Rotten
| Fresh 76%
| Daybreakers (2010) | "
Wearisome "Ain't it cool?" video-game splatter-violence is all that's memorable of the action, while a (mixed) metaphorical subtext of conservationism can't save a text that squanders its actors." — Village Voice Posted Jan 5, 2010 |
Fresh
| Fresh 86%
| Old Partner (2009) | "
One does leave with a rarely vivid sense of the grind of time, in work and marriage." — Village Voice Posted Dec 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 88%
| Crazy Heart (2009) | "
No scene feels obligatory, and Crazy Heart shows a pragmatic but tender understanding of the relationship between physical breakdown and the discovery of morality. It's merely a well-done, adult American movie—that is to say, a rarity." — Village Voice Posted Dec 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 97%
| His Girl Friday (1940) | "
The movie bears reviewing because there's always something new in the confetti of one-liners, while its depiction of the Fourth Estate remains relevant." — Village Voice Posted Dec 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Armored (2009) | "
Antal is never much beyond serviceable here, but he does make a chase-duel between two entirely identical armored cars almost decipherable, which is no mean feat." — L.A. Weekly Posted Dec 7, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Until the Light Takes Us (2009) | "
Until the Light arrives a decade too late to add much." — Village Voice Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 89%
| Gigante (2009) | "
With potentially lethargic materials, Biniez has made a quiet, intent, involving film, a moony-innocent urban alienation fairy tale of bashful ogre and village beauty--and it never quite crests." — Village Voice Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 20%
| The Strip (2009) | "
Could Dave Foley prostitute his talent to amuse any further without actually becoming a prostitute?" — Village Voice Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | Ward Six (1976) | "
Like the best adaptations, even its inventions are good." — Village Voice Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| Small Change (1976) | "
Gets at something meager and precious about childhood." — Village Voice Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 64%
| Missing Person (2009) | "
All of which is well and artsy, but doesn't diminish the sense, once the mystery has untangled, that the film has been gesturing toward a profundity that isn't there." — Village Voice Posted Nov 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 25%
| Staten Island (2009) | "
Throughout, first-time director DeMonaco shows a predilection for white-hot patches of lighting, squeezed close-ups, and actor overindulgence." — Village Voice Posted Nov 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 21%
| Oh My God (2009) | "
The drubbing score leaves one nearly insensate to the fact that Rodgers has nothing original or even interesting to say about his subject, flattening fine points of scripture to recommend interfaith group hugs." — Village Voice Posted Nov 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Splinterheads (2009) | "
It's another tale of an overgrown kid accepted for his sweet, stammering self and nurtured out of his cocoon." — Village Voice Posted Nov 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 45%
| Saw VI (2009) | "
If you haven’t followed the series up until now, there’s not much point in trying to catch up." — L.A. Weekly Posted Oct 29, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 87%
| The House of the Devil (2009) | "
Gravely gorgeous in the style of a storybook Snow White, Donahue gives eloquent reaction shots and nails West's pièce de résistance -- a bounding, Walkman-soundtracked, Jazzercise dance through the house." — Village Voice Posted Oct 27, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 21%
| Amelia (2009) | "
Period details, from 1928 to 1937, are so clichéd that someone might as well announce onscreen, "Gosh, these '20s certainly are Roaring!"" — L.A. Weekly Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 11%
| The Stepfather (2009) | "
The Stepfather is, finally, only as good as its stepfather -- and Dylan Walsh ain’t bad." — L.A. Weekly Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| Satantango (1994) | "
Its seven-hour runtime warns off dabblers, the one-screening-a-day bulk defies profit motive, and its protagonists -- Tarr's "poor, ugly, sad, and damned people" -- deny expectations of pleasure. It is also, at times, funny as hell." — Village Voice Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Couples Retreat (2009) | "
Couples, retreat." — L.A. Weekly Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 57%
| The Invention of Lying (2009) | "
Lying brushes more big ideas than commonplace comedies, but hasn't taken those ideas through enough drafts to work out their implications or -- harder still -- make them killingly funny." — Village Voice Posted Sep 29, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 70%
| Chelsea on the Rocks (2009) | "
Chelsea rambles -- and in a way that makes you want to move down the bar." — Village Voice Posted Sep 29, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| More Than a Game (2009) | "
Good game footage, a few clear looks at the kids behind it, but mostly as processed as Space Jam." — Village Voice Posted Sep 29, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| Intimate Enemies (2009) | "
With its sententious air of historical reckoning, Enemies is an impressive monument, but not a moving one." — Village Voice Posted Sep 29, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 81%
| The Horse Boy (2009) | "
A quest toward an inevitable inspirational destination, continuing the recent trend of using precious theater space as dumping grounds for a-cinematic PBS also-rans." — Village Voice Posted Sep 29, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| The Most Dangerous Man in America (2009) | "
It's a professional job, standing above the crowd of politico documentaries that proliferate like kudzu over arthouse screens." — Village Voice Posted Sep 16, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Paris (2009) | "
At a 124-minute runtime, though, the writer-director has stretched a wide canvas, and only sporadically found anything worth filling it with." — Village Voice Posted Sep 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 17%
| If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans (2009) | "
It does little to convince the unconverted of Tillmans's [genius]." — Village Voice Posted Sep 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 44%
| Jennifer's Body (2009) | "
Jennifer's Body seems designed more to be quoted than watched." — Village Voice Posted Sep 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| N/A | Skiptracers (2009) | "
A belly flop by any standard." — Village Voice Posted Sep 9, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 33%
| The Painter Sam Francis (2009) | "
The portrait of Francis doesn't articulate enough to explain the film's epic gestation period." — Village Voice Posted Sep 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 83%
| We Live in Public (2009) | "
What is disturbing is not Harris's self-absorbed insistence that his own emotional hobbling somehow reflects an overarching social-technological pattern, but, instead, Timoner's uncritical cinematic collusion." — Village Voice Posted Aug 25, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 33%
| Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha (2009) | "
There's a temptation to "give" this to Van Peebles, but any scene in which actors get to interact is deathly awkward, and 100 minutes should never feel this long." — Village Voice Posted Aug 18, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 85%
| World's Greatest Dad (2009) | "
Lands improbably on its feet after every reckless plot turn." — Village Voice Posted Aug 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 56%
| Casi Divas (2009) | "
A none-too-clever but hustling-to-please Mexican comedy." — Village Voice Posted Aug 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) | "
This thoroughness may impress fans of the bestseller source novel, but will disappoint anyone looking for transport from a movie -- being a time traveler's wife, it turns out, is mostly a drag." — Village Voice Posted Aug 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | Jonas Mekas - Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972) | "
The film's closing contrast, monastery libraries paired with a fire in Vienna, champions archiving as civilized resistance." — Village Voice Posted Aug 4, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| You, the Living (2009) | "
The actors' skin is zombie-palled with plastery powder, like a fallout of some unknown catastrophe -- and the film is aptly bookended by apocalypse, a dream-premonition that's called back as a punchline." — Village Voice Posted Jul 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 86%
| Lorna's Silence (2009) | "
If the Dardennes strip sentimentality from poverty, they also tend to strip subjects of their voices." — Village Voice Posted Jul 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 92%
| The Way We Get By (2009) | "
Gaudet has a hard time extending his material to feature length." — Village Voice Posted Jul 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| David Holzman's Diary (1967) | "
Holzman's a classic character, a sympathetic-if-pathetic study in generational solipsism, delivering imported French lyricism in clunky flatlands American -- miscast by himself in his own life." — Village Voice Posted Jul 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| My Sister's Keeper (2009) | "
Makeup department realism alone can't redeem the dramatic fallacies surrounding it." — Village Voice Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| Imagine That (2009) | "
If memory serves, kiddies like whatever movie you drop them off at but, for the record, Drop Dead Fred remains the vastly superior film." — Village Voice Posted Jun 10, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Drag Me To Hell (2009) | "
Raimi, ever the engineer, takes pleasure in screwing with audience identification, shifting between collaboration and contempt for our heroine." — Village Voice Posted May 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 86%
| Kabei: Our Mother (2009) | "
Old workhorse Yamada delivers the solar plexus emotional hit of a tragic telegram with precision that shows a lifetime's practice, turning Hallmarkisms sublime." — Village Voice Posted May 19, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 31%
| Terminator Salvation (2009) | "
The hardware is clanky, and runs on diesel." — Village Voice Posted May 19, 2009 |
Rotten
| N/A | Flower in the Pocket (2009) | "
You'd have to have an NPR tote for a brain to call this art." — Village Voice Posted May 6, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 79%
| An Unlikely Weapon (2009) | "
Aside from some misguided musical cues, this is solid work, if essentially PBS/American Masters material." — Village Voice Posted Apr 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 11%
| The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2009) | "
Devotees of Chabon will find particular points on which to disdain Thurber's treatment -- for the uninitiated, it's enough to feel the howling gulf between intention and what's actually on-screen." — Village Voice Posted Apr 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| Gigantic (2008) | "
I don't remember ever wanting to just haul out and punch a movie before Gigantic." — Village Voice Posted Apr 1, 2009 |
RSS Feeds