|
| 1. |
|
05/14/12 |
Weak |
 "Rather than unite its flawed characters into a convincing portrait of dysfunction, 'Virginia' strings them along aimlessly under the limp auspices of satire..." |
| 2. |
|
05/08/12 |
Moderate |
 "...echoes HBO's 'Bored to Death' and Claude Chabrol's 'Inspector Bellamy,' but without the former's humor or the latter's genuine menace..." |
| 3. |
|
04/22/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "Tangled amid lives defined by endless bureaucracy and broken relationships, the hope for better things is both a motivator and a constant source of pain, a scab that none of them can stop picking..." |
| 4. |
|
04/18/12 |
Moderate |
 "Like that opening sex scene, presented just muddily enough to seem both slightly lurid and tastefully grave, 'Elles' comes off as equally simplistic and indistinct." |
| 5. |
|
04/16/12 |
Very Good |
 "...vital not because of its human-interest stories, but because of the things it tells us about the transfer of resources from one party to another, how we sell ourselves and buy the same from others..." |
| 6. |
|
04/08/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "There's great potential for the kind of issues that are taken on, but nothing is resolved... may hit the right notes emotionally, but its answers remain otherwise unsatisfying." |
| 7. |
|
03/28/12 |
Moderate |
 "...ends in a final showdown that goes by much too fast... has a lot of ideas to express, but it would probably be a better film if it chose to focus on one of them." |
| 8. |
|
03/05/12 |
Very Good |
 "...ultimately winning because of its devilish anarchic streak, aiming its arrows at the stuffiness of the traditional musical establishment." |
| 9. |
|
02/23/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...manages to feel current, and relatively funny, without ever becoming particularly pointed, resulting in a floppy but satisfactory middlebrow comedy." |
| 10. |
|
02/14/12 |
Very Good |
 "...the colors are magnificent, the emotional tone mature but wide-eyed... a patient, elegiac adventure tale that also feels cozy and small, cinematically expanding a classic story without over-enlarging its scope." |
| 11. |
|
01/30/12 |
Outstanding |
 "...a patiently crafted thriller that's ensconced in two layers of creaky old surroundings: the film's actual setting and the horror medium itself." |
| 12. |
|
01/23/12 |
Very Good |
 "...old-fashioned, neatly arrayed... a film where plans still have the utmost importance, but they're finally integrated organically into the fabric of the plot..." |
| 13. |
|
01/20/12 |
Moderate |
 "...as earnest as you might expect, stocked with egregious, often patently unnecessary digital effects, hokey humor, and aw-shucks patriotism, an underdog story played out against vaguely menacing dark forces." |
| 14. |
|
12/20/11 |
Outstanding |
 "The persistent idea that we're being presented with an unreliable narrator, that there's no way of knowing how much of this anonymous man's story is true, how much of it is high-flown bragging, only makes 'El Sicario' more interesting." |
| 15. |
|
11/07/11 |
Moderate |
 "...style is so strenuously presented, whipped into a creamy foam of guns, Rolling Stones tracks, and expensive cars, that it manages to get by mostly on vapors..." |
| 16. |
|
11/07/11 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "A concert film as long-form music video... has style to burn but little apparent focus, flitting about its subject like a buzzing fly." |
| 17. |
|
11/01/11 |
Weak |
 "...has no real idea of how to convey joy, pain, or any type of emotional progression. Rather than organically develop its characters, it charts their evolution via silly outfit changes, treating the early '80s as a costume bin for flavor-of-the-week aping gags..." |
| 18. |
|
10/31/11 |
Weak |
 "...a lightweight, frustratingly lazy documentary about punk-rock dads.... as if they were the first generation to settle into a middle-class existence after a youth spent on the fringes." |
| 19. |
|
10/13/11 |
Moderate |
 "...establishes potentially anxious scenarios and then explodes them, compulsively returning to gruesome money shots of the alien at work... scary and impressive but eventually exhausting." |
| 20. |
|
09/19/11 |
Very Good |
 "Paired with the poignancy of the unreleased 'Uncle Kent,' one of the best films on the hypnotizing power of the Internet, 'Art History' signals a strong year for director Joe Swanberg with an increasingly sharp focus." |
