Rotten
| Rotten 58%
| Mammoth (2009) | "
English, Tagalog, and Thai are spoken in Swedish writer-director Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth, but he communicates only in the idiom of Crash and Babel: the Esperanto of feel-bad humanism." — Village Voice Posted Nov 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| The Blind Side (2009) | "
In every scene, Oher is instructed, lectured, comforted, or petted like a big puppy; he is merely a cipher." — Village Voice Posted Nov 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 30%
| Women in Trouble (2009) | "
Women in Trouble awkwardly mixes blue material with sob stories." — Village Voice Posted Nov 10, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2009) | "
Offers a portrait of suppleness and agility -- not just that of the dancers' bodies, but also of the august institution of the title." — Village Voice Posted Nov 3, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 83%
| Endgame (2009) | "
The principals, especially Ejiofor, rise above the starchiness that often hampers portrayals of recent, monumental history." — Village Voice Posted Nov 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 69%
| (Untitled) (2009) | "
(Untitled) tries to reignite who-gets-to-call-it-art debates that haven't been taken seriously for at least a decade." — Village Voice Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 82%
| Black Dynamite (2009) | "
Nothing in Black Dynamite captures the exhilarating absurdity of Pam Grier hiding razors in her Afro in Coffy -- or the loony genre experimentation in Pootie Tang." — Village Voice Posted Oct 14, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | The Heretics (2009) | "
If Braderman's voice-over narration drifts into nostalgia for a lost utopia on occasion, the testimony of her interlocutors reminds us that even though consciousness-raising groups are a thing of the past, the spirit of the group is very much alive." — Village Voice Posted Oct 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 95%
| Good Hair (2009) | "
[A] breezy, superficial doc." — Village Voice Posted Oct 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 0%
| A Beautiful Life (2009) | "
Scream, smash, slap, cry, repeat. The only respite: fleeting scenes of Debi Mazar as a librarian, rocking a cardigan and reading glasses." — Village Voice Posted Sep 29, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 65%
| Coco Before Chanel (2009) | "
Aiming to be a tale of self-creation, Fontaine’s film more often plays as a dull romance, Chanel’s role as mistress somehow worthy of noble celebration." — L.A. Weekly Posted Sep 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| Love Happens (2009) | "
Burke’s hollow pop-psychspeak, lightly ridiculed at first, is wholly embraced by the film’s end, if not as adamantly as the outrageous product placements for Qwest and Home Depot." — L.A. Weekly Posted Sep 17, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 95%
| 35 Shots of Rum (2009) | "
The most adult film of the year." — Village Voice Posted Sep 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 62%
| Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself (2009) | "
If the Atlanta impresario is just bored with cranking out two adaptations a year of his earlier stage work, the audience is getting restless, too." — Village Voice Posted Sep 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 0%
| Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) | "
Lang's film, the last he made in the U.S., exposed the immorality of the death penalty; Hyams's retread offers only more plot and longer, louder car chases." — Village Voice Posted Sep 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 84%
| The September Issue (2009) | "
Wintour's arctic imperiousness has a way of creating the most masochistic deference, a dynamic that R.J Cutler superficially explores -- and becomes prone to -- in his documentary The September Issue." — Village Voice Posted Aug 25, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 49%
| Taking Woodstock (2009) | "
Taking Woodstock does nothing more than recycle the same late-'60s tropes seen countless times since the Carter administration." — Village Voice Posted Aug 25, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 70%
| My One and Only (2009) | "
Occasionally diverting but ultimately forgettable." — Village Voice Posted Aug 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 16%
| Spread (2009) | "
Spread becomes a sloggy, tepid comeuppance tale." — Village Voice Posted Aug 12, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 80%
| Earth Days (2009) | "
There's great archival footage (those anti-pollution PSAs with Iron Eyes Cody from the '70s remain quite powerful)." — Village Voice Posted Aug 11, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Bliss (2007) | "
Bliss creakily illustrates the clash between ancient, abhorrent custom and modernity." — Village Voice Posted Aug 4, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 95%
| In the Loop (2009) | "
Though hilarious, In the Loop is also a horror movie, its lacerating satire constantly reminding us of the all-too-real consequences of distorted, manipulated, and vitiated language." — Village Voice Posted Jul 21, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 33%
| Paraiso Travel (2009) | "
Paraiso Travel plays its immigrant song with only one chord." — Village Voice Posted Jul 21, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| Mississippi Mermaid (1969) | "
Truffaut's frequently overlooked eighth feature isn't kid stuff." — Village Voice Posted Jul 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| Cheri (2009) | "
Pfeiffer, uncertain how to convey the older, wiser erotomane, resorts to sounding like Samantha Jones auditioning for Masterpiece Theater, her décolletage the only part of this movie getting any air." — Village Voice Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 84%
| The Windmill Movie (2009) | "
In finishing what was left undone, Olch's tribute to his mentor is more an act of hubris than humility." — Village Voice Posted Jun 16, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 76%
| Betty Blue (1986) | "
Curvy, ripe Dalle, only 21 at the time and in her first screen role, completely commits to the part." — Village Voice Posted Jun 10, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 81%
| Sex Positive (2009) | "
It helps that Wein's subject is such a fascinating, garrulous paradox." — Village Voice Posted Jun 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 84%
| Pontypool (2009) | "
For a film about the perils of too much talk, there's quite a lot of babbling presented as profundity." — Village Voice Posted May 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 87%
| Jerichow (2009) | "
Cain's novel, set in Depression-era America, finds a fitting update in the impoverished titular town of northeastern Germany." — Village Voice Posted May 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 55%
| Surveillance (2009) | "
Beneath the film's surface appeal as a twisty, morbidly funny freak-out lies a weightier theme on the resilience of children." — Village Voice Posted May 12, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 14%
| Powder Blue (2009) | "
Another Los Angeles-set multistrand drama "Crash"-es and burns." — Variety Posted May 12, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 24%
| Little Ashes (2009) | "
A typically bombastic lives-of-the-artists production made even more stilted by having all the actors (including the Spanish ones) speak accented English." — Village Voice Posted May 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 25%
| Jazz in the Diamond District (2009) | "
This cliche-ridden story of two sisters with artistic ambitions rarely rises above school-talent-show skill level and production values." — Variety Posted Apr 28, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) | "
Above all, it will make you long for a day when studio movies about relationships feel like they are by and for adults who have actually been in one." — Village Voice Posted Apr 28, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 62%
| Eldorado (2008) | "
Lanners's film is smart and confident enough to acknowledge that certain lives are dead ends, while others get tired of just spinning their wheels." — Village Voice Posted Apr 28, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| American Violet (2009) | "
A docudrama with a good heart but a heavy hand." — Village Voice Posted Apr 14, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 93%
| Sugar (2009) | "
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have transformed some of the saggiest, most clichéd genres with smarts, non-screechy politics, superb acting, and visual beauty." — Village Voice Posted Apr 1, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 59%
| Paris 36 (2008) | "
Assault by relentless accordion-playing, Paris 36 proves that sometimes, imitation is the highest form of flatulence." — Village Voice Posted Apr 1, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 52%
| American Swing (2009) | "
Though sweetly reminding us that some outer-borough suburbanites did find liberation at Plato's, the film tries -- and fails -- to swing both ways, nostalgically glorifying its subject only to smugly revel in Levenson's ignominious demise." — Village Voice Posted Mar 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 4%
| Miss March (2009) | "
Hugh Hefner shows up to give an addled lecture after Eugene and Tucker make it to the Playboy Mansion, and you think: Wasn’t it just last summer that he so sweetly played himself in The House Bunny?" — L.A. Weekly Posted Mar 19, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 78%
| Valentino: the Last Emperor (2009) | "
Tyrnauer's [film] extols Valentino's extreme lavishness as a kind of honorable, defiant stance (sneaking away to Gstaad as investment bankers take over his company), but demurs from searching for its subject's gravitas." — Village Voice Posted Mar 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| The Edge of Love (2009) | "
Occasionally, Angelo Badalamenti's fine score will pleasantly remind you of Mulholland Drive. Knightley and Miller's pseudo-sapphic tub-splashing will not." — Village Voice Posted Mar 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 20%
| Bob Funk (2009) | "
[Bob Funk] insists that we find charm in its protagonist's most odious behavior." — Village Voice Posted Mar 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| The Edge of Love (2009) | "
Director John Maybury showed a defter hand with the artist biopic in his 1998 Francis Bacon film, Love Is the Devil." — L.A. Weekly Posted Mar 12, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| Leave Her to Heaven (1945) | "
Tierney's Ellen Berent [is] one of cinema's most chilling psychopaths." — Village Voice Posted Mar 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 20%
| Bob Funk (2009) | "
Movies -- especially inconsequential, earnest comedies like Bob Funk -- about how people “achieved” their sobriety — are as fascinating as listening to people recount the plot of their dreams." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 26, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 28%
| Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail (2009) | "
As ridiculous as his films frequently are, Perry, a shrewd yet benevolent showman, knows and loves his audience." — Village Voice Posted Feb 25, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 23%
| Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) | "
Confessions of a Shopaholic plays like both a supremely outmoded chick-lit adaptation and an outrageously obscene gesture as the economy continues to swallow up livelihoods, homes, and hope." — Village Voice Posted Feb 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 71%
| Our City Dreams (2009) | "
Like rushed gallery-hopping, Chiara Clemente's doc on five multigenerational, multinational women artists, all living in New York, provides only a cursory view of what's on display." — Village Voice Posted Feb 3, 2009 |
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