Tomato C+ |
Adam (2009) |
"The film is afflicted with a fatal case of the cutes: It’s never an encouraging sign when The Little Prince, that eternal touchstone of precious perma-children, emerges as a major motif for a romantic drama." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Adoration (2009) |
"Under the violin swells of Mychael Danna’s enveloping score, Egoyan weaves the personal, the political, and the technological into an immense yet intimate comment on our troubled times. In doing so, he stumbles back into relevance again." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato A- |
Adventureland (2009) |
"Adventureland refreshingly inhabits a world without clear-cut heroes or bad guys, just richly realized characters struggling to get by." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Afghan Star (2009) |
"If nothing else, Afghan Star offers a reminder of how much has changed in Afghanistan from the late ’70s -- when Kabul was a secular-oriented city with co-ed universities and a thriving nightclub scene -- to the rise of the Taliban." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato A- |
Afterschool (2009) |
"The passing of time and the evolution of technology may give it an expiration date, but more likely, Campos’ film stands to be an essential document of what it was like to be a young person in the late ’00s." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat |
Air Doll (2009) |
"This follow-up, despite having been in the works for years, feels a tad rushed." |
Mike D'Angelo |
Splat D+ |
Alien Trespass (2009) |
"There’s no shortage of either the originals or imitators, so why make Alien Trespass, a send-up of second-shelf ’50s sci-fi so straight-faced, it could almost pass as the real thing?" |
Keith Phipps |
Splat C- |
Aliens in the Attic (2009) |
"Like those mild old Disney comedies of the ’60s and ’70s, it seems perfectly content with being a harmless distraction." |
Tasha Robinson |
Splat F |
All About Steve (2009) |
"It’s a celebration of brazen nonconformity centered on an insufferable flibbertigibbet who makes the worst case for nonconformity imaginable." |
Nathan Rabin |
Splat D |
Amelia (2009) |
"[Swank is] so constrained by mannerisms that she never gets beyond the character’s surface -- although to be fair, trying to import feeling into the movie’s stilted dialogue is like trying to fly a plane blindfolded." |
Sam Adams |
Splat C+ |
American Casino (2009) |
"The film doesn’t come to life until too late in the game, when it takes the original tack of exploring the housing crisis through abandoned backyard swimming pools..." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat C |
An American Journey (2009) |
"An American Journey is short and scattered, and doesn’t follow through often enough on its “catching up with The Americans 50 years later” premise." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B |
American Swing (2009) |
"American Swing could use the flair of similar portraits of disco-era debauchery like Boogie Nights or Inside Deep Throat, but it’s even-handed in capturing the operation’s ambition and hubris. Just don’t bring an appetite." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B- |
American Violet (2009) |
"The film is more affecting than it ought to be, thanks to a loaded cast that includes Alfre Woodard, Tim Blake Nelson, Will Patton, Charles Dutton, and the rapper and sometime actor Xzibit." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat C+ |
Amreeka (2009) |
"It’s one of those movies that plays to the cheap seats, making the racism bigger, the assimilation process rougher, and the family squabbles extra-broad, lest viewers miss the point." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato A- |
An Education (2009) |
"An Education shares with Hornby’s best work trenchant insight into the way smart, hyper-verbal young people let the music, films, books, and art they love define themselves as they figure out who they are and what they want to be." |
Nathan Rabin |
Splat C |
Angels & Demons (2009) |
"At half the length, and with half of Hanks’ sneering pretension, this would make a pretty terrific action film. Anyone up for just plain Demons?" |
Tasha Robinson |
Splat C- |
The Answer Man (2009) |
"The Answer Man combines the worst of both worlds: It offers the ugly digital video, negligible production values, and manufactured grit of a Sundance loser with the pandering formula, sentiment, and romantic-comedy clichés of Hollywood pap." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Antichrist (2009) |
"Antichrist is a boldly personal film, tossing all von Trier’s ideas about faith, fear, and human nature into an unfettered phantasmagoria, full of repulsive visions and fierce scorn." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato A- |
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) |
"While Anvil! is frequently funny, it’d be a mistake to call the band a joke." |
Noel Murray |
Splat C- |
Armored (2009) |
"It’s a film without twists, where everything is what it seems, and when the mess has been resolved, it’s even at a loss for a proper denouement. Armored just ends—and with it, so does the access to plush chairs and free air conditioning." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B- |
Art & Copy (2009) |
"Art & Copy is mightily diverting, for those who don’t mind being sold a slick bill of goods." |
Nathan Rabin |
Splat C- |
Astro Boy (2009) |
"A muddled film full of one-dimensional characters and insultingly strident politics." |
Tasha Robinson |
Tomato B- |
At the Edge of the World (2009) |
"It’s frequently a rousing adventure." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B+ |
Away We Go (2009) |
"Though Away We Go lacks the screwball unpredictability of something like Flirting With Disaster, it compensates with a unexpected depth of feeling, a novelist’s (or memoirist’s) sense of detail, and a panoramic view of what home means." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B |
Adam Resurrected (2008) |
"Even when it flies off the rails deep into its third act, Resurrected remains strangely hypnotic." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B- |
Alexandra (2008) |
"Aleksandr Sokurov's anti-war drama Alexandra opens with a curious image and spends 90 minutes squeezing it for all it's worth." |
Noel Murray |
Splat C |
Allah Made Me Funny (2008) |
"Ultimately, Allah only made these guys mildly likable." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B |
The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela (2008) |
"A kind of postmodern, grown-up fairytale: a Cinderella story for the reality-TV age." |
Noel Murray |
Splat D |
America The Beautiful (2008) |
"Perhaps in future exposes Roberts will uncover that ice is cold and furnaces hot." |
Nathan Rabin |
Splat F |
An American Carol (2008) |
"What makes An American Carol overtly depressing rather than merely lame is its allegiance to a diseased political discourse built on crude dichotomies: Either you're a bellicose, God-fearing patriot or a troop-hating, traitorous hippie." |
Sam Adams |
Tomato B+ |
American Teen (2008) |
"It's easy for anyone who survived (or is surviving) high school to feel twinges of identification." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B- |
Appaloosa (2008) |
"In the early going, Appaloosa does an efficient job of establishing the tense standoff between lawmen-for-hire Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, and a tyrannical rancher (an extravagantly sinister Jeremy Irons)." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat C- |
August (2008) |
"August is a brooding, boring indie drama about the death of the culture-wide hallucination that was the dot-com bubble, and the moment when countless dot-com millionaires on paper became real-life paupers." |
Nathan Rabin |
Splat C |
Australia (2008) |
"It almost goes without saying that the film looks gorgeous, but the filmmaking behind it feels unsure how to work on this grand a scale. Australia is big. But it never fills the screen." |
Keith Phipps |
Tomato B |
The Abandoned (2007) |
"Director Nacho Cerdà succeeds in pushing the haunted-house movie into an abstract realm where the past and present fold into each other." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat B- |
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story (2007) |
"This is a fascinating, underreported piece of recent world history, but Patty Kim and Chris Sheridan's documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story doesn't do it full justice." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B- |
Across the Universe (2007) |
"Its crazed ambition. When it falls, it falls far, but at least that means it's reaching high." |
Tasha Robinson |
Splat B- |
After The Wedding (2007) |
"After The Wedding could be the cinematic equivalent of a Coldplay song. And while that isn't necessarily a slam, it isn't a recommendation either." |
Noel Murray |
- |
Air Guitar Nation (2007) |
Click here to see the review. |
|
Splat F |
Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) |
"The door is left open for another sequel; if someone would kindly shut it and board it up, that would be much appreciated." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat C |
Alpha Dog (2007) |
"[Alpha Dog is] intermittently bemused or tragic, but utterly lacking a conscience or a point of view." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat C- |
Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) |
"There's just not enough here for a movie. It's almost as if some ideas were meant to live for three and a half minutes each Christmas season, not to get stretched to the breaking point for 50 years." |
Keith Phipps |
Tomato B |
Amazing Grace (2007) |
"Apted's unexpected crowd-pleaser is inspirational, but also surprisingly entertaining." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
American Gangster (2007) |
"Normally, Scott loves his flash-bang setpieces, but he proves equally adept at low-key verisimilitude and long-form storytelling, the kind that sprawls out over years of incidents that only gradually add up to a powerful whole." |
Tasha Robinson |
Splat D |
Angel-A (2007) |
"Even though it looks like art, it plays like schlock." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres (2007) |
"Its absurdist scenarios serve as little more than a ramshackle frame for bizarre non sequiturs, stoned pop-culture riffing, and some of the weirdest gags ever to make it into a studio-released film." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B |
Arctic Tale (2007) |
"...husband-and-wife directing team Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson , who shot much of the footage over more than a decade in the Arctic, are aiming for a playful, casual, child-friendly tone..." |
Tasha Robinson |
Tomato B |
Are We Done Yet? (2007) |
"It isn't gangsta, but it's winning all the same." |
Nathan Rabin |
Splat D+ |
Arthur and the Invisibles (2007) |
"[Arthur and the Invisibles is] a film for kids who want to know what headaches feel like." |
Keith Phipps |
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