Splat |
Babel (2006) |
"The terrorizing of two sets of children a continent apart may strike some viewers -- and does strike this viewer -- as unduly manipulative." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Babel (2006) |
"Babel is a brilliant, profound and devastating film that explores the dangers and consequences of what can happen when words fail, communication ceases and all you’ve got left are feelings. Babel is a masterpiece." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Baby Boy (2001) |
"I felt myself drawn into a vortex of raw emotion from which I could not escape." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
The Babysitters (2008) |
"Like television’s Six Feet Under and the recent film Juno, it’s the perfect antidote to the dopey, butter-cream-frosted teen flicks of John Hughes -- Pretty in Pink with poison sauce." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Bad Education (2004) |
"I found the film devious and confused in its Pirandellian contrivances and shifts of identity." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Bad Education (2004) |
"Mr. Almodóvar's fantastic and unconventional film -- and Mr. Bernal's astonishing passion, tenderness, vulnerability and magnetic velocity in it -- are blazing headlights in an often bleak and blurry year." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Bad News Bears (2005) |
"There are many lingerings over communal feelings other directors might pass through more quickly to get to the next giggle or guffaw more efficiently." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Bad Santa (2003) |
"The funniest send-up of bad Christmas karma I have ever seen." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
Baise Moi (2001) |
"As art, it is all badly done." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) |
"Too self-consciously offbeat for its own good." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Ballets Russes (2005) |
"Enchanting, edifying and exhilarating." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2005) |
"Its well-earned humanistic frissons should serve as a wake-up call for the great majority of American movies, with their inexhaustible supply of smugness and complacency." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
Bamboozled (2000) |
"If Mr. Lee meant to bring back blackface entertainment as a metaphor for the current black performers he finds obnoxious, he has miscalculated." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Band of Outsiders (1964) |
"I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it before." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
The Band's Visit (2007) |
"The Band’s Visit is a lovely first film from young Israeli director Eran Kolirin that offers a Middle Eastern inflection on the bittersweet stylings of Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismäki." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
The Banger Sisters (2002) |
"Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon are an inspired dream team." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
The Bank Job (2008) |
"The Bank Job shapes up as one of the liveliest entertainments of the year and, in its twisted way, a genuine feel-good movie." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
The Barbarian Invasions (2003) |
"One of the most intelligent and articulate entertainments of the year from any country." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Barbershop (2002) |
"The movie's heart is in the right place, which generates enough warmth to make one root for it." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
Batman Begins (2005) |
"For all the effort and expense that went into this salvage job on an old, abandoned property, I would have preferred that Batman -- now past 66 years old -- be given his pension and sent on his way." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
Batman Begins (2005) |
"Batman Begins is for morons." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Battle in Heaven (2006) |
"Mr. Reygadas has played the anti-narrative film-festival game with the most voyeuristic means at his disposal, and then stuck on a luridly melodramatic plot almost as an afterthought." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
Battle in Heaven (2006) |
"It took four countries -- Mexico, France, Germany and Belgium -- to make a movie as bad as Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven. They wasted a lot of tax-relief money in pesos, francs and marks, but you’d be a fool to waste any U.S. dollars." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Be Cool (2005) |
"[A] very marginal misfire." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
Be Cool (2005) |
"There's an excess of corn, confusion and chaos in Be Cool, but not much of anything you could call comedy." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
The Beach (2000) |
"The Beach is the kind of literary rubbish that makes you trace the patterns in the carpet while you're supposed to be watching the screen." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) |
"The conceit of a strongarm hoodlum doubling as a concert pianist seemed really silly to me back in 1978, and it seems no less silly today." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
The Beautiful Country (2005) |
"This movie has small ambitions and big emotions, a lean but honest and detailed script by Sabina Murray, and marvelous performances by everyone involved." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
A Beautiful Mind (2001) |
"Nash's subterranean nightmare takes on the gripping elements of a psychological thriller." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Because I Said So (2007) |
"The entire project seems like a diabolical conspiracy to destroy one of the few icons we’ve got left, but luckily that’s where it fails most of all." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Becoming Jane (2007) |
"Becoming Jane is not as good as the best Austen films, but is much better than most mainstream movies on tap." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Bee Movie (2007) |
"It is mercifully less than 90 minutes long, but make that an hour and a half of witty, captivating enchantment." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Bee Season (2005) |
"Cold and elusive, Bee Season lacks the crucial emotional ingredients to make us care, and it remains too stubbornly esoteric and cerebral to appeal to anything more than a small and curious art-house crowd." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Before Sunset (2004) |
"Mr. Linklater and his two creative leads have managed a miraculous transformation of the characters from once-callow lovers into grown-ups teetering on the edge of eternity." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) |
"The 83-year-old Mr. Lumet, who has handled such immortals as Brando and Magnani in his career, expertly extracts individually charismatic performances from Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Hawke, Mr. Finney, Ms. Harris and Ms. Tomei." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) |
"A botched-heist thriller with labyrinthine plot twists, suspenseful character revelations and out-of-sequence narrative elements befitting a grand opera mounted on a massive scale." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Before the Rains (2008) |
"A lovely, lyrical film with perfect timing that is a welcome relief from BlackBerrys, iPods, gas taxes, punk rock, the failing economy and the boredom of cutthroat election campaigns." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Behind Enemy Lines (2001) |
"The only thing certain about Behind Enemy Lines is that Mr. Wilson is in it for the chance to work with Mr. Hackman, and Mr. Hackman is in it for the money." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Beijing Bicycle (2002) |
"What's most unusual about Beijing Bicycle in terms of recent Chinese history is that any form of class conflict is depicted at all." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
Being John Malkovich (1999) |
"By the time the tunnel worthy of the likes of Gulliver and Alice becomes a freeway clogged with bit players, a big chill has descended on all the characters." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Being Julia (2004) |
"I enjoyed watching Ms. Bening in close to top form, and I think you will, too." |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
The Believer (2002) |
"Mr. Bean's diagnosis of Jewish self-hatred in The Believer may be misdirected in the present circumstances." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Belle de Jour (1967) |
"Of all the supposedly challenging attractions playing locally in our supposedly more enlightened era, the most compellingly erotic and entertaining spectacle is still provided by Belle de Jour" |
Andrew Sarris |
Splat |
The Best of Youth (2005) |
"If you have better eyesight and a stronger lower lumbar than I do, you might confront the challenge of reading six hours and six minutes of subtitles with more enthusiasm than I did. But it's still six hours and six minutes out of your life." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Bewitched (2005) |
"A disaster so low in energy that it jumpstarts its own engine every 10 minutes." |
Rex Reed |
Tomato |
Beyond the Gates (2007) |
"The bigger political issues and the refusal of the Western world to intervene gnaw at the edges of this movie throughout, but it is really the human portraits of the people that keep you engrossed." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Beyond the Sea (2004) |
"Like a lounge revue on a second-class cruise ship." |
Rex Reed |
Splat |
Big Bad Love (2002) |
"Unfortunately, Big Bad Love, for all its undeniably good anti-mainstream intentions, fails to come off even as the cutting-edge manifestation it tries so strenuously to be." |
Andrew Sarris |
Tomato |
Big Fan (2009) |
"Mr. Siegel nails so many quirky details, and finds humor in the smallest of moments, that Big Fan is surprisingly poignant, too." |
Sara Vilkomerson |
Tomato |
Big Fish (2003) |
"Not only is Mr. Burton at the top of his form in endowing his tallest stories and wildest magical conceits with emotional conviction, but he is aided by a superb acting ensemble that never loses its footing in the treacherous swamps of make-believe." |
Andrew Sarris |
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