|
| 1. |
|
09/14/11 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "Fascinating stuff, but audio vérité presents problems... the Raymond vs. Peter dustups elevate cruel bickering to a ritual through which we live life's pain." |
| 2. |
|
09/15/11 |
Good (Not Great) |
"...achieves the weight and power of the original recordings." |
| 3. |
|
09/29/11 |
Weak |
 "Despite being filmed in Cambodia with the participation of the Cambodian military, 'Freedom' seems less like an immersion in real-world tragedy than it does a vacationer's snapshots 'shopped to resemble that tragedy.' " |
| 4. |
|
08/29/12 |
Poor |
 "...explains why Obama went on to fulfill the dream of all Kenyan revolutionaries: passing the health care plan Republicans came up with in the '90s." |
| 5. |
|
08/30/12 |
Poor |
"...distills the anti-anticolonialist jeremiads of D'Souza's books -- which already were to academic argument what fruit snacks are to fruit -- into a fast-forwardable travelogue..." |
| 6. |
|
09/26/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "The awesome shit's awesome; the ponderous is ponderous; and the bloody corpses are arranged as artfully as wedding bouquets." |
| 7. |
|
09/27/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
"...a seamy, rain-drenched Thai thriller.... The answers are neither fresh nor especially satisfying, but Pen-ek Ratanaruang distinguishes the hunt with his fluid kineticism..." |
| 8. |
|
10/10/12 |
Excellent |
 "Remember the shitty crime comedies every Hollywood brat tried to make after 'Pulp Fiction?' It took an Irish playwright to get it right. See it with an audience." |
| 9. |
|
10/11/12 |
Excellent |
"The film opens up as its leads flee to the desert, becoming thoughtful, expansive, and funnier than ever, something like Pirandello or 'Duck Amuck.' " |
| 10. |
|
10/17/12 |
Poor |
 "...seriously, if this is the best promotion of itself that the free market can manage, it really would benefit from the help of a Ministry of Culture or something." |
| 11. |
|
10/18/12 |
Poor |
"...the story is a hard sell, and nobody involved has done the imaginative work to apply Rand's steel-and-railroads world to today's of tech and finance." |
| 12. |
|
10/18/12 |
Outstanding |
 "...a bliss-out. The performance footage alone is thrilling, and Spike Lee has augmented it with archival treasures... Come on get your sham on." |
| 13. |
|
10/24/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...a computer-animated kinda/sorta nature-doc... if they're never fully convincing, they're certainly as much good gory fun to watch as any old-school monster..." |
| 14. |
|
10/25/12 |
Outstanding |
"Spike Lee has given the world the first tribute that fully measures up to Michael Jackson the artist." |
| 15. |
|
10/31/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...never lays bare any truths we haven't known... [but] even if writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes isn't looking at anything new, he at least has the sharpest of eyes." |
| 16. |
|
11/01/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
"...familiar in its plotting but uproarious in its incidents... the scenes are long and chewy, and Linney goes so far over the top she can see your house from up there." |
| 17. |
|
11/28/12 |
Weak |
 "...cheap-o, disingenuous... the story of a failed attempt to exploit the sad, dumb, tragic life of a woman famous only because she liked drugs and married rich..." |
| 18. |
|
11/29/12 |
Weak |
"Giancola hired a crew to film Smith on set, guaranteeing that if the fiction movie proved a train wreck, at least he'd have train-wreck footage to peddle." |
| 19. |
|
12/05/12 |
Fair |
 "It's dispiriting that a film about the romantic life of FDR, who cultivated a small coterie of mistresses, should exhibit so little interest in what so engaged its hero: the women." |
| 20. |
|
12/05/12 |
Excellent |
 "The Rosses have captured on film something rare: what a night spent stumbling about New Orleans actually feels like.... the film is rich with pleasures." |
