| 1. |
|
05/21/12 |
Good |
"...survives with the original's spirit largely intact.... so openly nonsensical, with its own rules so arbitrarily applied, that scrutiny is a killjoy.... at its best when it simply owns its own absurdity." |
| 2. |
|
05/18/12 |
Good |
"Good-humored and endearing, full of energy and color if not quite Pixar-level invention... A bit crammed but not too crowded, zipping along at a well-modulated, rarely frenetic pace..." |
| 3. |
|
05/16/12 |
Good |
"...a universally appealing tale of teenage romance... Wes Anderson's stylized approach masks the young actors' inexperience, while embracing a familiar genre..." |
| 4. |
|
05/16/12 |
Good |
"...sturdy bio-docu.... a sensational story that many will think they know, but don't... the story itself overcomes the occasional misfire..." |
| 5. |
|
05/12/12 |
Fair |
"It's got killer fish, stereoscopy and boobs aplenty. Less tongue-in-cheek than its 2010 predecessor and more tongue-hanging-out-drooling..." |
| 6. |
|
05/11/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
"...non-offending... Rather than challenging audience prejudices, Baron Cohen exploits them by presenting this ruthless world leader as an object of scorn and ridicule -- the easiest of targets." |
| 7. |
|
05/10/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
"Helmer Kirk Jones ('Nanny McPhee') does a solid job negotiating the material and managing the few tonal shifts when an occasional dark moment emerges..." |
| 8. |
|
05/10/12 |
Moderate |
"...delivers the basic goods, if not much more, as formulaic, functional guys'-night-in entertainment, providing employment to many shirtless, no-necked actors.... plot points fall into place with efficiency if little surprise." |
| 9. |
|
05/10/12 |
Good |
"...sustains interest through the smooth efficiency of its storytelling and the engaging performances of its lead players." |
| 10. |
|
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." |
| 11. |
|
05/09/12 |
Fair |
"...never finds its own groove, alternating between high-school dramedy and overworked-single-mom narratives without ever really becoming a mother-and-daughter story until the closing scenes." |
| 12. |
|
05/08/12 |
Good (Not Great) |
"Half posthumous love letter, half historical re-enactment... revisits Israel's near-mythic 1976 hostage rescue at Entebbe through the eyes of those who survived it, and one who didn't..." |
| 13. |
|
05/07/12 |
Fair |
"...an extravagantly empty postmodern artifact, an object lesson in the perils of camping up a property that had no shortage of camp appeal to begin with." |
| 14. |
|
05/07/12 |
Moderate |
"A comedy about acting your age, or not... The leads are likable enough, particularly the droll Todd Grinnell, but the material simply isn't strong enough to let them create full-blooded characters." |
| 15. |
|
05/07/12 |
Good |
"Maintaining an admirably straight face, this fist-flying flashback is good fun for fanboy types who take its myriad absurdities with the requisite grain of salt." |
| 16. |
|
05/06/12 |
Poor |
"...a shapeless and charmless teen-skewing trifle stocked with trendy slanguage and social-network gimcracks that make it seem like something four years past its expiration date.... plays like a mash-up of three or four segments of an ABC Family sitcom..." |
| 17. |
|
05/06/12 |
Very Good |
"...follows novelist W.G. Sebald's path with only occasional detours, while intermittently glimpsed talking heads fade in and out of artful black-and-white landscapes." |
| 18. |
|
05/03/12 |
Weak |
"...a contrived suspenser... Samuel L. Jackson offers a performance that could be labeled Swift's Premium and sold by the pound.... more than a few melodramatic scenes are quite funny, intentionally or not." |
| 19. |
|
05/02/12 |
Good |
"...one of Amos Kollek's more affecting films.... about confronting perceived failure and depression, being grateful for what one has, and getting a clue as to the degree of one's own unhappiness." |
| 20. |
|
04/28/12 |
Very Good |
"...isn't just about stolen art: It's about cultural skulduggery, political sleaze, institutional hypocrisy and the virtues of persistence.... helmer Andrew Shea finds a lot of ugly stuff..." |