Splat |
Halloween II (2009) |
"Zombie's rowdy redneck phantasmagorias and weird swoons of empathy can't disguise that there's nowhere left for the story to go." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Halloween: Resurrection (2002) |
"Our once-shadowy, nightmarish figure is now shot exclusively in overlit, sitcom styled close-ups." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Hamlet 2 (2008) |
"Director Andrew Fleming tends to err on the side of volume, blowing up jokes two or three sizes larger than they probably needed to be. But all sins are quickly forgiven once the curtain rises on Mr. Marschz's Opus." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hancock (2008) |
"It feels like a couple of reels are missing... devoting an enjoyable first hour to our dirtbag crusader's unlikable antiheroics, before jumping to the conclusion without benefit of a second act." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hannibal Rising (2007) |
"Alas, in our current Oprah-fied, memoir-ridden, tell-all culture, even the great screen villains now suffer from dopey developmental traumas explaining away their misdeeds." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Happy Endings (2005) |
"It's a shallow, cruddy-looking film that these fine actors have granted a depth it frankly doesn't deserve." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) |
"The most focused Potter movie yet... it's all about puberty and death." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) |
"All setup and no payoff, it serves mainly as logistical scaffolding to reposition the characters and strum up some backstory, stalling for time before the final chapter." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) |
"The first 2007 mega-budget summer blockbuster that's actually worth a damn... four sequels into this saga, it finally feels like we're watching a bona fide, honest to God movie." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) |
"Best just to sit back and marinate in the richness of the movie's texture and ignore the sloppy screenplay." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Head in the Clouds (2004) |
"You finish Stuart Townsend and Penelope Cruz's scenes feeling duller and stupider than before simply for having watched them." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
The Heartbreak Kid (2007) |
"As typical of even the decent Farrelly productions, it's indifferently photographed and runs at least half an hour too long." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Heights (2005) |
"...as stilted, symbolically loaded and dreary as any of Merchant-Ivory's E.M. Forster or Henry James adaptations -- this time without classic prose or great actors for backup." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Heist (2001) |
"A throwback to the kind of hard-boiled yarns the late Don Siegel used to crank out in his sleep." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Hellboy (2004) |
"Wondrously off-the-wall... bring on the sequel!" |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) |
"They're the only two reasons to see the movie." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hero (2004) |
"One of the most sumptuously photographed movies you'll ever see, every shot of Hero should be in a coffee-table book. Good thing, because the story sorta stinks." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hide and Seek (2005) |
"A highly polished turd, perhaps the shiniest money can buy... by now the only way De Niro can shock us is by maybe appearing in a movie that isn't a total embarassment." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
High Tension (2005) |
"Alexandre Aja is a born filmmaker, but there's a thin line between toying with your audience and just plain jerking them around. Once he finds it, Aja will be one to watch." |
Sean Burns |
- |
A History of Violence (2005) |
"Outside Looking In: A Conversation With David Cronenberg" |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
A History of Violence (2005) |
"...a pulpy, brilliant little neo-noir packed with disquieting sociological insights. Sure, it's an action movie -- but it's also an indictment.
" |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hitch (2005) |
"A full 120 minutes dedicated to the hilarious comic notion that white people can't dance (hee, hee - it's funny because it's true, we're so lame!)" |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) |
"The net effect is something like watching NBC's disagreeable rehash of The Office. They got most of the words right, but the music is all wrong.
" |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
The Holiday (2006) |
"There's apparently nothing Jack Black can do with his eyebrows on-screen that doesn't read as cloying and facetious." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hollywood Ending (2002) |
"It's a filmed doodle from the sketchpad of a former perfectionist who once upon a time knew better than to start shooting a script that he clearly hadn't finished yet." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
Hollywoodland (2006) |
"Unable to decide if it wants to be a mystery or biography, Hollywoodland settles for doing both, badly." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
A Home at the End of the World (2004) |
"Lovely interchanges abound... But the net effect is like watching the highlight reel from several seasons of an HBO show without seeing any of the episodes themselves." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
The Host (2007) |
"Both smashing entertainment and snarky geopolitical allegory, this Godzilla vs. Little Miss Sunshine is the wildest and weirdest movie to hit screens in quite some time." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Hostage (2005) |
"At its best Hostage is a nasty, ridiculously involving white-knuckle B-Movie --acted with pure conviction by the eternally underrated Bruce Willis.
" |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Hot Fuzz (2007) |
"After seeing Hot Fuzz I doubt it'll be possible to keep a straight face during a Michael Bay movie again --assuming one could ever do such a thing in the first place." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Hotel Rwanda (2004) |
"Here's a thrilling, socially committed film that knows how to engage an audience and communicate a point of view without degenerating into a harangue. More of these, please." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
The Hours (2002) |
"A bloated gasbag thesis grotesquely impressed by its own gargantuan aura of self-importance..." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
House of Wax (2005) |
"We'll always have Paris. But for almost an hour, we endure these dumb children bickering, wandering aimlessly, insulting local hayseeds, and not having sex. That's hot." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
The Housekeeper (2003) |
"A modest, at times downright tiny, film. Yet its melancholy sense of humor touched me in unexpected ways." |
Sean Burns |
Splat |
The Human Stain (2003) |
"Crudded-up with self-regard, devoid of context, neutered by tastefulness and pointless to behold, it is also as miscast as any movie I've ever seen." |
Sean Burns |
Tomato |
Husbands (1970) |
"Cassavetes' most dangerous and unfiltered expression of masculine anxiety -- a raw, deliberately off-putting masterpiece." |
Sean Burns |
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