Tomato 3.5/4 |
Adventureland (2009) |
"Adventureland may be targeted at teens, but it's a sophisticated film that just happens to be about unformed people and their raw emotions." |
John Anderson |
Splat 0/4 |
All About Steve (2009) |
"The film isn't merely unfunny and stupefyingly inane but a depressing waste of money, energy and time, yours included." |
Rafer Guzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
American Violet (2009) |
"American Violet is a justice story, with some honest justice. It's nicely reassuring that it happens to be true." |
John Anderson |
Splat 2/4 |
Angels & Demons (2009) |
"Ultimately, the film tries so hard to strike a balance that it ends up standing stock-still." |
Rafer Guzman |
Splat 2/4 |
Astro Boy (2009) |
"Strictly for small fry." |
Frank Lovece |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Away We Go (2009) |
"Rudolph lends depth and complexity to this otherwise facile story." |
Rafer Guzman |
Splat 1.5/4 |
An American Carol (2008) |
"Is there any filmmaker alive, whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, capable of producing a truly incisive, intelligent satire about our politically polarized times?" |
Rafer Guzman |
Splat 2/4 |
American Teen (2008) |
"Nothing is revealed here, save for the sad fact that while young people's appetite for nonfiction film was supposed to be whetted by reality television, nonfiction film instead has turned into reality television." |
John Anderson |
Tomato 3/4 |
Anamorph (2008) |
"The atmosphere created by director H.S. Miller is gothic, tortured, stylized yet tinged with a classicist's sense of composition, symmetry and, yes, perspective." |
John Anderson |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Anita O'Day - The Life Of A Jazz Singer (2008) |
"Robbie Cavalina and Ian McCrudden's loving tribute to the great singer orchestrates archival footage, late-in-life interviews and some spectacular music into one of the better bio-pics of recent years." |
John Anderson |
Tomato 3/4 |
Appaloosa (2008) |
"Appaloosa satisfies all its requirements but never breaks a sweat." |
Rafer Guzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
August (2008) |
"Smartly scripted, convincingly atmospheric morality fable in which Hartnett, usually insubstantial as a good guy, plays a convincingly flawed character galloping toward the precipice." |
John Anderson |
Splat 2/4 |
Australia (2008) |
"Halfway through, Australia veers sharply into Serious Issue mode." |
Rafer Guzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story (2007) |
"The temptation to juice up the squalid elements of this story would be hard to resist for most filmmakers. Yet, for the most part, [the directors] manage to balance the story's jolting, world-shaking elements with the more intimate details." |
Gene Seymour |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Across the Universe (2007) |
"There's so much to like, even love, about Across the Universe that you're even more exasperated about its faults." |
Gene Seymour |
Tomato 3/4 |
Adam's Apples (2007) |
"For all its roughhouse antics, Adam's Apples is almost improbably sweet: a rude comedy that the devout and heathen alike can hold to their breasts." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 2.5/4 |
After The Wedding (2007) |
"Crisply written and acted soap opera from Susanne Bier, but vague in its intentions." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World (2007) |
"A sluggish documentary about reclusive painter Martin, who died in 2004 at age 92." |
Ariella Budick |
Tomato 3/4 |
Air Guitar Nation (2007) |
"A favorite on the film festival circuit, Alexandra Lipsitz's exuberantly funny documentary follows the triumphant path of an American air guitarist as he rises from U.S. East Coast champ to the top rankings of the international air guitar festival." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Air I Breathe (2007) |
"With any luck, The Air I Breathe should be the last gasp of the faux-Altmanesque school of serendipitous storytelling." |
Gene Seymour |
Tomato 3/4 |
Alice's House (2007) |
"Ribas delivers a natural, earthy performance that has helped this film win numerous awards on the festival circuit." |
Rafer Guzman |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Alone With Her (2007) |
"A B-picture waiting to cut loose in its final 15 minutes, when it devolves into generic stalker-thriller theatrics of the Julia-Roberts-in-distress kind." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Alpha Dog (2007) |
"Cassavetes coaxes persuasive performances from Justin Timberlake and Anton Yelchin in this flashy re-creation of a 1999 kidnapping-murder in cushy Southern California, which overdoes the seamy side of suburbia angle." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) |
"The sight of enhanced Alvin and the Chipmunks in the movie of the same name is far less squirm-inducing than one might have feared." |
Gene Seymour |
Tomato 3/4 |
Amazing Grace (2007) |
"That rare bird: a tear-jerker about the House of Commons and the antislavery movement in England. Michael Apted's idolatrous portrait of abolitionist William Wilberforce is wall-to-wall with intriguing characters and deeply felt performances." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 3/4 |
American Gangster (2007) |
"As with an earlier star who fed off career criminals, Humphrey Bogart, there is always something a bit smarmy about Washington, even in his heroic mode; the nastier his character grows, the looser his acting becomes." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 3/4 |
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres (2007) |
"By the end, you may feel as if you've been ballroom dancing with a live, exposed electric guitar cord for an hour and a half. At peak performance, it's wired, chaotic madness." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Arctic Tale (2007) |
"Arctic Tale is yet another wildlife orgy of ooh-ing and aah-ing designed to expose young ones to the lifestyles of the furry and the fabulous." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 1/4 |
Arthur and the Invisibles (2007) |
"Arthur and the Invisibles makes an excellent case against casting animated movies with celebrity voices. There are people who make their living as voiceover artists, and they would have been infinitely better than the lackluster Robert De Niro." |
John Anderson |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) |
"The Assassination of Jesse James is less of a Western than a mid-Western, which refers both to the film's urban Missouri center of gravity and its pivoting position between horse opera and backstage intrigue." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 2/4 |
The Astronaut Farmer (2007) |
"The rare film that can make you question your own sanity, but The Astronaut Farmer is so lacking in plausibility, explanation, motivation and physical science that you start to ask: Is it me? Rest assured: It's them." |
John Anderson |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Atonement (2007) |
"One of the few adaptations that gives a novel the film it deserves." |
Kenneth Turan |
Splat 1/4 |
August Rush (2007) |
"The kind of fairy tale that makes Cinderella look like kitchen-sink realism." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 3/4 |
Avenue Montaigne (2007) |
"[Actress Cecile] De France is irresistible, and the whole film is like a big cookie." |
John Anderson |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Awake (2007) |
"If you have an ax to grind with someone who harbors a morbid fear of surgery, you couldn't design a better revenge than taking them to see Awake." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Away From Her (2007) |
"How invigorating it is to see portrayed such a range of complex, intelligent women, each of whom is surviving in an independent orbit rather than joined at the hip in some gooey movie idyll of sisterhood." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 3/4 |
A Scanner Darkly (2006) |
"The risks Scanner Darkly takes both with its subject matter and its method make it difficult to dismiss." |
Gene Seymour |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Absolute Wilson (2006) |
"A brisk and invigorating portrait." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 0.5/4 |
Accepted (2006) |
"More disconcerting is the idea put forward that self-indulgence is a substitute for structured education, or, more to the point, that it's a substitute for life." |
Stephen Williams |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Agnes and His Brothers (2006) |
"There's fierce energy and -- thanks to the performances -- affecting emotion in the movie that almost makes you forget that Rainer Werner Fassbinder told a similar story much better 28 years ago with In a Year with 13 Moons." |
Gene Seymour |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Akeelah and the Bee (2006) |
"Where Spellbound generated crackling suspense in its competition climax, Akeelah is virtually suspense-free, even with an attempt to wring a twist on its pre-determined outcome." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Al Franken: God Spoke (2006) |
"Proves to be an illuminating (if perhaps unintended) demonstration of how hard it is to keep one's sense of humor when mixing it up in the political mainstream." |
Gene Seymour |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (2006) |
"Who knew that the world was clamoring for another spy kid movie at this very moment? If we have to have one, it should be as cheeky and nonsensical as Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 3/4 |
All The King's Men (2006) |
"In its best moments, All the King's Men exhorts us to sit back and reflect on the dark choices we are all capable of making in the name of power." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 2/4 |
America: Freedom To Fascism (2006) |
"[Russo] has created such an inflammatory piece of clumsy propaganda it's hard to take his best arguments seriously." |
John Anderson |
Splat 2/4 |
American Cannibal - The Documentary (2006) |
"American Cannibal would be interesting if it weren't so 2001." |
Jan Stuart |
Splat 2.5/4 |
American Dreamz (2006) |
"Everybody's so good, you find yourself wondering why the movie isn't funnier -- or riskier." |
Gene Seymour |
Splat 2/4 |
American Gun (2006) |
"Avelino's message about America's gun-happy culture is so foursquare and what-you-see-is-what-you-get that it's possible to walk out of the film wondering if you missed the point." |
Jan Stuart |
Tomato 3/4 |
American Hardcore (2006) |
"Filmmaker Paul Rachman and writer Steven Blush make an impressive case for a grass-roots movement of mostly white, working-to-middle-class misfits who thought rock-and-roll needed to be rude, abrasive and somewhat scary at the dawn of the Reagan era." |
Gene Seymour |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
An American Haunting (2006) |
"Using alleged 'actual events' as a template, writer-director Courtney Solomon fashions a crafty mystery with a lot of joy-buzzer jolts sliding through its somber mood." |
Gene Seymour |
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