|
| 1. |
|
05/16/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "Peter Berg, creator of 'Friday Night Lights' and director of the estimable 'The Rundown,' is in street-fighting mode here... he does not hesitate to pull any dirty trick in order to get the job done." |
| 2. |
|
05/16/12 |
Poor |
 "...can't sustain interest in the endless unraveling of Molly's psyche, which, as handled by Eduardo Sánchez, has all the interest of watching an inexplicably untreated wound fester." |
| 3. |
|
05/16/12 |
Good |
 "With taciturn camerawork and a scalpel-like precision dissecting class that recalls Claude Chabrol, Zvyagintsev's film observes Elena making the decision of which family to be loyal to and how to assert her newfound power." |
| 4. |
|
05/16/12 |
Weak |
 "...passes by potentially interesting digressions without more than a wayward glance... It's the last thing you want a movie about appearances to be: superficial." |
| 5. |
|
05/16/12 |
Good |
 "Instead of cautiously toeing the realist line, 26-year-old Alex Ross Perry takes a caricaturist's approach. This is a movie that's consistently unafraid to get confrontational and plain weird..." |
| 6. |
|
05/10/12 |
Poor |
 "...adopts the scorched-earth moral certitude and guiltless body count of the 'angry white male' Reagan-era action movie while turning the jingoistic politics inside out." |
| 7. |
|
05/09/12 |
Fair |
 "...in under two hours, Tim Burton's 'Dark Shadows' must distill the essence of a 1,225-episode story arc.... less a resurrection than a clumsy desecration." |
| 8. |
|
05/09/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...a well-arranged if rather drawn-out parade of talking heads telling 'Wally's' story.... what prevents it from being more is the absence of the dissenting voices of its 'villains'..." |
| 9. |
|
05/02/12 |
Good |
 "...ribald but, of course, never crude... the plot twists are about as venerable as the cast and predictably affecting when performed with such old-hand proficiency." |
| 10. |
|
05/02/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...a more efficient, state-of-the-art breed of splatter entertainment, engineered as it is by Darren Lynn Bousman, who made his name with machine-tooled torture spectacles 'Saws' II though IV." |
| 11. |
|
05/02/12 |
Weak |
 "Essentially a rom-com deathwatch... demands miracles of its cast to keep the proceedings from becoming grindingly mawkish and does not get them..." |
| 12. |
|
05/02/12 |
Poor |
 "...a tarted-up version of Poe's life... It's a pathetic missed opportunity..." |
| 13. |
|
04/25/12 |
Good |
 "...hits the usual kids' pic stops... but a script that consistently finds fresh outlets for its running gags makes for a sufficiently rollicking pleasure cruise..." |
| 14. |
|
04/25/12 |
Excellent |
 "...the rarest of rarities: a truly unexpected film... Jack Black's performance is remarkable for its ability to be at once flamboyant and remote." |
| 15. |
|
04/18/12 |
Moderate |
 "...in characterizing both fighters and their sport, directors Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker ('Gunner Palace') rarely break down defenses to surpass superficiality." |
| 16. |
|
04/18/12 |
Very Good |
 "...the specificity of director Hong Sang-soo's subject matter gives his seemingly inconsequential films an unaccountable power." |
| 17. |
|
04/18/12 |
Fair |
 "...a travelogue doubling as an eco guilt-trip.... Arguably a good lesson for kids about preserving our environment... definitely a threat to our equally endangered good taste." |
| 18. |
|
04/11/12 |
Poor |
 "...combines the bravura mash-up showmanship and Wikipedic '90s pop-culture savvy of a Girl Talk album with the frivolous, non sequitur wit of Family Guy.... one of the most obnoxious movies ever made." |
| 19. |
|
04/11/12 |
Weak |
 "...a potluck of derivative references.... Such scavenging might be overlooked if the action were legible, the one-liners crisply written, or the chemistry of the leads bonding." |
| 20. |
|
04/04/12 |
Good |
 "...comfortable and funny... co-writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg hit familiar marks from unexpected angles, while the ensemble interplay is 'routine' in the best sense of the word." |
