58% 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) 68% 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) 80% 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) 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 Aki (2025) EDIT “Aki is a film of abundance... All [Darlene Naponse] needs for her documentary is this beautiful community, the land they live on, and her camera. ” – In Review Online Sep 25, 2025 Full Review Infinite Summer (2024) 88% EDIT “[Infinite Summer] perfectly fits into the contemporary Estonian film landscape with its ironic genre play, strange sexual verve, and popping embrace of quirky digital visuals.” – There Were No Gods Left Sep 25, 2025 Full Review Sholay (1975) 95% EDIT “Experiences like Sholay are why we go to the movies.” – There Were No Gods Left Sep 19, 2025 Full Review
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