Splat 2.5/4 |
P.S. (2004) |
"When Marcia Gay Harden enters scree, P.S. turns into Desperate Housewives." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat |
P.S. (2004) |
"A strong commentary track by Dylan Kidd can’t help this P.S. DVD, which boasts a so-so soundtrack and questionable visual presentation." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 1.5/4 |
P.S. I Love You (2007) |
"There are many good actresses unsuited for romantic comedies, and Hilary Swank, despite her considerable talents, is one of them." |
Nick Schager |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
P2 (2007) |
"P2 trembles in the shadow of Red Eye but it's not without its virtues." |
Rob Humanick |
Splat 1/4 |
The Pacifier (2005) |
"Before parodying your action superstar image, don’t you first have to be an action superstar?" |
Nick Schager |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Page Turner (2007) |
"I've seen Claude Chabrol's films, and Denis Dercourt's The Page Turner is no Merci Pour Le Chocolat." |
Nick Schager |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Paid in Full (2002) |
"Paid in Full is remarkably engaging despite being noticeably derivative of Goodfellas and at least a half dozen other trouble-in-the-ghetto flicks." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
The Painted Veil (2006) |
"The Painted Veil is more or less from the school of motion picture that Pauline Kael used to say "reeks of quality."" |
Jason Clark |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Pajama Game (1957) |
"As the two leads' flowering romance begins to grow further apart, the strain is conveyed through the mechanized perfectionism of the choreography." |
Eric Henderson |
Splat |
The Pajama Game (1957) |
"The only thing that doesn't move in The Pajama Game is Doris Day's scary butch hairdo." |
Eric Henderson |
Splat .5/4 |
Palindromes (2005) |
"Solondz fancies himself a spokesman for the socially oppressed but does to celluloid what future serial killers of the world do to butterfly wings." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) |
"Unlike The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth's allegories are not particularly rich, but the film's fantasy sequences remain seductive pageants of spiritual and cultural nuance." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato |
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) |
"Something of a step down for Guillermo del Toro as a filmmaker and, lo and behold, he wins three Oscars." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 4/4 |
Pandora's Box (1928) |
"This is a stirring vision of the world gripped by a sinister moral vice--a nosedive into a carnal abyss of despair lined with visionary chiaroscuro sights and thorny mythological references." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Pandorum (2009) |
"The further Bower journeys into the spacecraft's bowels, with Payton providing navigation tips from back in their original sleep chamber, the less Pandorum unnerves." |
Nick Schager |
Splat |
The Panic in Needle Park (1971) |
"A sample of '70s grit worth reviving, though anybody fiending for a fix of extras will be worse off than the film's craven addicts." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Panic in Needle Park (1971) |
"The Panic in the Needle Park rolls up the drug culture's sleeve and picks at the scabs underneath." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Tomato 3/4 |
Panic in the Streets (1950) |
"Tense and pulpy." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato |
Panic in the Streets (1950) |
"Kazan’s tense thriller reminds us that Jack Palance’s skin needed to get all leathery later in life to prevent his ludicrously prominent cheekbones from piercing through." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Panic Room (2002) |
"Panic Room may lack depth but it's great eye-candy nonetheless." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato |
Panic Room (2002) |
"The DVD provides enough substantive insight into the contemporary Hollywood filmmaking process." |
Joshua Vasquez |
Splat 2/4 |
Paper Dolls (2006) |
"The film only skims the surface of the Paper Dolls' personal lives, barely tapping into the dreams that motivate them on a daily basis." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Paper Heart (2009) |
"The questioning yields but modest insights, more along the line of "love is a hard thing to find--when you have it, keep it" than any heretofore undiscovered secret formulas." |
Andrew Schenker |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Paper Soldier (2009) |
"Deftly visualizes those dual elements of terrifying uncertainty and thrilling history that were the essence of the Soviet liberal experiment era." |
Lauren Wissot |
Tomato 3/4 |
Paprika (2007) |
"The idea of cinema as irrepressible bogeyman might be Kon's own confession." |
Keith Uhlich |
Tomato 4/4 |
Paradise (2008) |
"It wouldn't be a stretch to compare Paradise to Alphaville, what with its imagining of the modern as otherworldly, or to imagine it as a capsule made by an outer-space explorer who visits Earth and finds layers of mystery in the mundane." |
Jeremiah Kipp |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Paradise Now (2005) |
"Not unlike Downfall in its attempts to comprehend the motivations behind those who would commit atrocities against innocents in the name of politics or piety." |
Nick Schager |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Paraguayan Hammock (2008) |
"Encina's idea-driven artistry belies the quiet integrity and poetry of the script, keeping audiences at a rather clinical distance from the lives of her characters." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Paranoid Park (2008) |
"A fully subjective probe into the consciousness of a young man and a generous display of artistic empathy." |
Akiva Gottlieb |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Paranormal Activity (2009) |
"Paranormal Activity only occasionally rises above the status of a cute haunted house tour or hayride." |
Rob Humanick |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Parenthood (1989) |
"Parenthood is a middlebrow masterpiece. Not a masterpiece of middlebrow but a middlebrow masterpiece, with the latter word being the subject, not the modifier." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato |
Parenthood (1989) |
"Its very existence means "the best film Ron Howard directed" is, lamentably, not a backhanded compliment." |
Eric Henderson |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Paris (2009) |
"Klapisch's "It's a small world" plotting is sunk by both bland artistry and dull insights into his milieu." |
Nick Schager |
Splat 1/4 |
Paris 36 (2008) |
"A superficial, clichéd jumble that illustrates what might happen if you threw Moulin Rouge and Amélie into the same high-speed blender." |
Nick Schager |
Tomato 3/4 |
Paris Belongs to Us (1959) |
"Rivette was perhaps more of a prognosticator than he realized, anticipating the downfall of the very movement he was involved in before it had effectively begun." |
Keith Uhlich |
Tomato 3/4 |
Paris Is Burning (1990) |
"The beauty of the film is Livingston's nonjudgmental, accommodating camera." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Tomato |
Paris Is Burning (1990) |
"Hardly a drag. Fifteen years later, Paris still burns with life." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Splat 2/4 |
Paris, Je T'aime (2007) |
"Typical of such compilations, results tend to vary wildly." |
Nick Schager |
Splat .5/4 |
Park (2007) |
"Man, have we gone downhill since Short Cuts." |
Rob Humanick |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Parque Via (2009) |
"With its ritualistic repetitions and concluding act of violence, Rivero's film is something of a pocket-book Jeanne Dielman." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Splat 1/4 |
Particles of Truth (2003) |
"A me-me-me spectacle of unexamined grief that allows filmmaker Jennifer Elster to condescend to everyone but herself." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
Party Monster (2003) |
"As Alig, Culkin makes a complete embarrassment of himself, but the true horror of his performance is felt most whenever he shares screen time with the incredible Seth Green." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 4/4 |
The Passenger (1975) |
"A fatalistic tale of identity, destiny, coincidence, existential malaise, and the boundaries between the real and the imagined." |
Nick Schager |
Splat 1/4 |
Passengers (2008) |
"Solely predicated on its twist ending." |
Nick Schager |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Passing Poston (2008) |
"Stifled by directors Joe Fox and James Nubile's frankly incompetent approach to both documentary storytelling and aesthetics." |
Matt Noller |
Tomato 3/4 |
Passing Strange (2010) |
"A worthy public record of a show most people nationwide didn't get the chance to see." |
Jeremiah Kipp |
Splat |
The Passion of the Christ (2004) |
"A high-art snuff film...an unhealthy, inhuman, pornographic, masochistic torture mechanism." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
The Passion of the Christ (2004) |
"Jesus Christ is remote, a Superman among men, and his teardrops shake the earth." |
Jeremiah Kipp |
Splat 1/4 |
Pathfinder (2007) |
"Strives to be a latter-day Conan the Barbarian." |
Nick Schager |
Tomato 4/4 |
The Patsy (1964) |
"The Patsy reflects a genuine affection for the artisans and jacks-of-all-trades that make careers like Lewis's possible." |
Eric Henderson |
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