Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 89%
| Defamation (2009) | "
Even though Defamation, which is sprinkled with unexpected moments of wry humor, will be inescapably controversial, Yoav Shamir strives admirably to be evenhanded." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 23%
| Oh My God (2009) | "
Peter Rodger does a fairly comprehensive job of traversing the globe in 98 minutes, posing the age-old question, "What is God?"" — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 67%
| Storm (2009) | "
Storm is harrowing, provocative and deeply probing yet quite involving." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
— | Rotten 30%
| Women in Trouble (2009) | "
Women in Trouble has sleeper written all over it and a sequel is already in the works." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
— | Rotten 45%
| Turning Green (2009) | "
An amusing Irish coming-of-age comedy set in 1979." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 93%
| The Wedding Song (2009) | "
With intimacy and sensuality, Albou explores what it means to be a woman and the bonds that women form with each other in an increasingly precarious situation." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| N/A | The Fall (2009) | "
With The Fall, writer-director John Krueger buries a promising neo-noir plot with ponderous pacing and uneven performances and dialogue." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 11%
| The Stepfather (2009) | "
The Stepfather is that rarity, an effective remake of a screen classic that can stand alone on its own considerable merits." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 18, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 20%
| Eating Out: All You Can Eat (2009) | "
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat is just as silly and tedious as the first two unconnected tales of young gay love -- but lots worse." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| N/A | Warning!!! Pedophile Released (2009) | "
An ambitious and powerful experimental film written by its stars Kai Lanette and Shane Ryan, and directed, photographed and edited by Ryan." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| N/A | Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story (2009) | "
Sarah Townsend's Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story illuminates the life and career of the protean, gender-bending comedian-actor through an astonishing collection of footage." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 29%
| Free Style (2009) | "
The movie revels in that kind of good-natured, sitcom-style corniness." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Fresh 5/5
| Fresh 95%
| 35 Shots of Rum (2009) | "
One of the best films of the year." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 92%
| Mary and Max (2009) | "
Remarkable and poignant..." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 22%
| I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (2009) | "
When it comes to rowdiness and raunch, it's right up there with Animal House and Porky's -- and beyond -- but the writers and director Bob Gosse know how to turn excess, self-indulgence, selfishness and chauvinism back on itself with blowtorch impact." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| N/A | Evangalion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone (2007) | "
Despite largely effective English dialogue that allows key characters to acquire dimension, the plot is hard to follow, especially early on. Yet the film pulls you in as it explores Shinji's perplexing dilemma and his maturing." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 67%
| The Bluetooth Virgin (2009) | "
It's not too much to hazard that Billy Wilder would have enjoyed The Blue Tooth Virgin." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 100%
| You, the Living (2009) | "
You, the Living suggests that we would do well to discover the joy we find in each other that so often goes along with the pain." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 23%
| Sorority Row (2009) | "
It lapses into that familiar category of movies that go in for lots of fancy obfuscation along the way only to make its story seem all the more simple, trite and contrived by the finish." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 14, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Fresh 71%
| White on Rice (2009) | "
Wan, trite and increasingly silly." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 33%
| Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha (2009) | "
Sadly, Confessions, based on a graphic novel and a play, seems a collection of parts rather than a whole, but some of those parts are affecting." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 4, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 91%
| Cloud 9 (2009) | "
Manages to be vital, wrenching and even humorous yet does not deny the omnipresence of mortality." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 28, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| N/A | Orgies and the Meaning of Life (2008) | "
[This] film is not even remotely amusing or the least involving and is instead lifeless and relentlessly tedious." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 28, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 56%
| Casi Divas (2009) | "
A comedy with just the right blend of satire, social comment, myriad complications, romance and heart-tugging to give it some deft shading and variety." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 21, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 81%
| Beeswax (2009) | "
Bujalski is very much interested in how people -- in his instance, quite intelligent, civilized and articulate twentysomething individuals -- cope with life's everyday challenges, finding naturalistic drama in what may initially seem pedestrian." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 21, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 100%
| Heart of Stone (2009) | "
Heart of Stone is a portrait of a dedicated man -- smart, articulate, strong and tough-minded yet warm and compassionate, willing and able to reach out and communicate with his students on an individual basis." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Fresh 5/5
| Fresh 80%
| Taxidermia (2009) | "
Taxidermia is a brilliant, often grotesquely bizarre allegory on life in Hungary from World War II to the present, a surrealist fantasy exploring the limits of the body and its desires and altogether a darkly funny comedy." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| N/A | El Tinte de la Fama () | "
Bellame Palacios has visual flair and inspires affection for his emotion-charged characters -- even for Arturo, to whom desperate straits quickly inspire desperate measures yet who comes to discover just how much he loves his wife." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 7, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 36%
| Local Color (2009) | "
Kriter-director George Gallo has given the stocky, ever-commanding Mueller-Stahl a heroic, bravura role and has been rewarded by the actor with a towering, complex portrayal that is surely among his finest." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 85%
| Lorna's Silence (2009) | "
Lorna's Silence is a gritty, deceptively low-key, no-fuss, no-frills movie of consistent originality and surprise in which suspense arises straight up from the heroine's evolving character." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Fresh 4.5/5
| Fresh 65%
| Adam (2009) | "
Adam is a most welcome summer treat." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 29, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| N/A | American Cowslip (2009) | "
An ambitious but misfired comedy about an agoraphobic junkie." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 29, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| N/A | The Queen and I (2009) | "
[A] captivating, unexpected documentary." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| N/A | Poker House (2009) | "
Regardless of whether the film is all fiction or all true or a mix, it has a ring of truth about it strong enough to sustain a defy-all-odds finish." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 86%
| Tony Manero (2009) | "
Larrain evokes the bleakness and oppressiveness of life in a police state with much subtlety even as he poses a much larger question about cultural imperialism." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 29%
| Severed Ways (2009) | "
Stone's admirable and persuasive evocation is unfortunately marred by his self-defeating resort to flurries of claustrophobic, fragmented hand-held shots that obfuscate just about every crucial plot development in the film." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 84%
| The Windmill Movie (2009) | "
Olch doesn't make it easy to identify with Rogers and his stylish existence, but that choice begins to pay off gradually as the fragments start to add up to something more." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 1, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 54%
| The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009) | "
Goes well beyond its angry didacticism and its specific indictment of men's oppression of women to achieve the impact of a Greek tragedy through its masterful grasp of suspense and group psychology, and some superb acting." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 1, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 81%
| Sex Positive (2009) | "
Daryl Wein calls attention both to unjustly neglected pioneering AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz and his still widely ignored groundbreaking promotion of safe sex." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 80%
| Daytime Drinking (2008) | "
Young-seok Noh's Daytime Drinking is a droll minimalist comedy with major insights that has been understandably heralded as a breakthrough in independent filmmaking in Korea." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Fresh 4.5/5
| Fresh 96%
| Burma VJ (2009) | "
Burma VJ -- for video journalist -- is filmmaking at its most fearless, with [director] Ostergaard creating a suspenseful, harrowing account of his original key subject, known only as 'Joshua.'" — Los Angeles Times Posted May 29, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 88%
| The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story (2009) | "
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story is, above all, a loving salute from sons to their accomplished fathers." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 21, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 87%
| Jerichow (2009) | "
Petzold, who has a crisp style and sharp sense of the visual, is too talented and imaginative to allow his film to become predictable." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 15, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 63%
| Newcastle (2009) | "
A beautiful film, charged with energy and sensitivity." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 1, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| N/A | Everybody Dies (2007) | "
Less is famously said to be more, but sometimes it's simply not enough." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 1, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Fresh 63%
| Lifelines (2009) | "
Lifelines is an insufferably over-familiar take on angst in affluent suburbia." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 23, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 59%
| Paris 36 (2008) | "
An irresistible and impeccable period musical set against the political and economic turmoil of France in the mid-'30s." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 78%
| Three Monkeys (2009) | "
Unpredictable and gratifying." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 27, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 92%
| Tokyo Sonata (2009) | "
So strong a director is Kurosawa that he not only can get away with piling on disasters but makes his picture all the more powerful as a result." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 27, 2009 |
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