Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 38%
| Nine (2009) | "
Only in its second half does the film start to show a suggestion of coherence." Posted Dec 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 68%
| Sherlock Holmes (2009) | "
Guy Ritchie's Holmes reboot feels both too complicated and too elementary, dear Watson." Posted Dec 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 21%
| Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) | "
Every time an adult ended up in traction or broke wind, the three-year-olds in the audience were freshly ecstatic." Posted Dec 23, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 96%
| Big River Man (2009) | "
An odd and irresistible documentary about Slovenian strongman Martin Strel and his quest, at 52, to be the first man to swim 5,268 kilometres of the Amazon River." Posted Dec 18, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 82%
| Broken Embraces (2009) | "
While Cruz acquits herself capably, this is, necessarily, an exercise in virtuosic superficiality." Posted Dec 18, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 13%
| Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009) | "
If you are expecting a pleasant evening of escapism, you will be cruelly fooled. The editor responsible for the trailer is clearly a genius." Posted Dec 18, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 76%
| Invictus (2009) | "
The story of how Nelson Mandela chose the white-supported national rugby team, the Springboks, to become a symbol of national reconciliation is uncharacteristically optimistic for Eastwood." Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 82%
| Me and Orson Welles (2009) | "
The very name Orson Welles stands for genius wasted and betrayed, and the movie offers some foreshadowing of his triumphs and failures to come." Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 84%
| The Princess and the Frog (2009) | "
Randy Newman provides the score, which, if short of memorable tunes, is rich in authenticity, with a mixture of local flavoured ragtime, zydeco and jazz." Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 57%
| Brothers (2009) | "
An almost-good movie weakened by its desire to have a major impact, as melodramatic material is heated to boiling over." Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 68%
| The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) | "
Awkward in ways both intended and not." Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 6%
| Old Dogs (2009) | "
The timing of the comic set-ups is consistently amateurish, as if scenes were edited with hedge clippers, with the actors mugging frantically, waiting for the take to end." Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 93%
| Mary and Max (2009) | "
The mixture of artistic sophistication and emotional crudeness cancel each other out." Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 28%
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) | "
Weitz is more awkward than Hardwicke with the casual teenaged interactions. Melissa Rosenberg's dialogue hasn't improved, though she gets a boost by using quotes from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet." Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Rotten 0/4
| Rotten 22%
| I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (2009) | "
Nominally a gross-out guy-bonding comedy, the film often feels like an attempt to establish an insanity motive for some future crime." Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 60%
| Pirate Radio (2009) | "
Forty years ago, they couldn't get these songs on the radio; now we can't get them off." Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| N/A | When We Were Boys (2009) | "
If not revelatory, the film is consistently engrossing, a smartly edited sequence of scenes over the course of a couple of years that reveal the pangs of adolescence in the context of social privilege." Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 16%
| Gentlemen Broncos (2009) | "
There's a lesson behind Gentlemen Broncos, the new film from director Jared Hess: Don't try to mock above your talent level." Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 54%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
If this is what a Hollywood liberal conscience looks like, it's a glib and useless thing." Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 25%
| The Collector (2009) | "
Watching The Collector becomes an experience not so much of dread as big virtual ouches." Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 87%
| Amreeka (2009) | "
A feel-good comedy about a Palestinian mother who moves to rural Illinois with her teenaged son, Amreeka is a kind of stealth political film that confronts issues of ethnic tension and American xenophobia." Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 80%
| Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009) | "
Without either the effect of a full concert spectacle, or up close and personal backstage intimacy, This Is It is neither one thing nor the other." Posted Oct 28, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 84%
| The September Issue (2009) | "
Grace, the movie implies, is the genius behind what Vogue really sells, which is romantic aspirational fantasies for women." Posted Oct 23, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 94%
| An Education (2009) | "
An Education is, as the title suggests, about Jenny exploring her own desires and shortfalls, and it's too smart a film for easy answers." Posted Oct 23, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| N/A | Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam (2009) | "
The film follows the history of a hybrid cultural movement inspired by a novel." Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| N/A | Eating Buccaneers (2009) | "
Feels less like a satire than a rudimentary sitcom in search of a laugh-track." Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 92%
| Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009) | "
Charming." Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 73%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
Wild Things, you do not make my heart sing." Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| N/A | Cairo Time (2009) | "
Though the aim is subtlety, Cairo Time often seems to be making too much of too little." Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 96%
| Crude (2009) | "
A legal thriller, it's a three-year investigation into the disaster environmentalists call the “Amazonian Chernobyl” that offers both sides of the story and leaves the viewer in the position of jury." Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 74%
| Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) | "
As a filmmaker creating a product for a marketplace, supported by profit-seeking investors, he obviously has some comfort level with capitalism in the sense of doing business." Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 83%
| Whip It (2009) | "
Boisterous, cloying, simultaneously raunchy and innocent, hip and klutzy." Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 57%
| The Invention of Lying (2009) | "
The result is an erratically funny but often frustrating comedy, with an interesting premise hobbled by internal inconsistencies and uneven writing." Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 72%
| The Boys Are Back (2009) | "
On the tougher side are Allan Cubitt's script, which is good-natured but doesn't idealize any character, and the prickly honesty of Owen's performance." Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 78%
| It Might Get Loud (2009) | "
The trouble is, once you get past the historical information and chummy interviews, you have to put up with the inevitable risk of any ad-hoc jam session: It Might Get Boring." Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 40%
| Surrogates (2009) | "
Do the actors sound so robotic because they are playing robots well or humans badly? And did a machine write this dialogue? If so, could we please apply for an upgrade?" Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 77%
| The Informant! (2009) | "
A bait-and-switch film that promises caper comedy with silly hair and dated-fashion costumes, and ends up with something that's much weirder -- a marshmallow-light corporate satire." Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| N/A | A Prophet (2009) | "
Audiard's sensationally directed set pieces and the quietly compelling performance by Rahim hold interest throughout" Posted Sep 14, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 92%
| Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009) | "
Raw, moving and somewhat akin to having a piano dropped on your head, Precious is a fable of abuse and redemption." Posted Sep 14, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 50%
| Hadewijch (2009) | "
In the tradition of Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson and Ingmar Bergman, Hadewijch is about the dilemma of modern spirituality." Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 88%
| The White Ribbon (2009) | "
Haneke (Code Inconnu, Caché) once more probes hidden evil behind apparently well-ordered lives." Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 63%
| Extract (2009) | "
Mocking an officious middle-manager is always fair game; ridiculing blue-collar workers who resent their mindless jobs just feels mean." Posted Sep 4, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| N/A | Black (2009) | "
The kind of movie you have to respect for doing what it sets out to do." Posted Aug 28, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 56%
| Enlighten Up! (2009) | "
What's Rosen's dating life got to do with yoga? Nothing really, beyond a director's last-ditch attempt to show dramatic tension in her film before it peters out into inconclusiveness." Posted Aug 27, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| N/A | Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae () | "
What a delight it is to watch Jamaican musicians of the late sixties reunite for the film Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae." Posted Jul 27, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 14%
| The Ugly Truth (2009) | "
Contrived as a crossover between a female-friendly romantic comedy and a male-targeted, anti-political correctness jab, The Ugly Truth veers between crude and cloying." Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 87%
| 500 Days of Summer (2009) | "
The movie suffers at times from a surfeit of adorableness in its two leads, as well as clumsy voiceover narration and a general sense that the subsidiary characters have about as much edge as plush toys." Posted Jul 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 76%
| The End of the Line (2009) | "
Another day, another film about environmental collapse." Posted Jul 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 83%
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) | "
The experienced team behind the Harry Potter movie series is comfortably in the groove with the sixth film, which plays down the fantastic elements and introduces contrasting playful teenaged romance and a new tone of adult gloominess." Posted Jul 13, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 77%
| Valentino: the Last Emperor (2009) | "
Superficial but giddily entertaining." Posted Jul 10, 2009 |
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