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Grant Watson

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Grant Watson is a film critic based in Melbourne, Australia. He currently reviews contemporary and classic film for his own website FictionMachine, as well as the film review websites FilmInk and VCinema. Between 2003 and 2009 he wrote the film column The Bad Film Diaries for the science fiction journal Borderlands; for which he was awarded the William Atheling Jr Award for Science Fiction Criticism and Review on two occasions. He has also previously worked as the screen events manager at Western Australia's Film and Television Institute, where he curated numerous film programs and retrospectives.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Heads or Tails? (2025) 87% 8/10 EDIT “John Ford’s seminal The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) famously claimed that ‘when the legend becomes fact, print the legend’. Head or Tails? plays beautifully in the liminal space between the two.” – Fiction Machine Apr 12, 2026 Full Review Rental Family (2025) 88% 7/10 EDIT “A satisfying, enormously watchable film, and only frustrates around the edges. Viewers are likely to come away with a better understanding of Japan’s distinctive, complex culture than they had when they started.” – Fiction Machine Apr 9, 2026 Full Review The Great Arch (2025) 88% 7/10 EDIT “There is an immediate expectation of a punchline to the joke, only that punchline never quite comes. Instead it is a case of absurdism without humour, and it leaves much of the film as something ambivalent and uncomfortable” – Fiction Machine Apr 6, 2026 Full Review Special Delivery (2022) 7/10 EDIT “Possibly not the most inventive of films, but it spins up near-guaranteed satisfaction for its target audience.” – Fiction Machine Apr 4, 2026 Full Review Rebirth of Mothra II (1997) 3/10 EDIT “Kids know trash when they see it, and with limited experience is cinema they deserve the best they can get. Rebirth of Mothra II should not just be a disappointment to them; it’s an insult to them as well.” – Fiction Machine Apr 4, 2026 Full Review Arachnophobia (1990) 94% 7/10 EDIT “In the middle of the Venn diagram between PG and horror, there is Frank Marshall’s 1990 film Arachnophobia.” – Fiction Machine Apr 2, 2026 Full Review Cruel Gun Story (1964) EDIT “A muscular, unrelenting film. The body count is high, and there is a strong sense of fatalism to its characters.” – Fiction Machine Mar 30, 2026 Full Review Sheena (1984) 11% 4/10 EDIT “About as close to an objectively terrible film as one could make: ridiculous, unbelievable, inconsistent, and weirdly cheap-looking while also visibly having had quite a lot of money spent on it.” – Fiction Machine Mar 29, 2026 Full Review Bugonia (2025) 87% 8/10 EDIT “The film is dominated by an unsettled tone, and an unwillingness to sit neatly with a single style.” – Fiction Machine Mar 27, 2026 Full Review Tora-san, His Tender Love (1970) 6/10 EDIT “Perhaps not quite as good as its predecessors, Tora-San, His Tender Love is still a charming and wholly satisfying light comedy with touches of drama and a beautiful showcase for late 1960s Japan.” – Fiction Machine Mar 25, 2026 Full Review Good Boy (2025) 90% 7/10 EDIT “The idea is a terrific one, and that unprecedented perspective alone is sufficient reason to give the film a try.” – Fiction Machine Mar 24, 2026 Full Review The Magic Faraway Tree (2026) 96% 7/10 EDIT “It does not reach the heights of Paddington 2 – what does? – but it does present an excellent all-ages fantasy comedy for the upcoming school holidays.” – Fiction Machine Mar 23, 2026 Full Review Wicked: For Good (2025) 66% 5/10 EDIT “Clumsy, oddly anticlimactic, and a solid half-hour longer than it needs to be.” – Fiction Machine Mar 22, 2026 Full Review Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026) 73% 6/10 EDIT “It’s pretty good, just not as good. If you enjoyed the first film, you will likely enjoy this – but maybe not quite as much.” – Fiction Machine Mar 18, 2026 Full Review Hero (1992) 68% 6/10 EDIT “It has decent elements and less effective ones and it hits the right note as often as it misses, but it remains a well-played comedy and has one of the pitch-perfect endings of its time. ” – Fiction Machine Mar 16, 2026 Full Review Step Lively (1944) 4/10 EDIT “There is a very quick way to review Step Lively, which is to note that it is a musical comedy where the songs are unmemorable and the comedy isn’t funny.” – Fiction Machine Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Sing a Bit of Harmony (2021) 100% EDIT “The result of all of this wild genre-blending is an anime that really stands out. It is not like anything I’ve seen before, and the originality of the piece makes it a film that gets better and better as it goes.” – Fiction Machine Mar 13, 2026 Full Review Higher and Higher (1943) 6/10 EDIT “It is all remarkably silly stuff, but is played with enthusiasm and good humour.” – Fiction Machine Mar 9, 2026 Full Review Summer Ghost (2021) 100% 7/10 EDIT “Very Japanese, and steeped in quite a bit of local folklore and tradition that domestic viewers probably accept without thinking about it.” – Fiction Machine Mar 6, 2026 Full Review Ani imôto (Older Brother, Younger Sister) (1953) 8/10 EDIT “In many respects it fits neatly into his broader oeuvre in the way that his female protagonists navigate their patriarchal environments. In other ways it is a genuine surprise.” – Fiction Machine Mar 5, 2026 Full Review Tora-San's Cherished Mother (1969) 8/10 EDIT “The first Tora-San was a wonderful and hugely enjoyable comedy. What is remarkable about the sequel Tora-San‘s Cherished Mother is that despite its truncated production and rushed release, it is actually the stronger film of the two.” – Fiction Machine Mar 4, 2026 Full Review The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) 29% 6/10 EDIT “While no forgotten classic, it is nonetheless an appealing caper with a lot more to recommend than to criticise.” – Fiction Machine Mar 3, 2026 Full Review V/H/S Halloween (2025) 90% 7/10 EDIT “A mostly wonderful collection of short works ranging from the effective to the ludicrous. ” – Fiction Machine Mar 1, 2026 Full Review Scream 7 (2026) 30% 7/10 EDIT “Neve Campbell is at a franchise-best here – as she should be, with 30 years of screen experience between the first Scream and the seventh. She represents the single-best reason to experience this latest sequel.” – Fiction Machine Feb 25, 2026 Full Review Fist Fight (2017) 25% 3/10 EDIT “If I ever hear Charlie Day ask "I’m sorry, what?" again in my lifetime, it will be too soon.” – Fiction Machine Feb 24, 2026 Full Review
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