|
| 1. |
|
12/24/09 |
Weak |
 "...it's inevitable that Sherlock Holmes's 21st-century avatar would be a buff superhero.... As played by Robert Downey Jr. with gloomy insouciance, Holmes is also something of a Bushwick boho." |
| 2. |
|
12/10/09 |
Very Good |
 "Christian McKay's vocal impression of Welles is pitch-perfect, and he nails Welles's ironic twinkle and assured, mocking self-importance." |
| 3. |
|
12/03/09 |
Poor |
 "Indifferently compiled Indie Hitz -- the Blow, MGMT, Peter Bjorn and John, Band of Horses -- periodically fill the laughless silence that will prevail in any theater where this screens." |
| 4. |
|
12/03/09 |
Poor |
 "...no more a Christmas movie than 'Yentl.' " |
| 5. |
|
11/26/09 |
Weak |
 "...chaste, oddly bloodless, and nearly plotless..." |
| 6. |
|
11/26/09 |
Weak |
 "Eurocop Harris discovers the ninjas' secret role in black-ops history, so, naturally, they come after her -- that's the entire plot." |
| 7. |
|
11/19/09 |
Moderate |
 "Handsome doofus Chuck is a chip off the Buzz Lightyear block, but 'Planet 51' lacks the Pixar polish (particularly in its writing) -- still, it's not a bad knockoff." |
| 8. |
|
11/12/09 |
Very Good |
 "Gerald Peary's loving tribute to American film criticism... This rapidly paced, breezily entertaining look at a mutating field evokes nostalgia for a time when movies really seemed to matter while somehow avoiding despair about its future." |
| 9. |
|
11/12/09 |
Outstanding |
 "Neither a crude lampoon of domestic servitude nor a knee-jerk skewering of the bourgeoisie, the movie deftly shifts its point of view from downstairs to upstairs and back again, always keeping us off-balance..." |
| 10. |
|
11/12/09 |
Fair |
 "...washes ashore with most of its better bits excised." |
| 11. |
|
11/06/09 |
Weak |
 "The best thing about this movie is that its title keeps suggesting new self-reflexive metaphors -- like the tightly wound filmmaker's dogged attempt to think outside it." |
| 12. |
|
11/05/09 |
Weak |
 "A couple of modestly effective shocks lie in store, but none as frightening as the onscreen text informing us that some 11 million people claim to have seen a UFO." |
| 13. |
|
11/05/09 |
Fair |
 "...all critical thinking aside, would you believe that George Clooney's latest production... is meant to be a comedy? Perhaps in 1967, and under the right pharmaceutical conditions, it might have seemed so..." |
| 14. |
|
11/05/09 |
Weak |
 "Zemeckis has a tin ear for Dickens's grand moral melodramas, or just doesn't care much." |
| 15. |
|
10/29/09 |
Weak |
 "...how many times can you really show Jackson dressing down the band, over and over again, for failing to correctly 'bathe in the moonlight'? Many, many times." |
| 16. |
|
10/29/09 |
Poor |
 "...a bumblefuck involving a serial killer, Jigsaw (a thin-lipped Tobin Bell, now intoning from beyond the grave), who devises 'Fear Factor'/'Pit andthe Pendulum'-style deadly dilemmas for his victims." |
| 17. |
|
10/29/09 |
Good |
 "...funniest when addressing a straight audience, making outlandish claims in favor of the free market and the benefits of unregulated catastrophe..." |
| 18. |
|
10/29/09 |
Fair |
 "...a series of survivor accounts and philosophical meditations on lightning strikes... director Jennifer Baichwal's fizzled essay makes you yearn for the clarity of the Weather Channel." |
| 19. |
|
10/22/09 |
Excellent |
 "...terrific... screenwriter Peter Morgan and television director Tom Hooper use a series of elegantly staged flashbacks to trace Clough and Taylor's rapid rise to fame, and the hubris that led the former to stumble badly when he got to Leeds..." |
| 20. |
|
10/22/09 |
Poor |
 "Period details, from 1928 to 1937, are so clichéd that someone might as well announce onscreen, 'Gosh, these '20s certainly are Roaring!' " |
