Tomato 4/5 |
W. (2008) |
"W. is not the hatchet job some may have expected (or hoped for). It is instead a measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul." |
Joe Neumaier |
Tomato 3/4 |
Wah-Wah (2006) |
"Grant captures the essence both of boyhood rites of passage and a particular time and place for which he clearly holds affection, bumps, ruts and all." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 2/4 |
Waist Deep (2006) |
"Oh, there's plenty of grit. Guns blaze, hands are lopped off, blood spurts, cars explode, bad men die hard, and cops just die. But nothing in this story is remotely realistic." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
Waist Deep (2006) |
"Nothing in this story is remotely realistic, and the target audience for urban dramas -- teenage boys -- won't know what to make of its mushy romantic center." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 1/4 |
Waiting... (2005) |
"Rob McKittrick's sour debut is such an obvious candidate for the direct-to-video shelf, someone will surely be demoted for sending it into actual theaters." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Waitress (2007) |
"While Shelly's stylized vision and sentimental intentions don't always gel, they do result in a warm, often charming fantasy." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 1/4 |
Wake (2004) |
"A self-conscious exercise in indie-minded pretension." |
|
Tomato 3/4 |
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005) |
"It takes the gleam off those penny-saving bargains." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/4 |
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) |
"There are a few too many lazy jokes played off Dewey's last name, but not nearly enough to wipe that grin off your face." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory (2007) |
"This is one for the Warhol archives, not theaters." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Walk on Water (2005) |
"Fox intends to draw historical parallels between Jewish and Palestinian victims, but the film nearly drowns in earnest morality." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Walk the Line (2005) |
"Mangold was wisely generous with the amount of musical performance he included in the film, and the later scenes -- showing Cash and Carter as partners -- are so well shot and edited, they defy you to sit still." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The Walker (2007) |
"When a good actor makes a bad choice, he can only hope to be saved by his director, and Woody Harrelson didn't get that hand from Paul Schrader while filming The Walker." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 1/4 |
Walking on the Sky (2004) |
"I haven't spent an hour and a half with worse company since high school detention." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
Walking Tall (2004) |
"Has none of the social edge that made the Vietnam-era film the pride of the hixploitation genre." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
The Wall (2004) |
"There's no denying the power of seeing two cultures standing so helplessly on opposite sides of a single fence." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 4/5 |
WALL-E (2008) |
"This latest achievement from Disney's Pixar Studios rotates around a rusty little robotic hero who's built, as the movie is, with such emotion, brains and humor that whole universes exist in his whirring tones and binocular eyes." |
Joe Neumaier |
Tomato 3/4 |
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) |
"Hare, hare!" |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Waltzing Anna (2006) |
"Given the dismal reception that greeted their last comedy, Mail Order Bride, you'd think filmmakers Doug Bollinger and Robert Capelli Jr. would have considered alternate career choices." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/5 |
Wanted (2008) |
"That Timur Bekmambetov's amped-up action flick Wanted makes absolutely no sense is entirely irrelevant. Your brain, in fact, can take a two-hour hiatus. But your adrenal glands will be working overtime." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
War Dance (2007) |
"A marvel to watch." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/4 |
War of the Worlds (2005) |
"The movie is no fun. There's none of the spirited adrenaline you expect from a bang-up blockbuster. I've docked it a star or so because it is nasty and mean-spirited, and plays on shocking allusions to 9/11 imagery." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 1/4 |
The War on the War on Drugs (2005) |
"Generally witless ode to illegal substances." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
The War Tapes (2006) |
"A gripping, sometimes dramatic, sometimes annoying collection of jerky images and subjective impressions." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
The War Within (2005) |
"Despite an admirable effort to explore topical concerns, both director and actor are obviously overwhelmed by the immensity of the subject matter." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/5 |
War, Inc. (2008) |
"War, Inc., which takes on the shifty world of Bush-policy blowback, has too much happening, which befits a comedy with a lot of targets but ultimately makes the whole operation scattershot." |
Joe Neumaier |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
The Warrior (2005) |
"If you have patience, this is a stately, beautifully composed story." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 2/4 |
Wassup Rockers (2006) |
"Some moments of off-the-cuff beauty aren't enough to mask the creepy heart of Larry Clark's latest look at outcast kids." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/5 |
Watchmen (2009) |
"The most pleasant surprise in the movie adaptation of Watchmen is the pop-art fusion set off by placing superheroes in a 'real' world." |
Joe Neumaier |
Tomato 3/4 |
Water (2006) |
"... a gorgeously shot, melancholy drama about a 7-year-old girl sent to live in a 'widows' house' in 1938 India." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007) |
"It's a little corny and somewhat overlong, but a sweet sensibility and stirring adventure scenes make The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep a welcome gift for anyone looking to keep kids entertained over the holidays." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/4 |
Water Lilies (2007) |
"Celine Sciamma's quiet drama has moments of motionless yearning that contrast the intense emotions of its 15-year-old protagonists." |
Joe Neumaier |
Splat 2/4 |
Watermarks (2004) |
"As documentaries go, Watermarks is nothing special. But the women who inhabit it are sensational." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 2/4 |
We Are Marshall (2006) |
"It looks like every inspirational sports movie we've seen in the last five years." |
Jack Mathews |
Tomato 3/5 |
We Are Wizards (2008) |
"A fun project that doesn't quite reach its potential, Josh Koury's doc is still worthwhile for anyone who can't wait until 2009 to see Harry Potter back on the big screen." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/4 |
We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004) |
"If you want to see how other couples fight, We Don't Live Here Anymore is as good a place as any to visit. But why, exactly, would you want to?" |
Jami Bernard |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen (2005) |
"This is an insider's tour -- the uninitiated are, frankly, not likely to be converted." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/5 |
We Live in Public (2009) |
"A snapshot of several New York eras that coincide with the Internet's growing pains." |
Joe Neumaier |
Splat 2.5/4 |
We Own The Night (2007) |
"This one hangs on the notion of fate, and once you've figured out whose fate is the central issue, the outcome -- even with those clumsy plot twists -- is fairly predictable." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
The Weather Man (2005) |
"What The Weather Man needed was a change in its weather -- a certain kind of humor, to be precise, something like the deadpan but human satire of Alexander Payne's About Schmidt." |
Jami Bernard |
Tomato 3/4 |
Wedding Crashers (2005) |
"Through most of it, there is a wonderful comic energy, boosted by a near-perfect selection of songs, and it even manages to show a little heart without bringing the jocular affair to an abrupt halt." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Wedding Date (2005) |
"Not a single scene connects smoothly with the next, characters make head-scratching choices that come out of nowhere and logic consistently proves itself an enemy to be avoided at all costs." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Weeping Meadow (2004) |
"Angelopoulos has created a memorably sweeping survey, but even an epic needs some moments of genuine intimacy." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/4 |
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) |
"Spiking sentimental family values with crude hilarity isn't the recipe for an award winner." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 2/4 |
Welcome to Mooseport (2004) |
"Little more than a feature-length screen test for TV icon Ray Romano." |
Jack Mathews |
Splat 2/4 |
The Wendell Baker Story (2007) |
"A shiny shell of a movie, TWBS is pretty to look at, and occasionally fun to watch. But ultimately, it's an exercise in futility -- for the participants, who can do so much more, and the audience, which deserves so much better." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Splat 1/5 |
Wendy and Lucy (2008) |
"Like a worst-case-scenario, indie-movie cliché, Wendy and Lucy throws every bone it can at the screen" |
Joe Neumaier |
Tomato 3/4 |
Wetlands Preserved: The Story of an Activist Nightclub (2008) |
"With its carefully-chosen soundtrack, funky animation, and enthusiastic interviews, Dean Budnick's affectionate documentary pays apt tribute to Wetlands, a local landmark that closed in 2001." |
Elizabeth Weitzman |
Tomato 3/4 |
Whale Rider (2003) |
"Pai is resourceful and in harmony with the natural world in a way that will charm and enthrall young viewers." |
Jami Bernard |
Splat 2.5/4 |
What Alice Found (2003) |
"The movie looks like TV from beginning to end, and accentuates the other major compromise of its meager budget." |
Jack Mathews |
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