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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The longest, and last, of the Maze Runner films puts its bland teen heroes through the usual paces, but there are enough strong character actors around to keep things interesting. -
Paul Thomas Anderson's film about a London dressmaker in the 1950s is "a rare combination of audacity and precision, impeccably tailored yet full of mystery and magic," says critic Scott Tobias. -
"It may be style over substance," says critic Scott Tobias of this spy thriller starring a butt-kicking Charlize Theron, "but wow what style!" -
Meanwhile, Back at the Raunch: This tale of four women letting loose in the Big Easy hits familiar beats, but Tiffany Haddish's "incandescently filthy" turn as Dina proves a revelation. -
In writer-director Marti Noxon's drama, a young woman (Lily Collins) battles anorexia at an in-patient facility. The film, rounded out by a great cast, offers a knowing, intimate take on the disease. -
War Machine,a Netflix production based on a book about the drawn-out U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, suffers from a one-note Brad Pitt performance and a frustrating lack of focus. -
Based on Nicola Yoon's YA novel, Everything, Everythinghas some of the ingredients it needs to be satisfying, but the way it uses illness only as a plot device makes that satisfaction elusive. -
This unexceptional documentary about an exceptional chef — the chief innovator of California cuisine — dutifully traces his rise and self-imposed exile, but leaves the viewer hungry. -
"Go, Go Power Rangers!" - but should you? The film's playful, earnest tone and "gung-ho chintziness" slowly won critic Scott Tobias over. -
Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson deliver strong performances, but director Vincent Perez's staid historical drama swathes its subjects' radical actions in too much art-house-reverence.
