Scott Tobias
Scott Tobias is the film editor of The A.V. Club, the arts and entertainment section of The Onion, where he's worked as a staff writer for over a decade. His reviews have also appeared in Time Out New York, City Pages, The Village Voice, The Nashville Scene, and The Hollywood Reporter. Along with other members of the A.V. Club staff, he co-authored the 2002 interview anthology The Tenacity Of the Cockroach and the new book Inventory, a collection of pop-culture lists.
Though Tobias received a formal education at the University Of Georgia and the University Of Miami, his film education was mostly extracurricular. As a child, he would draw pictures on strips of construction paper and run them through the slats on the saloon doors separating the dining room from the kitchen. As an undergraduate, he would rearrange his class schedule in order to spend long afternoons watching classic films on the 7th floor of the UGA library. He cut his teeth writing review for student newspapers (first review: a pan of the Burt Reynolds comedy Cop and a Half) and started freelancing for the A.V. Club in early 1999.
Tobias currently resides in Chicago, where he shares a too-small apartment with his wife, his daughter, two warring cats and the pug who agitates them.
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Director Peter Berg's movie about the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ratchets up the cinematic tension, but quickly devolves into rote disaster-movie cliches. -
A Disney film about a Ugandan girl who becomes a chess champion hits familiar beats but evinces a nuanced understanding of extreme poverty and the societal forces that reinforce it. -
A strong performance by Édgar Ramírez as the Panamanian boxer can't save a film that suffers from a lack of focus and thin characterization. -
The latest animated film from Laika Studios owes more to the emotional impressionism of Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki than the comparatively rigid and familiar story structure of Disney/Pixar. -
David Lowery's remake of a minor 1977 Disney feature improves on the original by dialing down the slapstick and dialing up the humanity — and the tears. -
Dianne Wiest and David Oyewolo work through grief and resentment in a plodding film our critic calls "an agonizing dirge." -
The plot's overstuffed, but whenever Ellen Page and Allison Janney share the screen, Tallulah finds its palpably human center. -
For Absolutely Fabulousto return as a movie 20 years after its sitcom phenom phase might seem absurd, but it's in line with the show's commitment to Patsy and Eddy's timeless lack of cachet. -
A new film imagines a dystopian future where feelings are forbidden — but never manages to generate an emotional response in the viewer. -
An animated animal version of Toy Storysounds like a good idea, but when the animals don't act like animals, the film runs low on inspiration.
