Tomato |
Sangre de Mi Sangre (2008) |
"To write Sangre off as an unglamorous fairytale devalues what screenwriter/director Zalla achieves." |
Mark Peikert |
Splat |
Savage Grace (2008) |
"Neither savage nor graceful, Savage Grace’s creaky -- and creepy -- tale of mother-son incest doesn’t get the art-film benefit-of-the-doubt that led critics to acclaim Swoon." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
The Savages (2007) |
"Yu’s analytical documentary has an intentionally narrow view of human narratives, lumping together the misguided journeys of four men to highlight the conceptual parallels between them." |
Eric Kohn |
Tomato |
Save Me (2007) |
"Screenwriters Robert Desiderio and Craig Chester build empathy without the usual partisan demonization or martyrdom, and the actors are intensely committed to that end." |
Armond White |
Splat |
The Secret Life of Bees (2008) |
"Prince-Bythewood, who directed the 1999 romance Love and Basketball, may have intended a showcase for strong black screen actresses, but she neglected to hire more than one." |
Armond White |
Splat |
September Dawn (2007) |
"For all the guns fired in the film, [director] Cain aims the largest one at his foot—and pulls the trigger again and again." |
Jason Singer |
Tomato |
Séraphine (2008) |
"Next to Demme’s expressionism and Troell’s realism, Provost’s good film is banal." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
Serbis (2009) |
"As a twitchily sensational series of interconnected images, it’s an awesome nugget of faux-trash gold." |
Simon Abrams |
Tomato |
A Serious Man (2009) |
"A Serious Man rejects the bland Jewishness of Judd Apatow films; it’s similar to the black filmmakers’ project in Next Day Air, in which social stereotypes get burlesqued, yet are used to reveal an essentially moral exercise." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Seven Pounds (2008) |
"Throughout Seven Pounds, Smith looks tired and drawn but not half as weary as audiences who subject themselves to this, the year’s least-enjoyable movie concept." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Sex and Death 101 (2008) |
"Writer/director Waters has crafted a darkly funny look at the pursuit of sex, but he undermines his fairy tale story with a strange trio of omnipotent men who attempt to explain how the list was released." |
Mark Peikert |
Splat |
Sex and the City - The Movie (2008) |
"Movin’ on up to the movie big time means Sex and the City can no longer be accepted as just a cable-TV party game. It has to compete with the big girls, Hollywood’s classic representations of female beauty, desire and strength. And it doesn’t." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Sex Drive (2008) |
"Maybe Sex Drive wouldn’t be such a slobbering excuse for a comedy if anyone involved had shown one iota of originality." |
Mark Peikert |
Tomato |
Shadows (2008) |
"Shadows presents the old superstition vs. rationality argument with sociological undercurrents and more than a few surrealistic touches." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Sherlock Holmes (2009) |
"So grim and unappealing it sours the movie-watching experience." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Shrink (2009) |
"Coincidenceville would have been a better title for Shrink, the film in which psychiatrist Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) and a handful of Los Angelinos crisscross past credulity but for the convenience of showing our interrelatedness." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
Sicko (2007) |
"In moving away from the dirty arena of polemics, Sicko accomplishes something Moore has sought for quite some time: coherence." |
Eric Kohn |
Tomato |
The Simpsons Movie (2007) |
"The best prospect of The Simpsons Movie is that it will return communal intelligence to moviegoing." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Sin Nombre (2009) |
"Unfortunately, other than some gorgeous scenery, Sayra’s stupidity is the only thing that feels truly fresh in Fukunaga’s debut feature." |
Mark Peikert |
Tomato |
A Single Man (2009) |
"It is the year’s most subtle movie acting and the finest performance of Firth’s career." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Sleep Dealer (2009) |
"Sleep Dealer should have something striking to say about what the future looks like according to the third-world workers that are building it at their own expense but it has nothing memorable nor particularly coherent to offer." |
Simon Abrams |
Splat |
Sleuth (2007) |
"Kenneth Branagh’s direction imitates De Palma’s multi-angled voyeurism, but the trite visual tricks interrupt the clipped language and tense interaction that are British theater’s domain." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Slumdog Millionaire (2008) |
"There hasn’t been a social drama this decadently over-hyped since City of God. Boyle plays the same game of pandering to liberal sensibilities while entertaining safe, middle-class distance." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Smart People (2008) |
"There is a certain reassuring quality about Smart People for bright audiences, but most of the film keeps you in an agony of frustration." |
Mark Peikert |
Splat |
Snow Angels (2008) |
"This small town portrait isn’t eccentric; it’s just an indie-agnostic Peyton Place." |
Armond White |
Splat |
The Soloist (2009) |
"An artistic failure from conception, it’s British director Joe 'Steadicam' Wright’s torrent of self-righteousness equal to the frequently referenced Hurricane Katrina." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
Somers Town (2009) |
"Somers Town is not Shane Meadows’ best film, but it has his finest qualities: an appreciation of British working-class life as detailed as Ken Loach’s, characterizations as realistic as Mike Leigh’s and an interest in adolescent male impudence and longing" |
Armond White |
Splat |
Son of Rambow (2008) |
"It’s hard to make the leap from Stallone’s American jingoism to a nascent British graphic artist’s developing pop whimsy." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Soul Men (2008) |
"Soul Men is the most disappointing tribute to black pop music since the OutKast movie Idlewild." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
Special (2008) |
"A great genre film dissects authentic problems without attempting to supplant them. Reasonably enough, Special belongs to that category with the rest of Magnet’s Six Shooter Series." |
Eric Kohn |
Splat |
Speed Racer (2008) |
"Over all, there’s the drab, sinking feeling of Matrix 3 -- that the Wachowskis’ lame, expensive imaginings have played out." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Spinning into Butter (2009) |
"A fantastic story longing for a better film." |
Mark Peikert |
Tomato |
Sputnik Mania (2008) |
"Sputnik Mania is not riveting; but it is, first and last, informative." |
Raphaela Weissman |
Splat |
St. Trinian's (2009) |
"St.Trinian’s represents a travesty of the British comic tradition." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
Stalags (2008) |
"[Director] Libsker rightfully questions how sex and sadism have become the distorting lens through which we think about the Holocaust." |
Felicia Feaster |
Splat |
Standard Operating Procedure (2008) |
"Standard Operating Procedure is a documentary debacle." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Star Trek (2009) |
"This Star Trek sells cuteness, sentimentality and explosive F/X as if Starship Troopers, Minority Report, Mission to Mars or even Blade Runner or The Matrix (all visionary standard-setters) never happened." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Stardust (2007) |
"But Stardust conveys no palpable life or dream quality. You're depressingly aware of an overeager special effects lab." |
Armond White |
Splat |
State of Play (2009) |
"If instances of dishonesty, cover-ups and heroic loners seem at all surprising, then you haven’t watched TV in the past 30 years -- or the BBC series where State of Play originated." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
Steal a Pencil For Me (2007) |
"Ohayan creates a fluid pace, matching the account of the survival with present day footage of the couple lecturing younger generations to raise Holocaust awareness." |
Eric Kohn |
Splat |
Step Brothers (2008) |
"Step Brothers signals another era of American comedy: It’s the sort of thing that will assist future scholars in crafting histories of 21st-century stupidity." |
Eric Kohn |
Splat |
Stephen King's The Mist (2007) |
"Harden’s Mrs. Carmondy would bring the whole production down if it weren’t already flawed for other reasons." |
Eric Kohn |
Splat |
Stop-Loss (2008) |
"Being better than In the Valley of Elah’s lazy view of returning vets as damaged and mentally depraved isn’t good enough." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
The Strangers (2008) |
"Any good thriller should make you worry about walking through the door and into your dark apartment, but The Strangers may prevent you from ever going home again." |
Mark Peikert |
Splat |
Street Kings (2008) |
"If only Street Kings’ director, David Ayers, and screenwriter, James Ellroy, had the wit to complement Keanu’s ingenuity; instead, Street Kings unintentionally provokes laughter." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
Stuck (2007) |
"That Stuck is mostly based an actual event is frightening, but ultimately irrelevant thanks to Suvari’s and Rea’s nuanced performances." |
Mark Peikert |
Splat |
Sugar (2009) |
"Such indie banality -- linked to liberal message-mongering -- proves Fleck-Boden go into a slump long before rookie Miguel." |
Armond White |
Tomato |
The Sugar Curtain (2007) |
"For those who’ve never seen Cuba up close, The Sugar Curtain offers an astonishing glimpse of the culture, one that’s devoid of both the glamor and the manipulations of mainstream media." |
Jerry Portwood |
Tomato |
Summer Hours (2009) |
"For André Téchiné and Patrice Chéreau, who have specialized in probing/expansive family melodramas, Summer Hours would be a trifle. For Olivier Assayas, it’s almost a masterpiece." |
Armond White |
Splat |
Sunshine (2007) |
"As with 28 Days Later, [director Danny] Boyle makes Sunshine almost literally unwatchable." |
Armond White |
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