Rotten
| Fresh 82%
| Avatar (2009) | "
The muscular, coming-atcha visuals trump the movie's camp dialogue and corny conception, but only up to a point." — Village Voice Posted Dec 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 40%
| The Lovely Bones (2009) | "
Part Disney's Alice in Wonderland, part Fritz Lang's M, the movie is horrific yet cloying, alternately distended and abrupt, sometimes poignant and often ridiculous." — Village Voice Posted Dec 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 90%
| Up in the Air (2009) | "
Like Juno, Up in the Air conjures a troubling reality and then wishes it away." — Village Voice Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 72%
| The Road (2009) | "
Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize–winning, Oprah-endorsed, post-apocalyptic survivalist prose poem... was a quick, lacerating read. John Hillcoat's literal adaptation is, by contrast, a long, dull slog." — Village Voice Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
What's mildly exasperating is that there is an actual quest involved: The Men Who Stare at Goats goes out to the desert in search of its tone—and never finds it." — Village Voice Posted Nov 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
Wild Things isn't overlong, but it is underwhelming." — Village Voice Posted Oct 14, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 78%
| Bronson (2009) | "
The kernel of an idea -- brutish antihero as irrepressible life force -- is trampled into dust by the showy Sturm und Drang of Refn's filmmaking." — Village Voice Posted Oct 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| Whatever Works (2009) | "
Whatever Works illustrates, even as it names, Allen's artistic limitations." — Village Voice Posted Jun 16, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 89%
| Moon (2009) | "
Impressively pulled together on a modest budget, Moon has a strong lead and a valid philosophical premise but, despite Bell's fissured psyche, the drama is inert. Ground control to Major Tom: Moon orbits an idea, but it doesn't go anywhere." — Village Voice Posted Jun 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Antichrist (2009) | "
Antichrist, which, above all, wants to make pain visceral, is less successful at projecting authentic experience -- the shock tactics are ultimately numbing." — Village Voice Posted May 27, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 14%
| The Informers (2009) | "
There's plenty of incident, but not much plot. As befits a tale of absolute self-absorption and unconscious revelation, The Informers often seems to be telling on itself." — Village Voice Posted Apr 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| The Feature (2009) | "
Auder's life is more interesting than his art." — Village Voice Posted Mar 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 64%
| Watchmen (2009) | "
Its failure is one of imagination -- although faithfully approximating Dave Gibbons's original drawings, the filmmakers are unable to teleport themselves to the level of the original concept." — Village Voice Posted Mar 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 83%
| Two Lovers (2009) | "
The performers are attractive if unconvincing. The auteur's worldview is unappealing yet authentically his." — Village Voice Posted Feb 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) | "
So embarrassing that, for the first time, I wanted to avert my eyes from the screen, although that might have also been because Repo! appears to have been shot with a cell phone." — Village Voice Posted Nov 5, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 61%
| Changeling (2008) | "
Image trumps performance." — Village Voice Posted Oct 22, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 69%
| Religulous (2008) | "
Religulous doesn't really go anywhere. It's ultimately a celebration of the old-time religion we call entertainment." — Village Voice Posted Oct 3, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Battle in Seattle (2008) | "
Townsend smothers any sense of global immediacy by covering the action with a frayed patchwork of melodramatic coincidences," — Village Voice Posted Sep 17, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 63%
| Hamlet 2 (2008) | "
Coogan will do anything for a laugh, and given how little he has to work with, he must." — Village Voice Posted Aug 19, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 37%
| Speed Racer (2008) | "
Ideologically anti-corporate, previous Wachowski productions aspired to be something more than mind-less sensation; Speed Racer is thrilled to be less. It's the delusions minus the grandeur." — Village Voice Posted May 7, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) | "
Unfortunately, nothing in Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo is funnier than its title." — Village Voice Posted Apr 23, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 80%
| Standard Operating Procedure (2008) | "
Since The Thin Blue Line's remarkable intervention, Morris's work has grown more public and more problematic -- lofty yet snide, a form of know-it-all epistemological inquiry." — Village Voice Posted Apr 23, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Boarding Gate (2007) | "
There's basically only one reason to see Olivier Assayas's self-consciously hypermodern, meta-sleazy, English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller Boarding Gate, and her name is Asia Argento." — Village Voice Posted Mar 18, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 51%
| Funny Games (2008) | "
Without ever acknowledging his own sadism, Haneke self-righteously lays his aesthetic and moral cards on the table." — Village Voice Posted Mar 11, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 79%
| Chicago 10 (2008) | "
However authentically chaotic, Chicago 10 is insufficiently frenzied. For all its shock value, the trial was not the only game in town." — Village Voice Posted Feb 27, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 37%
| Rambo (2008) | "
As the current obsession with Reagan suggests, it's back to fantasyland!" — Village Voice Posted Jan 29, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 53%
| The Walker (2007) | "
This is a serious movie and, gliding around the center of power, a stylish one. But, like its protagonist, The Walker is unable to close the deal." — Village Voice Posted Dec 4, 2007 |
Rotten
| Fresh 79%
| Jimmy Carter Man From Plains (2007) | "
A book tour isn't even a political campaign, and traveling with Jimmy Carter isn't exactly going backstage with the Rolling Stones." — Village Voice Posted Oct 23, 2007 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| September Dawn (2007) | "
September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials." — Village Voice Posted Aug 21, 2007 |
Rotten
| Fresh 77%
| A Mighty Heart (2007) | "
There's hardly a moment when Jolie is on-screen that you can't sense the presence of make-up artists and hair stylists hovering anxiously just off frame." — Village Voice Posted Jun 20, 2007 |
Rotten
| Fresh 69%
| Ocean's Thirteen (2007) | "
A spectacle blatantly predicated on a smug gaggle of mega movie stars in boss threads ostentatiously having fun by pretending to steal the house's money, while actually taking yours." — Village Voice Posted Jun 6, 2007 |
Rotten
| Rotten 41%
| The Wendell Baker Story (2007) | "
Low-key to comatose, Wendell Baker might have been improved were it shot in 16mm black and white." — Village Voice Posted May 15, 2007 |
Rotten
| Rotten 44%
| Fay Grim (2007) | "
With all manner of backstories and flashbacks jamming the road, the Posey-mobile starts to swerve and sputter and finally blows a tire." — Village Voice Posted May 15, 2007 |
Rotten
| Fresh 66%
| Jindabyne (2007) | "
A soberly, if sluggishly, crafted movie in which the bitterness never stops." — Village Voice Posted Apr 24, 2007 |
Rotten
| Fresh 93%
| The Lives of Others (2006) | "
The Lives of Others is a compelling thriller but an unsatisfying character drama." — Village Voice Posted Feb 6, 2007 |
Rotten
| Fresh 83%
| Shockproof (1949) | "
A cheap 79-minute time-waster that's all business ..." — Village Voice Posted Jan 25, 2007 |
Rotten
| Fresh 69%
| Alone With Her (2007) | "
As the voyeur manages to enter the Amy Show, Nicholas uses this ontological shift as the basis for a 'real' movie of his own, effectively liquidating the original premise." — Village Voice Posted Jan 9, 2007 |
Rotten
| N/A | Something Wild (1961) | "
The movie's uneasy blend of symbolism and naturalism might have worked better onstage." — Village Voice Posted Dec 29, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 32%
| The Good German (2006) | "
The Good German is seriously deficient in the stars' star power and narrative excitement. The movie is lovingly framed, carefully lit, and fatally insipid." — Village Voice Posted Dec 12, 2006 |
Rotten
| Fresh 64%
| Apocalypto (2006) | "
Apocalypto is unburdened by nationalist or religious piety -- it's pure, amoral sensationalism." — Village Voice Posted Dec 5, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 51%
| The Fountain (2006) | "
The premise is lachrymose, the sets are clammy, and the metaphysics all wet. The screen is awash in spiraling nebulae and misty points of light, with the soundtrack supplying appropriately moist oohs and aahs." — Village Voice Posted Nov 21, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 31%
| Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) | "
You won't learn much about Arbus, aside from the correct pronunciation of her first name; you will get to see Kidman try (and fail) to find her inner freak." — Village Voice Posted Nov 7, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 37%
| Death of a President (2006) | "
There's a far more subversive political mock-umentary coming next week. I invite President Bush, Senator Clinton, and all politicians to get down with Borat." — Village Voice Posted Oct 24, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Tideland (2006) | "
Gilliam has suffered more than his share of butchered projects, but with this exercise in kamikaze auteurism, he appears to have made exactly the mess he wanted." — Village Voice Posted Oct 10, 2006 |
Rotten
| Fresh 92%
| The Departed (2006) | "
Neither a debacle nor a bore, The Departed works but only up to a point, and never emotionally." — Village Voice Posted Oct 3, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| The Black Dahlia (2006) | "
There are moments when The Black Dahlia projects a spectral world, but its ghosts in broad daylight are elusive at best." — Village Voice Posted Sep 15, 2006 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| The Girl Can't Help It (1956) | "
A veritable Parthenon of vulgarity and a supremely unfunny comedy that is pure eau de Fifty-Six." — Village Voice Posted Aug 22, 2006 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Lunacy (2006) | "
Connoisseurs of the disgustingly visceral will find Jan Svankmajer hardly mellowed at 72. Lunacy is dark, scary, and yucky -- even by the Czech animator's own standards." — Village Voice Posted Aug 12, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 55%
| The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) | "
There's no snake in Bettie's Eden and no narrative to Harron's movie." — Village Voice Posted Apr 11, 2006 |
Rotten
| Fresh 70%
| Friends With Money (2006) | "
Although the women provide the narrative's social glue, it's never clear how they formed their bonds. Rather than story, Friends With Money is founded on ready-made behavioral metaphors." — Village Voice Posted Apr 4, 2006 |
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