Tomato 3/4 |
Facing Windows (2003) |
"Strong performances by Girotti ... and Mezzogiorno make director Fernan Ozpetek's dovetailed stories of forbidden love compelling and vibrant.
" |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Factory Girl (2007) |
"Miller's touching performance is hamstrung by director George Hickenlooper's disconnected narrative and his overdone efforts to make the film look as messy and dirty as Warhol's underground films." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Failure to Launch (2006) |
"There are zero sparks between [the leads]. ... It seems the only reason these two are together is because they're both on the movie poster." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Fame (2009) |
"A little too scrubbed and sanitized, with the sharper realities of showbiz sanded down to a PG level." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Family Law (2006) |
"Burman based this comedy-drama on his experiences as a new father, and the results are warmly observational but slightly navel-gazing." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Family Stone (2005) |
"Like most family holiday gatherings, [it's] awkward and a bit loud in places, but filled with good humor and packed with familiar faces who give you a warm cozy feeling all over." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Fantastic Four (2005) |
"After this lackluster outing, the thought of a sequel is a stretch even Mr. Fantastic might not be able to make." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) |
"Gustafson's stop-motion animation achieves a consciously hand-crafted look that stands out in an age of slick computer animation like a Chippendale cabinet in an IKEA store." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
Far From Heaven (2002) |
"Haynes reaches back half a century, cutting through post-modern posing and self-conscious irony, to remind us that it's OK for a movie to show feelings." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Fast & Furious (2009) |
"With his sleepy-eyed gaze and biceps that no shirt can contain, Diesel quietly commands the movie." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Fast Food Nation (2006) |
"When Fast Food Nation is on target, especially showing the plight of the Mexican workers who keep the industry going, the movie gives us plenty to chew on." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1/4 |
Fat Albert (2004) |
"The script... is so full of empowerment messages that nobody noticed the plot makes no sense." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Favela Rising (2006) |
"[The directors] junk up the telling of Sa's story with overworked editing, unnecessary graphic clutter and a confounding habit of using dubbed-over music on the live concert footage." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Fear and Trembling (2004) |
"A shrewd but spiky satire about corporate bureaucracy and Japanese social stratification." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Fearless (2006) |
"If Fearless is Li's last film as a martial-arts star, he's going out on top of the world." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Feast (2006) |
"Fast, cheap and out-of-control - and those are its good qualities." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Fellini I'm a Born Liar (2003) |
"If you want to learn about Fellini, don't listen to him prattle on. Go rent 8 1/2 instead." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Festival Express (2004) |
"Divided between time-capsule concert footage ... and backward-glancing interviews - alas, not enough of the former and too much of the latter." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Festival in Cannes (2002) |
"Jaglom offers the none-too-original premise that everyone involved with moviemaking is a con artist and a liar." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Fighting Temptations (2003) |
"The worst thing is watching the manic Gooding ... continue on his career death-spiral." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Final Destination 2 (2003) |
"Gory, disgusting and stupid. ... But, heaven help me, it's entertaining." |
Sean Means |
Splat |
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) |
"Obscurely plotted, emotionally simplistic and cliched in its characterization." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Final Season (2007) |
"This hackneyed drama wrests from Field of Dreams the trophy for most syrupy Iowa-centric baseball movie of all time." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Find Me Guilty (2006) |
"Vin Diesel has seldom been more likable... [but] the movie itself feels like jury duty." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
Finding Nemo (2003) |
"For a computer-generated cartoon to provoke laughs, thrills and a few tears, that's not just a great movie -- that's perfection in pixels." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Finding Neverland (2004) |
"Captures both an artist's labors and a child's dreams - and shows that, in certain lucky cases, the two are really the same.
" |
Sean Means |
Splat 1/4 |
Finishing the Game (2007) |
"The pace is flat, the celebrity cameos go nowhere, and the smugness of Lin's observations of Asian-Americans and Hollywood smothers the comedy." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
First Daughter (2004) |
"A person would have to have missed not only Chasing Liberty but every movie ever made to think First Daughter was a first in anything except its title." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
First Descent (2005) |
"The segments of First Descent that trace snowboarding's history are a complete hash, a jumble of old 'boarder footage and generic interviews." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
First Snow (2007) |
"[The filmmakers] raise intriguing questions about fate and destiny, and they get a soulful performance from Pearce." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Flags of Our Fathers (2006) |
"[The film's] framing device ... smothers the film in a nostalgic glow that spares us the trouble of feeling the movie's emotions for ourselves." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Flicka (2006) |
"The sentimentality meter redlines in the finale, which mixes elements of Old Yeller and E.T., but much of the movie's tear-jerking is earned honestly." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The Flower of Evil (2003) |
"Chabrol has his moments of visual wit ... but mostly The Flower of Evil is a poky and uninvolving thriller of knotted family ties and convoluted histories." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1/4 |
Fly Me To The Moon (2008) |
"The idiotic story and low-rent animation will bore children to tears." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Flyboys (2006) |
"The computer-generated aerial footage ... makes dogfights with the Red Baron look like a really cool video game." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Fog of War (2003) |
"Watching McNamara, his eyes darting as he tries to sell his version of history, is the movie's most eerily compelling sight." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1/4 |
The Foot Fist Way (2008) |
"Apparently the writers thought Fred was so inherently funny they barely bothered to write jokes for him - and then thought those jokes were so funny they didn't need well-timed delivery." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
For the Bible Tells Me So (2007) |
"You'll have plenty of ammunition next time you want to tell some Bible-thumper where they can stick their Leviticus." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
For Your Consideration (2006) |
"I'd almost call O'Hara's performance "Oscar-worthy," if For Your Consideration didn't prove what a hollow curse that compliment can be." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) |
"The long-awaited pairing of the 44-year-old Li and the 54-year-old Chan is a fizzle (they only fight each other once, early in the film) that makes you wish they had met up in their prime." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Forever Strong (2008) |
"[Director Ryan] Little and cinematographer T.C. Christensen make you feel the heat in every scrum." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) |
"Segel has the Apatow gift for blending sweet and salty, mixing raunch with a romantic heart." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The Forgotten (2004) |
"Gerald Di Pego's maddeningly vague script plays like a M. Night Shyamalan knock-off, all the dread and gimmickry but without a satisfying payoff.
" |
Sean Means |
Splat 0/4 |
Formula 51 (2002) |
"I thought "Rocky Horror" would be the only time I would ever see Meat Loaf's internal organs." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Forty Shades of Blue (2005) |
"The reasons to watch are the performances by Torn and Korzun, and how Sachs and Rohatyn draw on the actors to paint fascinating portraits [of these characters]." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Fountain (2006) |
"The visions Aronofsky imparts, particularly in an ending that rivals 2001 for acid-flashback trippiness, make The Fountain a movie experience that can't be skipped." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Four Brothers (2005) |
"Singleton [is] no Tarantino, which is the sensibility needed to make the script's darkly comic tone work." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Four Christmases (2008) |
"Witherspoon and Vaughn, for their part, fail to exhibit any sign that they met before shooting day -- let alone are playing characters who have dated for three years." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The Four Feathers (2002) |
"An epic that wanders the Sahara, searching for a reason for being." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Fourth Kind (2009) |
"A cut-rate X-Files rehash cleverly dressed up with the trappings of supposedly "real" footage a la The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity." |
Sean Means |
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