| 1. |
|
10/05/10 |
Weak |
"...historical threads are largely left dangling. The filmmakers over-edit potentially fascinating material, and even the concert footage is arbitrarily curtailed... Virtually every aspect of this journey merits more cohesive treatment." |
| 2. |
|
09/10/07 |
Outstanding |
"Expansively, dramatically, magnificently Russian... plays like vintage jazz from a veteran band." |
| 3. |
|
07/18/12 |
Fair |
"...relies heavily on quirkiness to round out shaky characterizations and inject interest into otherwise forgettable pairings.... its 10 trysts tend toward the bizarre..." |
| 4. |
|
11/23/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
"Little has changed since '49 Up'... A complacently conservative acceptance sometimes seems to blanket all of '56 Up'..." |
| 5. |
|
06/06/11 |
Weak |
"The mounting body count in Juarez, Mexico, which has skyrocketed since President Calderon declared war on the drug cartels, makes for a morbidly fascinating topic that receives regrettably clumsy treatment..." |
| 6. |
|
09/22/11 |
Fair |
"...derivatively screwball one minute and stickily sentimental the next.... Jackson Hurst and Rachel Nichols seem too good-looking in precisely the wrong ways to fit their respective roles..." |
| 7. |
|
11/28/11 |
Moderate |
"Part personal quest, part testimonial and part fund-raiser... fulfills disparate agendas for helmer Dina Rosenmeier, a mildly resentful daughter wondering why her humanitarian mother prioritized orphaned Indian children over her own offspring." |
| 8. |
|
06/21/11 |
Weak |
"...a two-handed variation on a personal diary film.... Tedious enough to serve as a cautionary example of the pitfalls of DIY filmmaking..." |
| 9. |
|
11/10/11 |
Poor |
"Pairing Steve Guttenberg with an attractive girl half his age in a sitcom-like platonic relationship headed straight for the sheets borders on the delusional, particularly when the actor misses no opportunity to doff his shirt and flash his pumped-up pecs." |
| 10. |
|
10/12/12 |
Good |
"The people nobly persist in demanding democracy, but the ensuing results, though stirring, remain chillingly inconclusive." |
| 11. |
|
05/01/09 |
Very Good |
"Highly entertaining... provides an eye-opening lesson in the theory and practice of stripping... an old-fashioned postmodern hoot." |
| 12. |
|
08/11/11 |
Moderate |
"...the visual excitement director Prakash Jha generates is severely mitigated here by the good guys' exaggerated fearless stances, the swelling, triumphal score and the conjuring of a deus ex machina." |
| 13. |
|
11/04/09 |
Good (Not Great) |
"...suffers from the lack of a unifying vision... [but] whenever Jennifer Baichwal and her cinematographer/co-producer/husband Nick de Pencier turn their attention heavenward, the resulting skyscapes dazzle..." |
| 14. |
|
01/26/12 |
Fair |
"...may polarize auds, who will judge whether writer/director/actor Eric Schaeffer's wit and perception sufficiently balance his operatic self-pity." |
| 15. |
|
12/13/10 |
Poor |
"...delivers wearisome brutality but little finesse.... directed by tyro helmer Anton Bormatov with neither dynamism nor ingenuity.... simply too old-fashioned..." |
| 16. |
|
12/27/12 |
Fair |
"...remains locked in its one-note ethical dilemma, its deliberately washed-out palette sacrificing visual variation to institutional dreariness." |
| 17. |
|
10/13/11 |
Moderate |
"Taking a page from Morgan Spurlock's playbook, Darryl Roberts becomes the object of his film as well as its subject... he becomes the reluctant guinea pig for various diets and regimens, reaching conclusions strangely similar to his initial hypotheses." |
| 18. |
|
09/27/12 |
Very Good |
"...strong, well-crafted... preaches eloquently.... impresses most where many docus disappoint, expanding its scope without short-changing the wider subjects it covers." |
| 19. |
|
04/26/09 |
Good |
"...a searing expose of the subprime mortgage crisis matches Wall Street's numbers and graphics to the flesh-and-blood individuals whose lives have been devastated..." |
| 20. |
|
12/12/12 |
Very Good |
"Clear and concise, with insightful, impassioned interviewees... cogently analyzes looming catastrophes, with wistful stabs at possible solutions." |