| 1. |
|
05/16/13 |
Poor |
"By ensuring that tongue is incapable of locating cheek, the filmmakers exude a distinct ignorance... they have no sense of how to have full-tilt fun..." |
| 2. |
|
05/14/13 |
Very Good |
"...densely plotted, and occasionally borders on the convoluted, but the clarity and inventiveness of the direction keeps the drama and action constantly percolating." |
| 3. |
|
05/09/13 |
Very Good |
"Wang's no-frills style of documentation visually echoes a preadolescent trio's simple yet unforgiving world and its sense of labor as life." |
| 4. |
|
05/07/13 |
Weak |
"Craig Robinson very nearly saves the movie... Chism's film collapses into a series of clumsy improvisatory sketches, tied up in cheap, risibly sentimental catharsis." |
| 5. |
|
04/30/13 |
Outstanding |
"...unexpectedly galvanic... a madly creative, darkly comical, and fiendishly self-aware actioner with muscle to spare... thrilling..." |
| 6. |
|
04/27/13 |
Poor |
"The script deals in reactionary emotions... the self-seriousness of the film underlines both the laziness of the writing and the dull safety of the direction." |
| 7. |
|
03/31/13 |
Weak |
"...a lamb in lion's clothing, a would-be thriller... a long, dry monument to the reliability and comfort of community, blindly cocooned by its own nostalgic self-regard." |
| 8. |
|
03/26/13 |
Weak |
"...a shambling, inept micro-actioner with zero ideas to match the ambitious sweep of the imagery... omits any sense of humor or life's unpredictable pulse..." |
| 9. |
|
03/21/13 |
Good (Not Great) |
"...derives quite a lot of charm out of keeping each character's personal conflicts just that, personal... entirely watchable and mildly pleasing..." |
| 10. |
|
03/20/13 |
Weak |
"Visually, the film keeps the hits coming, but the comedy regularly reverts to broad familial jokes about how adorable overprotection is." |
| 11. |
|
03/13/13 |
Weak |
"...the jokes feel like they're only good enough to elicit an ending, and director Don Scardino eventually obliges in a flutter of hurried loose end-tying..." |
| 12. |
|
02/27/13 |
Poor |
"Clichés abound... trades in thoughtless, thuggish posturing, notable only for an involving-enough 'Heat'-meets-'Point Break' heist centerpiece." |
| 13. |
|
02/13/13 |
Poor |
"...goes to considerable lengths to eliminate every scrap of evidence to suggest that the film was made by an individual with personal emotions, memories, and opinions." |
| 14. |
|
02/04/13 |
Weak |
"...relies too heavily on its uncompromising nature... fascinating and discombobulating enough for its first half, but even at a scant 66-minute runtime, it feels a bit repetitive..." |
| 15. |
|
01/21/13 |
Poor |
"...it all comes out atonal.... Coscarelli seems to take the story's dark absurdist randomness as an invitation to make a sloppy, surprisingly uninventive film..." |
| 16. |
|
12/20/12 |
Poor |
"The product of an unsure, overcompensating workaday director... as incompetent, manipulative, safe, and disposable as any number of nickel-and-dime actioners..." |
| 17. |
|
11/28/12 |
Very Good |
"...lean, fleet-footed... The pacing is propulsive, the death pieces are creative, and though the performances are one-note, they're never stiff or distracting." |
| 18. |
|
10/28/12 |
Moderate |
"...aesthetically adventurous, if not terribly original... At once impassioned and wholly manipulative... a ruminative worst-case scenario as genre piece..." |
| 19. |
|
10/25/12 |
Poor |
"Such blandness and evasiveness is surprising given that the film is the product of two formidable, often gutsy filmmakers." |
| 20. |
|
10/24/12 |
Weak |
"...the filmmakers focus almost entirely on matters of displacement of cultural identity in scenes that are at once passably engaging and stunningly shortsighted." |