|
| 1. |
|
05/09/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...eventually pays off, displaying just enough narrative ingenuity to compensate for a cinematically crude and logistically sketchy deployment of the requisite blood-and-guts mayhem." |
| 2. |
|
04/23/12 |
Poor |
 "Relentlessly meatheaded and scarcely if ever funny... features interviews with a narrow cross-section of guys' guys, including a toupee designer, a full-time narcissist and a half-dozen celebrity jokesters..." |
| 3. |
|
02/05/12 |
Very Good |
 "...poetic, intermittently haunting... argues for generosity and open-heartedness in the face of greed, exploitation and vengeance, a tack that helps to make its headier excursions more accessible." |
| 4. |
|
02/02/12 |
Very Good |
 "Berlinger constructs a running inquiry into whether and how the borrowing of black music by white musicians -- nothing new even in '85 -- exploits marginalized artists..." |
| 5. |
|
01/29/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...intermittently snappy... it plays at least 20 minutes too long... Albeit not for everyone, 'Indie Game' does bring its joystick-jockeying subculture to life." |
| 6. |
|
11/27/11 |
Moderate |
 "...an odd bird, warm-blooded but largely lifeless.... overlong pic works hard to deliver intermittent pleasures, most of which derive from Matt Damon's affable lead turn." |
| 7. |
|
10/12/11 |
Weak |
 "...at least has a strong lead thesp in Mary Elizabeth Winstead... unfrighteningly icky 'Thing' is memorable mainly for illustrating CGI's gross deficiencies relative to old-fashioned makeup f/x." |
| 8. |
|
10/01/11 |
Moderate |
 "...never quite cuts loose enough to distinguish itself from the original.... Brewer's musical staging is subtly less theatrical than Herbert Ross', but it hardly constitutes a reinvention." |
| 9. |
|
09/30/11 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...starts in high gear and accelerates steadily from there... At a certain point, the movie turns flat-out ridiculous, but rarely if ever to the detriment of fun." |
| 10. |
|
09/27/11 |
Weak |
 "Chloe Grace Moretz invests far more emotion than the film deserves... the movie hurls its young heroine into a variety of abusive situations, resulting in a pic that's unpleasant when it isn't simply boring." |
| 11. |
|
09/26/11 |
Poor |
 "A typically smart performance by Juliette Binoche isn't enough to keep 'Elles' from drowning in pseudo-intellectual pretension and general banality." |
| 12. |
|
09/14/11 |
Weak |
 "Spectacularly photographed and journalistically lame... blows a 105-minute kiss to Dr. Jane Goodall..." |
| 13. |
|
09/11/11 |
Fair |
 "The cinematic equivalent of a concert T-shirt... simply counts the years from 1991 via sludgy backstage and onstage footage whose rarity can't forgive its inclusion." |
| 14. |
|
09/10/11 |
Moderate |
 "...intermittently amusing..." |
| 15. |
|
09/02/11 |
Poor |
 "...displays little sense of its scenario's camp potential. Gore, too, is in short supply on account of the pic's PG-13 rating, which renders the attack scenes nearly toothless." |
| 16. |
|
08/11/11 |
Poor |
 "...content simply to follow the Brooklyn-based, white-mutton-chops-sporting candidate on his expletive-laden, palm-pressing tour of the five boroughs. Even at 73 minutes, the film is, well, too damn long." |
| 17. |
|
08/03/11 |
Good |
 "...impresses less for its screeching take on extended adolescent fury than for its own macho, wacko, pedal-to-metal embodiment of same.... monumentally dumb but damn near undeniable..." |
| 18. |
|
08/03/11 |
Moderate |
 "...offers a surplus of Hollywood-style eye candy and narrative formula.... falling somewhere along the line between shocking reportage and standard-issue torture porn." |
| 19. |
|
07/06/11 |
Outstanding |
 "...pulls human heartstrings as wrenchingly as any creature feature in the 45 years since 'Au hasard Balthazar'.... a deeply haunting portrait of the unbridgeable gap between kindred species." |
| 20. |
|
07/06/11 |
Weak |
 "...well-shot but listless Argentine pic lacks sufficient satiric energy... culminates in violent slapstick farce while remaining dramatically exhausted." |
