Fresh B+
| Fresh 83%
| A Town Called Panic (2009) | "
It’s more clever than funny, but it’s very clever." — AV Club Posted Dec 17, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 38%
| My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (2009) | "
Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether My Son is a terrible, terrible movie or an uncompromising Herzog experiment in reality-bending. Here’s a suggestion: consider the track record." — AV Club Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Rotten C-
| Fresh 63%
| Loot (2009) | "
Undoubtedly, everything documentarian Darius Marder shows in his debut film Loot actually happened, but Marder’s approach to this “truth is stranger than fiction” story is so forced that the movie feels phony." — AV Club Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 79%
| Before Tomorrow (2009) | "
It’s set in a forbidding landscape at a dangerous time, and Cousineau and Ivalu show how companionship and shared tradition can go a long way toward sustaining people even in the face of personal devastation." — AV Club Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 68%
| The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) | "
For a movie about the unpredictability of life, Pippa Lee plays it awfully safe." — AV Club Posted Nov 24, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Rotten 50%
| Antichrist (2009) | "
Antichrist is a boldly personal film, tossing all von Trier’s ideas about faith, fear, and human nature into an unfettered phantasmagoria, full of repulsive visions and fierce scorn." — AV Club Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 58%
| Mammoth (2009) | "
The movie lacks the personal touch that’s distinguished even Moodysson’s "difficult" films." — AV Club Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 73%
| William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (2010) | "
The major flaw with William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe is that it isn’t more personal." — AV Club Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 90%
| The Messenger (2009) | "
Many scenes in The Messenger feel merely illustrative, not designed to develop characters and story so much as to make the point, over and over, that the home front can be as harrowing as the front lines." — AV Club Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 92%
| Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009) | "
Precious punishes the audience with scene after scene of squalor and hopelessness, but like last year’s poverty-can-be-entertaining hit Slumdog Millionaire, it rewards them for hanging on ’til the end." — AV Club Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Rotten 54%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
It’s ... two-thirds of the way to being awesome. Had Heslov eased back a bit, Goats might’ve made it the rest of the way." — AV Club Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 87%
| The House of the Devil (2009) | "
From the opening statistic about documented instances of devil-worship, West aims for a mix of the plausible and the ridiculous..." — AV Club Posted Oct 29, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Rotten 47%
| Ong Bak 2 (2009) | "
The fight scenes are kinetic and varied, and pick up a unique flavor from the backdrop of meticulously recreated hillside villages." — AV Club Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 95%
| The Maid (2009) | "
Silva and Saavedra get across the ennui and irony of a woman who’s been working diligently for two decades, only to find that her closest human relationships are with people who hold her job security in their hands." — AV Club Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 62%
| Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution (2009) | "
Jaud isn’t telling a story so much as he’s making a case, and while his case is persuasive, it doesn’t really work as a movie." — AV Club Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 78%
| Bronson (2009) | "
The “doing crime for fame” theme is more than a little played-out, but Hardy’s so boisterous -- and Refn’s filmmaking so dynamic -- that it’s fairly easy to buy in to the inherent entertainment value of bloody fisticuffs." — AV Club Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 81%
| Araya (1959) | "
The movie is visually stunning, deploying fluid camerawork and stark black-and-white imagery to record the hardscrabble lives of Venezuelans living and working on a remote salt marsh." — AV Club Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 100%
| Passing Strange (2010) | "
Lee doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to filming live theater, but he moves the camera artfully and edits with an energy that matches the music. And he makes good use of close-ups, capturing the sweaty faces of a troupe of remarkable performers." — AV Club Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 50%
| An American Journey (2009) | "
An American Journey is short and scattered, and doesn’t follow through often enough on its “catching up with The Americans 50 years later” premise." — AV Club Posted Oct 1, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 87%
| A Serious Man (2009) | "
A Serious Man is wholly a Coen brothers movie, in that it’s full of exaggerated characters and comic cruelty, anchored to a way of looking at the world that seems to posit a fundamental absence of meaning." — AV Club Posted Oct 1, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 74%
| Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) | "
Capitalism is intended to convince Americans that they’ve bought into an economic system designed to screw them over, but the tone is so smart-ass that it’s bound to put a lot of viewers into a default defensive posture." — AV Club Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Rotten 41%
| Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009) | "
Krasinski literalizes Wallace’s stylistic love of asides too much, but it helps that he’s aware enough of his movie’s limitations to keep Brief Interviews blessedly short." — AV Club Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 96%
| Crude (2009) | "
Crude is remarkably clear-eyed in the way it shows how even people on the right side of a cause only succeed if they’re willing to play a little dirty." — AV Club Posted Sep 10, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 71%
| Walt and El Grupo (2009) | "
Hardcore Disney fans will appreciate how serious-minded and intimate this movie is, but for others, Walt & El Grupo might feel like an expensive vacation slide show, assembled by strangers." — AV Club Posted Sep 10, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 87%
| Amreeka (2009) | "
It’s one of those movies that plays to the cheap seats, making the racism bigger, the assimilation process rougher, and the family squabbles extra-broad, lest viewers miss the point." — AV Club Posted Sep 3, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 83%
| We Live in Public (2009) | "
On that count, Timoner is correct: Harris is unduly obscure. But was what he accomplished really all that great?" — AV Club Posted Aug 27, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 87%
| Big Fan (2009) | "
The movie concludes with a series of tense, unpredictable scenes. Isn’t that why we love sports so much, because we never know what will happen?" — AV Club Posted Aug 27, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 80%
| Taxidermia (2007) | "
Taxidermia is frequently funny, for those who can stomach it." — AV Club Posted Aug 20, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 82%
| Earth Days (2009) | "
Once [director] Stone drops the generalities and starts getting specific, Earth Days improves considerably." — AV Club Posted Aug 13, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 91%
| Cloud 9 (2009) | "
Apart from the ages of the protagonists, Cloud 9 is a standard-issue infidelity story, complete with dialogue like 'I didn’t want this, it just happened!'" — AV Club Posted Aug 13, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 72%
| I Sell the Dead (2009) | "
The movie goes out on a high, but until then, it plays almost like the pilot for a TV series. But it would be a good TV series." — AV Club Posted Aug 6, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 96%
| The Cove (2009) | "
The Cove offers a lot to think about in terms of the future of fishing, and Psihoyos’ gift for using fiction-feature conventions does make a seemingly unpalatable subject entertaining." — AV Club Posted Jul 30, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 93%
| Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2009) | "
Think of Not Quite Hollywood as a vividly illustrated catalogue of astonishing smut." — AV Club Posted Jul 30, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 86%
| Flame & Citron (2008) | "
Madsen’s action sequences are beautifully choreographed and shot, and the movie is packed with slick shootouts and narrow escapes, but it all lacks a certain oomph." — AV Club Posted Jul 30, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 92%
| The Way We Get By (2009) | "
The Way We Get By is neither pro- nor anti-war; it’s a somber study of perpetually unsettled lives." — AV Club Posted Jul 16, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 96%
| Somers Town (2009) | "
Shane Meadows has a rare ability to convey the drama and humor of everyday life in well-observed, well-acted scenes that rarely drag on interminably or try too hard to dazzle." — AV Club Posted Jul 14, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 92%
| Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009) | "
Unlike Kempner’s previous documentary, The Life And Times Of Hank Greenberg, his latest has too much 'life' and not enough 'times.'" — AV Club Posted Jul 9, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 97%
| The Beaches of Agnes (2009) | "
The Beaches Of Agnès is held together primarily by Varda’s wide-ranging interests and formidable storytelling skills. The movie is a digression built on a digression, branching near-infinitely." — AV Club Posted Jul 3, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Rotten 47%
| The Girl From Monaco (2009) | "
Fontaine puts a string of similarly striking images in succession, but they don’t really coalesce into a movie." — AV Club Posted Jul 3, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 100%
| Afghan Star (2009) | "
If nothing else, Afghan Star offers a reminder of how much has changed in Afghanistan from the late ’70s -- when Kabul was a secular-oriented city with co-ed universities and a thriving nightclub scene -- to the rise of the Taliban." — AV Club Posted Jun 25, 2009 |
Rotten D
| Fresh 84%
| The Windmill Movie (2009) | "
From the wall-to-wall piano score to Rogers’ tedious navel-gazing, The Windmill Movie renders prosaic and pretentious the churning conflict behind the process of artistic creation." — AV Club Posted Jun 18, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 81%
| Under Our Skin (2009) | "
Under My Skin is well-produced and engaging, but it’s also anecdotal and conspiratorial, and damnably non-confrontational." — AV Club Posted Jun 18, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 60%
| BLAST! (2008) | "
There’s a matter-of-factness to BLAST! that overcomes the documentary’s lack of one strong thread." — AV Club Posted Jun 11, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Rotten 56%
| Enlighten Up! (2009) | "
While Enlighten Up! is entertaining and provocative regardless, it’s too bad that Churchill was so focused on whether Rosen was having his preconceptions shattered that she never stopped to consider her own." — AV Club Posted Jun 11, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 89%
| Moon (2009) | "
Moon is enjoyable as much for its small scale and solid execution as for its crazy twists and creeping existential dread." — AV Club Posted Jun 11, 2009 |
Rotten D+
| Rotten 18%
| Downloading Nancy (2008) | "
A chilly, bleak film about characters so programmatic that their plight is easy to shrug off." — AV Club Posted Jun 4, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 89%
| Séraphine (2008) | "
Séraphine is far more powerful when it lingers on Louis at work. Her canvases -- mostly nature studies -- were cluttered with colorful shapes and filigree, clearly arranged by an obsessive personality." — AV Club Posted Jun 4, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 82%
| Pontypool (2009) | "
The film works as a tour de force for McHattie -- a veteran character actor making the most of his character’s long, fluid monologues -- and as a sly commentary on journalistic responsibility." — AV Club Posted May 28, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Rotten 11%
| What Goes Up (2009) | "
While it’s often as amateurish as it is assured, Glatzer and writer Robert Lawson want to convey so much that the sheer breadth of the movie means they hit a few of their targets." — AV Club Posted May 28, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 87%
| Jerichow (2009) | "
Jerichow’s sparseness, tiny cast, and minimal plot can make the film seem a little elusive, but there’s a certain elegance to Petzold’s concision, too. He shows all he wants us to see." — AV Club Posted May 14, 2009 |
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