Splat 2/4 |
P.S. (2004) |
"I haven't read the novel, so I can't say whether the author was more successful at making Louise's obsession plausible. It's certainly not believable in the movie." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 1.5/4 |
P.S. I Love You (2007) |
"P.S. Why should we care?" |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 1/4 |
The Pacifier (2005) |
"An abysmal comedy." |
Jami Bernard |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Page Turner (2007) |
"Director and co-writer Denis Dercourt infuses Melanie's calculating seduction of the family with a sense of genuine menace. You will not be bored." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Painted Veil (2006) |
"The Painted Veil may begin too slowly, but it also ends too soon." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 1/4 |
Palindromes (2005) |
"There is simply no way to get or stay involved in a movie when the main character has more physical forms than Count Dracula, especially when most of the amateur actors assuming the role cannot act at all." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 4/4 |
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) |
"I've seen this film three times and cannot claim to know whether its fantasy characters and events are meant to exist solely in the imagination of the 12-year-old girl at the center of the story, or if she is the only human aware of them." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 1/5 |
Pandorum (2009) |
"Throughout, some obvious questions pop up immediately." |
Joe Neumaier |
Splat 2/4 |
Paparazzi (2004) |
"For anyone who's ever wondered how good it would feel to knock down a photographer with his car and then back over him." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/5 |
Paper Heart (2009) |
"Funny, passionate and honest." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Paprika (2007) |
"Whatever it is you're looking for -- comedy, horror, parades of singing frogs and dancing kitchen appliances -- you'll find it in Satoshi Kon's anime adventure, a jaw-dropping feat of imagination." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Paradise Now (2005) |
"Hany Abu-Assad's stark, minimalist portrait of two young Palestinian men preparing for a suicide-bombing mission in Tel Aviv is the kind of movie that takes away both your breath and your ability to get out of your seat." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/4 |
Paranoid Park (2008) |
"The story's fractured structure -- and Christopher Doyle's dreamlike cinematography -- make for a striking mood piece." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/5 |
Paranormal Activity (2009) |
"Some wild moments make it all worth it." |
Joe Neumaier |
Tomato 3/5 |
Paris 36 (2008) |
"Though unabashedly sentimental, Christophe Barratier's old-fashioned musical is so eager to please, even cynics may be seduced." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Paris, Je T'aime (2007) |
"Bittersweet, funny, sad and invariably romantic, the anthology film Paris, Je T'aime strings together 20 five-minute vignettes to create a pulsating mosaic of the neighborhoods of the City of Light." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Park (2007) |
"There are plenty of laughs in the outrageous predicaments and the actors are obviously having a ball." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 1/4 |
Party Monster (2003) |
"[Culkin's] performance in Party Monster is so embarrassing one doesn't know where to look. (Well, perhaps at the exit.)" |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 2/5 |
Passengers (2008) |
"Did Hathaway know when she signed to this that it would be released just in time to embarrass her during her accolades for Rachel Getting Married?" |
Joe Neumaier |
Tomato 3/5 |
Passing Strange (2010) |
"You'll probably have to resist the urge to stand up and cheer with the onscreen audience during the emotional curtain call." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 1/4 |
The Passion of the Christ (2004) |
"The movie is a compendium of tortures that would horrify the regulars at an S&M club." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 2/4 |
Pathfinder (2007) |
"After the first 1,000 or so beheadings, impalements and severed limbs, Pathfinder's slash may just induce sleep." |
Robert Dominguez |
Tomato 3/5 |
Patti Smith - Dream of Life (2008) |
"Few documentaries about living artists get as deep into their subject's brain and heart as this one about the rock priestess and poetess." |
Joe Neumaier |
Splat 2/5 |
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) |
"Perfectly inoffensive and almost entirely unfunny." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Paycheck (2003) |
"The second half of the film is one overlong action sequence linked to another." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/4 |
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2004) |
"Showing the movie would be a great way to open a debate. I would love to hear its charges answered as clearly as they're stated." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Penelope (2008) |
"This could have been a perfect choice for the Enchanted set, if only its charms were more than skin-deep." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/4 |
People I Know (2003) |
"It was filmed in and around the World Trade Center, and the subsequent cuts, reshoots and sleights of hand designed to obscure that fact prove devastating." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 0/4 |
Perception (2006) |
"An early and daunting contender for worst movie of the year ..." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/5 |
A Perfect Getaway (2009) |
"The result isn't deadly dull, but it does turn what should have been a most dangerous game into a basic scenery-chewing contest." |
Joe Neumaier |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Perfect Holiday (2007) |
"It's a shame that Gabrielle Union can't get better scripts than this one." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Perfect Man (2005) |
"The story has a definite ick factor that detracts from even the small pleasures the movie might offer its teen audience." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Perfect Score (2004) |
"It's not funny, though it tries to be, and it has nothing serious to say about the politics of the SATs, though it purports to." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
Perfect Stranger (2007) |
"People peek through windows, hack into computers and sneak into apartments without the slightest hesitation. We're guilty of voyeurism, too, since the primary pleasure to be found is in seeing three confident leads play off each other." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) |
"The movie does tease and torment the olfactory nerve in ways Estée Lauder never dreamed of." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Perlasca (2005) |
"Zingaretti does a fine job shading a character that is written as an unalloyed saint. But the most touching moments come at the end, when we see documentary footage of his true-life inspiration." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Persepolis (2007) |
"The black-and-white animation won't dazzle your eyes, but everything else about Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's adaptation of Satrapi's graphic comic book series Persepolis will hold you in its thrall." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/4 |
Pete Seeger - The Power of Song (2007) |
"Fans like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan express unvarnished awe, but it's the well-told arc of Seeger's life that makes the strongest impression, as director Jim Brown takes us from the highs to the lows and back up again." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Peter Pan (2003) |
"Both enchantingly old-fashioned and daringly modern." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/4 |
La Petite Lili (2004) |
"Miller takes Chekhov's themes and checks them off, but he never gets under his egocentric characters' thin skins." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Phat Girlz (2006) |
"Beneath the movie's broad humor and meanspirited put-downs lies an uplifting story about learning to like yourself for who you are, not what you look like." |
Robert Dominguez |
Splat 2/4 |
Phone Booth (2003) |
"If this sounds like a Kafkaesque spoof thrown together for the annual Publicists Guild of America luncheon, Larry Cohen's script is only occasionally that clever." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
The Photographer, His Wife, Her Lover (2006) |
"Yule's insightful new movie details the disintegration of a marriage that was hunky-dory when he met the 75-year-old Winston and his new 50-year-old wife and partner, Conchita, in 1990." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2006) |
"It's probably best to approach the Quay Brothers' dreamlike fantasy (which they call 'poetic science-fiction') with the understanding that you'll never quite know what's going on." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Pieces of April (2003) |
"A delightful, funny surprise." |
Jami Bernard |
Tomato 3/4 |
Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2007) |
"Whether the real Pierrepoint, who died in 1992, had a clear conscience, the portly Spall creates the perfect impression of a quietly decent, proud man who is overwhelmed by unwanted celebrity and by one too many jerking ropes." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/5 |
Pineapple Express (2008) |
"Watching good buds riff wears out its welcome after a half hour, and that's where a story really comes in handy. But when Pineapple goes from ganja to genre, it sours." |
Joe Neumaier |
Splat 2/5 |
Ping Pong Playa (2007) |
"A decidedly lightweight amusement, the first comedy from documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu is the sort of movie that works best if you keep your expectations low." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 1/4 |
Pink Panther (2006) |
"Under his coat, the Panther must be pink with embarrassment." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Pink Panther 2 (2009) |
"None of it is memorable, though the audience it's aimed at will giggle at the adults gone goofy." |
Joe Neumaier |
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