|
| 1. |
|
09/07/09 |
Good (Not Great) |
 "...a blend of vengeful action picture, punctuated by fireballs, and more peaceable, mystical -- and, frankly nonsensical -- ruminations on the nature of destiny.... it works." |
| 2. |
|
11/01/10 |
Good |
 "Boyle is terrified of boring an audience... The movie is best when it calms down and concentrates on the sinister peculiarities of the experience..." |
| 3. |
|
11/16/09 |
Poor |
 "...so long... by the time I lurched from the theatre I felt that three years had actually passed and that the apocalypse was due any second." |
| 4. |
|
09/05/12 |
Poor |
 "...a work of propaganda that offers base innuendo in lieu of argument.... the kind of personal production that calls into question the very virtue of sincerity..." |
| 5. |
|
04/15/13 |
Very Good |
 "...a square piece of work. But square can be powerful, and this film is bracingly detailed and shrewd about the tumultuous racial issues..." |
| 6. |
|
01/25/10 |
Good |
 "...mesmerizing, in a limited way.... Mellis and Scinto's pungent script has a manic obsessiveness that sounds like a tirade delivered by a guy sitting at the next barstool." |
| 7. |
|
09/26/11 |
Good |
 "Buoyant and observant... a small winner; the director, Jonathan Levine ('The Wackness'), has a great touch, mordant but light-handed." |
| 8. |
|
01/21/13 |
Good |
 "...brings both relief and dismay.... The British class system has its protections at every level, but also - at least to American eyes - a built-in inertia." |
| 9. |
|
02/18/13 |
Poor |
 "All trace of character development has been stripped away... the film stalls in a mire of its own nonsense, leaving nothing but a strange, sticky residue of political nostalgia." |
| 10. |
|
02/22/10 |
Excellent |
 "...runs on brutish naturalism, with Audiard forsaking the sly wit of his earlier films like 'A Self-Made Hero' and getting straight into the faces of his characters." |
| 11. |
|
01/02/12 |
Outstanding |
 "The miracle of 'A Separation' is that it doesn't spare any of its characters, nor does it seek to indict them. It is a democratic portrait of a theocratic world." |
| 12. |
|
09/28/09 |
Weak |
 "As a piece of moviemaking craft, 'A Serious Man' is fascinating; in every other way, it's intolerable.... The Coens' humor is distant, dry, and shrivelling..." |
| 13. |
|
12/14/09 |
Good |
 "...the whole movie, with its glazed and polished air, could be a dream.... The film is slowed by its own beauty, but it is salvaged by two majestic scenes." |
| 14. |
|
04/06/09 |
Outstanding |
 "Mottola has a tender regard for balled-up smart people who angrily reject conventional success yet remain desperate for acceptance.... tinged with the pathos..." |
| 15. |
|
01/30/12 |
Fair |
 "...from the opening shot of a guttering flame, 'Albert Nobbs' prefers to take its cue -- timorous, subdued, and reluctant to risk a smile -- from the title character." |
| 16. |
|
10/26/09 |
Fair |
 "...handsome yet predictable and high-minded -- not a dud, exactly, but too proper, too reserved for its swaggering subject." |
| 17. |
|
08/31/09 |
Excellent |
 "...terrific... chronicles the subprime-mortgage mess and the financial collapse of the past two years... a lucid and comprehensive picture of a rotten system..." |
| 18. |
|
12/31/12 |
Outstanding |
 "It was a masterstroke to cast Emmanuelle Riva... There have been many invasions in Haneke's work, but nothing compares with the looming approach of mortality." |
| 19. |
|
10/12/09 |
Very Good |
 "I have a feeling that Peter Sarsgaard could have stretched the role a lot further if the script had allowed him to, but, still, what he does is surprising." |
| 20. |
|
05/18/09 |
Fair |
 "...the material isn't all that different from the buttered-popcorn thrills of the recent 'Mummy' movies... If these movies made any damned sense..." |
