|
| 1. |
|
03/21/12 |
Very Good |
 "...a refreshingly authentic romantic comedy about the tradeoffs people must make in their relationships, careers and lifestyles." |
| 2. |
|
02/12/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "As if molded from a heart-shaped cookie cutter, the three tenuously linked stories in Doze Niu Chen-Zer's formulaic 'Love' are cute, crumbly and not particularly filling.... employs a conventional menage-a-trois setup and neatly resolves all conflicts by its upbeat end." |
| 3. |
|
01/20/12 |
Very Good |
 "Globetrotting, gun toting, car chases, explosions... has all the action-junkie goods and then some, including the most jaw-dropping scenes of plummeting in recent Hong Kong stunt choreography." |
| 4. |
|
10/03/11 |
Poor |
 "A mainland Chinese propaganda vehicle... postulates history in such a scrappy, inaccessible manner that either as entertainment or education, it's a lost cause." |
| 5. |
|
07/13/11 |
Moderate |
 "Directed with feeling for its richly layered protagonists... elevated by its emotional complexity but simultaneously dragged down by the relative shortage of propulsive, hardcore action." |
| 6. |
|
06/23/11 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...laced with a soupcon of romanticism in its portrait of Mao Zedong as a young political theorist.... The all-important official founding of the party trails off into a mystical haze of tableaux vivants." |
| 7. |
|
05/24/11 |
Moderate |
 "An overly fast-paced and violent thriller that's technically superb but proves too taxing for the viewer.... The raging stamina, unrelenting violence, rapid-fire editing and truncated narrative all give one no pause for thought or even breath." |
| 8. |
|
05/21/11 |
Very Good |
 "A fascinating and ultimately moving tribute to a seminal comic artist's dark, disquieting but powerful works.... Each story delivers a punch with a twist that is either full of pathos or bathos." |
| 9. |
|
05/20/11 |
Good |
 "A clever and dream-like game with narrative time embedded in trivial but amusing social and sexual encounters." |
| 10. |
|
02/16/11 |
Good |
 "...a paean to perfectionism and crafty bit of food porn.... One interviewee has likened Jiro to the conductor of an orchestra in the way he controls the work flow." |
| 11. |
|
02/11/11 |
Very Good |
 "...never runs out of gas.... director Djo Tunda wa Munga handles a large, uniformly spirited cast and busy plot with ease and technical sophistication." |
| 12. |
|
01/11/11 |
Very Good |
 "...rollicking... Actor-auteur Jiang Wen directs with a macho, devil-may-care bravado that expresses the anarchy and rapacious opportunism of warlord-dominated China in the 1920s." |
| 13. |
|
01/07/11 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...a fistful of hits and misses.... one-on-one combat couldn't get much better than the sheer moxie and prowess displayed... However, those used to Yip's black humor and his genre-bending quirks may be slightly disappointed with the conventional screenplay..." |
| 14. |
|
10/15/10 |
Good |
 "...a little film of austere beauty.... For admirers of the artist and the open-minded, the film actually presents the ideal way of appreciating Kiefer's extraordinary work..." |
| 15. |
|
10/14/10 |
Very Good |
 "...dwells on the teenage Ip's formative years of training [as a Wing Chun boxing master].... delivers the real deal in the action department: rigorous, authentic fighting by physically formidable newcomer Dennis To and a stellar supporting cast." |
| 16. |
|
10/14/10 |
Excellent |
 "As violent, amoral and misanthropic as a Jacobean play, 'Outrage' is Takeshi Kitano's first yakuza flick since 'Brother' (2000), and arguably his best film in a decade." |
| 17. |
|
10/14/10 |
Outstanding |
 "As consciously strident in tone as the various forms of WWII Japanese war propaganda director Koji Wakamatsu deploys satirically, his conviction is so strong, and his argument so persuasive that this masterpiece has the blunt force of a tank rolling over naked flesh." |
| 18. |
|
05/22/10 |
Very Good |
 "...playfully invokes both the lifestyle and animistic beliefs of the Northeast Thai country folk, and the primitive magic of early Thai cinema..." |
| 19. |
|
05/20/10 |
Fair |
 "...so painfully muted, its style so elliptical and Lee's exploration of the function of art in a morally vacuous society so ambivalent that it makes for extremely difficult and challenging viewing." |
| 20. |
|
05/14/10 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...has serious flaws... plot developments are glaringly melodramatic... [but] offers such sensory pleasure and pacing is so smooth that two hours seem to glide by imperceptibly." |
