Splat 1.5/4 |
Race to Witch Mountain (2009) |
"If it's possible for a movie to be agressively bland, Race to Witch Mountain is that movie. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
Racing Stripes (2005) |
"While no one will walk out quoting killer punchlines, the requisite fart jokes and pop cultural references are slightly zestier than usual." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 4/4 |
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) |
"The postmodern heir to North By Northwest...Like any deathless classic, Raiders is a perfect marriage of star and material." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
A Raisin in the Sun (2008) |
"A quintessentially American play, revisited...this one has towering performances from Rashad and McDonald." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Ratatouille (2007) |
"To watch Ratatouille is to recognize we're living in another golden age of American animation." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Ray (2004) |
"Worth seeing, mostly for its colorful period design and lively musical numbers, but this version of the "official story" takes some wrong turns." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
The Real Dirt on Farmer John (2007) |
"Too much of this self-congratulatory one-man-show in the guise of a documentary remains real...muddy." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
Rebound (2005) |
"Coming soon to a theatre near you: “Water Wings,” with Adam Sandler coaching a swim team, and “With a Paddle,” starring Eddie Murphy as a ping-pong coach." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
The Recruit (2003) |
"Watchable only for its star power and scarce caffeine kicks...awfully predictable. [Blu-Ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Red Eye (2005) |
"Wes Craven banishes the memory of Cursed to bring us a lean thriller that's just right for armrest-gripping." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Red Lights (2004) |
"Red Lights bristles with subcutaneous fear at signals which Hollywood thrillers routinely run." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Red Tent (1969) |
"An unusual and rich blend of epic film and memory play." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Redbelt (2008) |
"An allegory of what's wrong with our country...Mamet has spent the last decade layering popular entertainments with subversive ideas about social politics." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Reel Paradise (2005) |
"Can be voyeuristically interesting...[but] James fails to justify this for-hire, backfired vanity project in an age glutted with reality TV." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Reign Over Me (2007) |
"Builds up a nice head of steam...as a warm and quirky comedy of men trying to be men in a post-feminist world...also succumbs to niggling artificialities that drain the story of credibility and genuine heft." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Reno 911!: Miami (2007) |
"While it's intermittently amusing, none of this was appointment television to begin with, so it's hard to imagine big crowds shelling out for it at the multiplex." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Rent (2005) |
"[Afield] from its off-Broadway origins, but the intimacy afforded by the camera and...most of the original cast occasionally restore the emotional vitality of the piece." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 4/4 |
Repulsion (1965) |
"Polanski dares the viewer to plunge into that eye and through the psychic rabbit hole that is its owner's increasingly unhinged personality. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Rescue Me - The Complete Fourth Season (2008) |
"The visions, the menagerie of women and the horrid behavior of Tommy Gavin suggest a lewd FDNY variation on 8 1/2, and one that's still going plenty strong after four thirteen-episode seasons. [DVD]" |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) |
"With apologies to Joe Bob...Countless dead bodies. Six breasts...Beer-swilling cowboy zombie-sniper. Demon dogs...Gratuitous accents...Graveyard Fu..." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Return To The Batcave: The Misadventures Of Adam And Burt |
"Fans of the series will be hooked, if not thoroughly delighted, and others may prove unable to resist the train-wreck spectacle...unabashedly cheesy but 100% mesmerizing." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Revolutionary Road (2008) |
"Revolutionary Road's existential dread of unspoken feelings bubbling to the surface perhaps better resembles Tennessee Williams, a towering explorer of authenticity and self-delusion." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
Righteous Kill (2008) |
"The new thriller that emphatically pairs [De Niro and Pacino] qualifies as a historic event, whether it's any good or not." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
The Ring Two (2005) |
"A sketchy horror plot slips from episode to episode with no particular momentum. As far as I can tell, Kruger made a list of scares, and Nakata ticked them off." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Risky Business (1983) |
"It's easy to forget the idiosyncracies of a film that so successfully trades on adolescent male fantasies and nightmares. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Rize (2005) |
"Dance as an expression of the African collective unconsciousness, an expression of the anger born of oppression, and an expression of faith to overcome hardship." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Road to Guantanamo (2006) |
"As a look at the injustices blithely wrought in the name of democracy, The Road to Guantanamo comes none too soon." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) |
"The bones of the story are comfortingly familiar, the action is rollicking, and the metaphorical moustache-twirling of Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham is priceless. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Robots (2005) |
"I'm hard-pressed not to recommend Robots as an energetic family-movie distraction...[but] plotting is...mechanical." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
The Rocker (2008) |
"Utterly predictable, formulaic, but not entirely unamusing." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Rocket Science (2007) |
"Comes tantalizingly close to the genius of Hal Ashby's unforced, sympathetic humanism..." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
RocknRolla (2008) |
"Breaks no new ground for movies or for Ritchie, but it is an amusing diversion and therefore a return to form. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Rocky Balboa (2006) |
"Certainly a bad film. But darn it, it ain't a half-bad movie." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Roll Bounce (2005) |
"Affectionate retro fun that coasts on soul sounds of the ‘70s and Cosby Kids-styled camaraderie." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 4/4 |
Rome - The Complete Second Season (2007) |
"Those episodes, which aired in 2007 before an afterlife on DVD, continue the series' glory by exploring the complex aftermath of Caesar's assassination." |
Peter Canavese |
- |
Romeo and Juliet (1968) |
"Olivia Hussey: 'Once I started crying I couldn't stop...And when I stood up, everyone was just standing there in sheer--just silence. Franco said, "Cut"...and he put his arms around me and said, "You're gonna love Rome."'" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3/4 |
Room Service (1938) |
"This oft-dismissed exception in the Marx Brothers canon includes no musical numbers and only a few bits specifically tailored to the brothers...underrated." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Rory O'Shea Was Here (2005) |
"Differently abled characters are too seldom portrayed on screen [but] the overall impression of the film is rather mawkishly obvious." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Rosenstrasse (2004) |
"Von Trotta's conceptual successes rarely translate into dramatic ones...Nevertheless, Von Trotta makes her points...while illuminating a subcultural story of the Holocaust." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Rudy (1993) |
"With its faithful rendering of a true inspirational story, Rudy earns its sentiment...an irresistable inspirational movie for all ages. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
The Ruins (2008) |
"Competent but somewhat slack, modest (and modestly budgeted) shocker that doesn't work quite hard enough to justify its plot mechanics. [Blu-Ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
Rumor Has It... (2005) |
"For a movie purportedly about the truth behind a movie, the mushy Rumor Has It... feels astoundingly false." |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Run, Fat Boy, Run (2008) |
"This brand of unfailing comic timing and expressive physicality is rare, and it's why Pegg, in particular, is a star. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
- |
Run, Fat Boy, Run (2008) |
"David Schwimmer: 'What caught me off guard I think was not making the connection between how much money we had and what it would translate to. When you say we have a big movie, we have a big budget script and a small-budget, um, budget.'" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
The Rundown (2003) |
"I think you can smell what the Rock is cooking: a dish that'll fatten your head but pleasantly plump your gut. [Blu-ray]" |
Peter Canavese |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Running Scared (2006) |
"Kramer stokes kinetic energy and hard-R intensity...may amount to no more than a punch to the gut, but...it's all in bad fun." |
Peter Canavese |
- |
Running Scared (2006) |
"Paul Walker & Wayne Kramer: 'I loved the mobsters, man. I mean growing up as a kid it was cowboys and Indians and it was mobsters. I mean, that's an American childhood, you know?'" |
Peter Canavese |
- |
Running with Scissors (2006) |
"Augusten Burroughs: 'We didn't have sex because we had to find a way to show each other how much we loved each other. We had sex as a way to operate with each other, and that just warped me, you know, for years.'" |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
Running with Scissors (2006) |
"With its compulsive theatricality, Running With Scissors enacts what may be the most unpleasant brand of insanity in a film full of them." |
Peter Canavese |
Splat 2/4 |
Rush Hour 3 (2007) |
"Sends the endlessly bickering couple to Paris, where the great director Roman Polanski gives them a rectal exam. I wish I were kidding." |
Peter Canavese |
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