Tomato
W. (2008)
"By opposing the mob mentality that would hang Bush in effigy, W. imaginatively sympathizes with the most maligned president in modern history."
Armond White
The Wackness (2008)
"Despite its problems, The Wackness employs the emotional extravagance of its hip-hop soundtrack to achieve a triumph of romanticism."
Splat
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
"Walk Hard is Apatow’s undistinguished -- in fact, shamelessly derivative -- contribution to the mockumentary genre."
A Walk to Beautiful (2008)
"Lushly photographed and carried along by a spirited score featuring both Ethiopian and Western music, but the film’s most striking element proves to be the women at its center."
Raphaela Weissman
The Walker (2007)
"If Schrader was willing to enliven the pace, The Walker would easily become a riveting thriller, but the situation gets resolved with too much ease."
Eric Kohn
WALL-E (2008)
"The plot, when it finally arrives, has a few unforgivable holes, but the thing never stops being a marvel to behold."
Wanted (2008)
"Yawn-worthy."
Simon Abrams
War (2007)
"[Jet] Li and [Jason] Statham’s characters represent respect for life and art; they’re also purifying a contaminated genre."
War, Inc. (2008)
"This non-nihilistic film is a vision of our political complicity and humane potential."
Watchmen (2009)
"Neither political satire nor camp, it fails the unique, fantasy mix of classicism and modernism that distinguished both 300 and Vin Diesel’s The Chronicles of Riddick."
We Are Wizards (2008)
"A better approach would have been one that focused less on a child’s home movies and performances and more on why he’s on stage singing about an imaginary wizard."
Mark Peikert
The Wedding Director (2006)
"The Wedding Director is truly complex; but that’s also its delight."
Wendy and Lucy (2008)
"Though a less satisfying effort than Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy exhibits Reichardt and co-writer Jonathan Raymond’s deftly subtle touch and both writers’ compassionate take on how deeply poverty settles into their characters’ bones."
Felicia Feaster
What Happens in Vegas (2008)
"Diaz and Kutcher restore the original, ebullient meaning of 'sex comedy'. They’re fun to watch, which is a rare thing in this Zellweger, Clooney, Kidman, Gosling, Apatow world."
What Just Happened (2008)
"Every joke in Tropic Thunder, The Player, The Muse, I’ll Do Anything, even HBO’s Entourage is sharper, more incisive and funnier than those in What Just Happened."
What Would Jesus Buy? (2007)
"The movie offers both intriguing portraiture and probing cultural analysis."
Whatever Works (2009)
"Ten years after his great expectoration of bile in Deconstructing Harry, Woody Allen comes up with Whatever Works -- the most shameless, cynically titled Hollywood con job since the days of Billy Wilder."
Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
"The most daring kid’s-movie adaptation since Altman’s still-avant-garde Popeye from 1980."
The White Ribbon (2009)
"Think Children of the Damned, Children of the Corn, Children of Men. Think childishly in order to believe that Haneke's ripoffs of Carl Dreyer atmosphere and Ingmar Bergman sexual hysteria are at all original."
Who Is Norman Lloyd? (2007)
"There are names that fill in the cracks of Hollywood myth, and Norman Lloyd’s story seals several gaps."
Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland (2008)
"This ramshackle film cuts deeper as documentary."
A Wink and a Smile (2009)
"In Deirdre Allen Timmons’ A Wink and a Smile, she delves into the making of a sexy performer by infiltrating Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque in Seattle."
Linnea Covington
The Witnesses (2008)
"The Witnesses is a period-piece but feels utterly contemporary through its characters’ urgent, overlapping imperatives."
Woman on the Beach (2006)
"Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s Woman on the Beach offers flavors of quarterlife angst and romantic insecurity for which American audiences clearly have an insatiable appetite."
Benjamin Sutton
The Women (2008)
"This new version of The Women fails to celebrate its characters as women."
Women in Trouble (2009)
"A lucky alchemy of writer and cast turns what could have been an indie bore into something surprisingly uproarious."
The Wrestler (2008)
"Aronofsky inflicts as much pain on the audience as self-flagellating Ram Jam does when brutalizing/mutilating himself in and outside the ring."
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2007)
"The biggest letdown in Wristcutters is that it can’t compensate for its compact arrangement with the kind of absurdist aesthetics that its summary proposes."
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