|
| 1. |
|
05/18/12 |
Outstanding |
 "...a testament to art's baffling ability to somehow encapsulate everything and nothing of life at once... deserves to be one of the docs that breaks into the American pop consciousness this year." |
| 2. |
|
05/15/12 |
Outstanding |
 "...puts you in the mind of an unexpected killer with an immediacy that recalls 'A Simple Plan'... tough, haunting, and eventually even casually heartbreaking." |
| 3. |
|
05/11/12 |
Moderate |
 "Some will find 'You Are Here' compelling, but underneath the riddles it's basically a self-important proclamation of 'who the hell knows?' " |
| 4. |
|
05/04/12 |
Poor |
 "...a gruesome, humorless film without a shred of invention or humanity that's openly contemptuous of its heroes for their typical and forgivable middle-class foibles." |
| 5. |
|
05/01/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "Andrew Dosunmu's is one of the sexiest and most visually accomplished directorial debuts in recent memory.... But Eugene Gussenhoven's script simply isn't in the same league..." |
| 6. |
|
04/12/12 |
Outstanding |
 "...doesn't present us with a sympathetic protagonist, and that's precisely why it's so fascinating.... we're rarely allowed to experience these stories from the inside-out." |
| 7. |
|
04/10/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...the film has a bracingly casual sense of day-to-day working-class life that recalls the films of Jean Renoir or, more recently, Olivier Assayas." |
| 8. |
|
03/29/12 |
Very Good |
 "...has an exhilarating tossed-off quality that characterized many of the most entertaining works of the French New Wave.... intoxicatingly reckless... at its best, yummy pop bliss." |
| 9. |
|
03/28/12 |
Very Good |
 "...strikingly principled... follows an aspiring hip-hop artist who calls himself Half-a-Mill as he and his various hangers-on attempt to generate interest in his recently completed album..." |
| 10. |
|
03/17/12 |
Very Good |
 "...has a shambling charm that actively disputes an unspoken notion that a documentary must be well-structured in order to effectively land its points." |
| 11. |
|
03/11/12 |
Weak |
 "It reminded me to revisit the similarly themed, and incomparably superior 'Summer Hours,' and any film that leads one back to 'Summer Hours' can't be all bad." |
| 12. |
|
03/06/12 |
Poor |
 "...might have the most appalling premise of any movie I've ever encountered.... The title is apropos, but it's also an understatement." |
| 13. |
|
02/09/12 |
Moderate |
 "...more of an educational video than a movie.... feels unavoidably dull, as there isn't much thematic ambiguity to be found in the assertion that humans deserve life that's defined by more than indentured servitude." |
| 14. |
|
02/01/12 |
Moderate |
 "[Director Adam] Pesce never takes the viewer into the stratosphere of these peoples' dreams -- and this film, to be truly effective, needs to contrast the perfection they feel on their board with the chaos they feel everywhere else." |
| 15. |
|
01/16/12 |
Weak |
 "...as a film it's lacking. Ian Cheney isn't much of a showman or a poet (especially when you consider, say, the Qatsi trilogy), and so this film feels like something you might only half watch in a high school science class." |
| 16. |
|
01/12/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "Director Robert Greene taps at rootless white anger without glorifying it or condescending to it. That is a quiet victory. This well structured film is often tough to take, but it honors its own wounded integrity." |
| 17. |
|
01/08/12 |
Poor |
 "...feels made up as it went along, and not in the electrifyingly free-wheeling fashion of, say, a Godard or Altman film. This is an actor's film in the worst sense, as there's no consistent, overriding tone that speaks to the nominal story being told..." |
| 18. |
|
01/01/12 |
Very Good |
 "...it's clear that Rafi Pitts is a budding filmmaker and actor of immense talent who should, barring the potential perversities of circumstance, make a film of considerable and uniting power." |
| 19. |
|
12/20/11 |
Poor |
 "...isn't much of a movie.... The staging is listless, the lighting ugly, and the editing is often off; you grasp jokes and stunts more in theory than in reality.... To enjoy 'Miss Minoes' you'll have to take considerable and irrational pleasure in watching cats speak with badly dubbed British voices." |
| 20. |
|
12/08/11 |
Poor |
 "...watchable and competent.... but the film is the usual superficial malarkey about an ungrateful white guy who must content himself with two attractive women and a fabulous city loft..." |
