ROTTEN TOMATOES: Harvey S. Karten

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HARVEY S. KARTEN

""If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am for myself only, what am I?" -Hillel"

Agrees with the Tomatometer 67% of the time.

Biography: After teaching high school for quite a while, I took an M.A. in Film and Theater from Hunter College in New York and a Ph.D. in Theater from the City University Graduate Center, also in the Big Apple. Having sat through one innocuous Broadway show after another and a great deal of talky off-Broadway productions as a so-called second-night critic, I realized that you don't always get what you pay for. Broadway shows may be $75 a ticket and movies just $9.50 (in New York), but you're more likely to have fun AND take away something of substance from the big screen. The switch from reviewing theater to reviewing movies was an easy one to make.When my application for membership in the New York Film Critics Circle was circular-filed (print media only, sorry), I founded the Online Film Critics Society in January 1997 and three years later, NYFCO (New York Film Critics Online).

Favorites: Favorite films: Amadeus, Schindler's List, Lassie Come HomeBest of 2006: Thank You for Smoking

Publications: Compuserve, Film Journal International, Modamag.com, Rotten Tomatoes, The Cinema Source

Critics' Group: New York Film Critics Online

Total Reviews: 2715

Location: Brooklyn, New York

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date (default)

Fresh B+	Fresh 83%	Adam (2009)	" An involving, quirky comedy that rivets thanks to a subtly effective performance by Hugh Dancy." — Compuserve Posted Jul 7, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 66%	Public Enemies (2009)	" Describes as well as any other recent film the adage 'Live fast, die young, and leave a handsome body.'" — Compuserve Posted Jul 4, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 70%	Bruno (2009)	" 'tis the season for summer camp, and this one fits the bill as well as any other." — Compuserve Posted Jul 4, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 92%	Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009)	" A refreshing rebirth of the show that gave its star the first Emmy award." — Compuserve Posted Jun 24, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 100%	The English Surgeon (2009)	" Good to know that there are still doctors around who do not spend all their waking hours thinking of $$$. (OK, maybe only in England, but that's a start.)" — Compuserve Posted Jun 24, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 44%	The Girl From Monaco (2009)	" The comedy is subtle as is the subtle motif." — Compuserve Posted Jun 22, 2009
Rotten D	Rotten 17%	Year One (2009)	" Jack Black plays Bud Abbott to Michael Cera's Lou Costello in a movie about as relevant to today's audiences as the Abbott and Costello Show." — Compuserve Posted Jun 17, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 84%	Tony Manero (2009)	" Remarkable Chilean actor Alfredo Castro portrays a sleaze-bag standing in for people desperate psychologically to escape from dictator General Pinochet's brutality." — Compuserve Posted Jun 16, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 46%	The Proposal (2009)	" Director Anne Fletcher keeps the romantic comedy running with a bubbly spirit and a snappy pace." — Compuserve Posted Jun 15, 2009
Fresh A-	N/A	Bliss (2007)	" A riveting Turkish tale of three people seeking to escape from their customary lives." — Compuserve Posted Jun 10, 2009
Fresh B	N/A	Mein F�hrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler (2007)	" Writer-director Dani Levy is no Mel Brooks or Charles Chaplin, but his film does manage to use comic touches to subvert a monstrous evil." — Compuserve Posted Jun 10, 2009
Fresh B+	Rotten 46%	Whatever Works (2009)	" Overly theatrical, maybe, but as Woody Allen's alter ego, Larry David works." — Compuserve Posted Jun 10, 2009
—	Rotten 56%	Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)	Click here to read article — Compuserve Posted Jun 10, 2009
Rotten C+	Rotten 17%	Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)	" 'The world is full of bloodsuckers,' notes the lead vampire's handler; the only believable line in the movie." — Compuserve Posted Jun 9, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 50%	The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)	" Travolta is terrific in this sharper, wittier, thoroughly contemporary revisit to the New York subway train derailed by a intelligent but psychotic criminal." — Compuserve Posted Jun 8, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 100%	Laila's Birthday (2009)	" One miserable day for a Palestinian man. The big surprise is that the annoyances come from his fellow Ramallah residents, not from the Israeli occupiers." — Compuserve Posted Jun 5, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 97%	Food, Inc. (2009)	" See this startling, muckraking indictment of factory farming and you'll never eat again." — Compuserve Posted Jun 5, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 56%	The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009)	" A devastating (albeit didactic and conventional) indictment of religious extremism as practiced in one Iranian village." — Compuserve Posted Jun 4, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 79%	Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love (2009)	" We in the West are afforded songs from Africa's most celebrated singer, a man with not only great pipes but with a soulful message of peace and tolerance." — Compuserve Posted Jun 3, 2009
Fresh B+	Rotten 59%	Surveillance (2009)	" Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David Lynch, proves to be a chip off the old block in this tense, delightfully over-the-top police thriller." — Compuserve Posted Jun 2, 2009
Rotten D	Rotten 28%	Land of the Lost (2009)	" The movie's abbreviated title is LOL, which is ironic since Ferrell offers hardly a smile, much less laughter out loud." — Compuserve Posted Jun 1, 2009
Rotten C	Fresh 66%	Away We Go (2009)	" Slow-moving, derivative road family values film." — Compuserve Posted May 29, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 92%	S�raphine (2008)	" An endearing example of religious passions that turn a cleaning woman into a near-great painter." — Compuserve Posted May 29, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 90%	Soul Power (2009)	" Though conventionally filmed in a chronological fashion, this could be the most energetic movie this year." — Compuserve Posted May 28, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 100%	The Square (2008)	" David Roberts, who looks and acts like James Stuart, anchors the scary story from Downunder about a robbery-arson scheme gone horribly wrong." — Compuserve Posted May 26, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 81%	Owl and the Sparrow (2008)	" A simple Vietnamese story well told, one that evokes images of Truffaut and Panahi." — Compuserve Posted May 23, 2009
Rotten C-	Rotten 8%	What Goes Up (2009)	" 'What Goes Up' doesn't." — Compuserve Posted May 22, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 97%	Up (2009)	" A lush visual rendering of the Pennsylvania Dutch proverb, 'We get old too soon, and too late smart.'" — Compuserve Posted May 21, 2009
Fresh A-	Fresh 73%	Departures (2009)	" An encoffiner works outside the box in this enthralling winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Picture of 2008." — Compuserve Posted May 21, 2009
Fresh B+	Rotten 27%	Dance Flick (2009)	" Who needs Middle Eastern oil when the Wayans Brothers project enough energy for U.S. needs until the next Wayans comedy?" — Compuserve Posted May 21, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 93%	Pressure Cooker (2009)	" Wilma Stephenson is a charismatic teacher who does great things for her charges, but her job appears not as difficult as you might think." — Compuserve Posted May 18, 2009
Rotten C+	Rotten 37%	Angels & Demons (2009)	" Bogged down with some impenetrable dialogue and a nutty climactic scene, 'Angels and Demons' is curiously uninvolving." — Compuserve Posted May 13, 2009
Fresh B+	Rotten 46%	Management (2009)	" Steve Zahn is particularly likable in his signature puppy-dog role." — Compuserve Posted May 9, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 95%	Star Trek (2009)	" Director J.J. Abrams reaches for the stars...and mostly succeeds in getting there." — Compuserve Posted May 7, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 70%	Rudo and Cursi (2009)	" Yet another clone of 'El Norte,' this entertaining feature evokes the gamut of emotions of two brothers from depression to euphoria." — Compuserve Posted May 6, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 69%	Julia (2009)	" Rages so strongly and effectively against alcoholism that it might convert some in the audience to Mormonism." — Compuserve Posted May 6, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 78%	The Garden (2009)	" A political documentary that is as lovingly developed as the garden cared for by poor immigrants." — Compuserve Posted May 6, 2009
Rotten C	Fresh 77%	Big Man Japan (2009)	" Our globalized world may be a small village but humor does not always travel well across the Atlantic (or Pacific)." — Compuserve Posted Apr 29, 2009
Rotten C	Fresh 62%	The Brothers Bloom (2009)	" Comes across as its writer-director's attempt to wink at the audience as though to say, "Am I not clever, hip, eccentric, quirky?"" — Compuserve Posted Apr 28, 2009
Fresh B+	Rotten 55%	The Soloist (2009)	" Credit 'The Soloist' for avoiding sappiness while treating us to parts of Ludwig B's masterworks." — Compuserve Posted Apr 22, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 46%	Battle for Terra (2009)	" Awesome 3-D animation, banal dialogue." — Compuserve Posted Apr 22, 2009
Fresh B+	Rotten 50%	Easy Virtue (2009)	" This cinematic opening of Noel Coward's play should inspire Broadway and Hollywood alike to tackle some more of the playwright's output." — Compuserve Posted Apr 21, 2009
Rotten C-	Fresh 64%	Eldorado (2008)	" This slight, road-trip of a movie could qualify as the Belgium Tourist Office's anti-product-placement picture of the year." — Compuserve Posted Apr 16, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 85%	Earth (2009)	" A well-made doc that will prompt the viewer to think, 'Is a vulnerable animal better off safe in a zoo or with risks in the jungle?'" — Compuserve Posted Apr 15, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 85%	Three Monkeys (2009)	" The plot may be simple enough but real artistry is shown by what the director does not show and by the actors' ability to express their emotions with limited dialogue." — Compuserve Posted Apr 14, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 85%	State of Play (2009)	" A reasonably suspenseful thriller that may require a second viewing to iron out the complex plot." — Compuserve Posted Apr 14, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 67%	Is Anybody There? (2009)	" This is the sort of film you go to not much for its slight story but for a stunning performance from a veteran actor." — Compuserve Posted Apr 13, 2009
Rotten C+	Fresh 73%	Objectified (2009)	" A documentary that could have been more involving to people outside design careers if director Hustwit edited out some of the long, tedious monologues in favor of showing more products with exciting designs." — Compuserve Posted Apr 9, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 51%	Observe and Report (2009)	" If you feel uncomfortable with the film's mixture of comedy and violence, that's all to the good: director Jody Hill pushes the envelope in this often riotous genre-buster." — Compuserve Posted Apr 7, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 92%	The Lemon Tree (2008)	" This exquisitely acted parable of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict pits tree-huggers on one side and brutal occupiers on the other." — Compuserve Posted Apr 6, 2009

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A-	Changeling Offsite
B+	Religulous Offsite
B	Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Offsite
B-	Ashes of Time Redux Offsite
C+	Rachel Getting Married Offsite
C	City of Ember Offsite
C-	Quantum of Solace Offsite
D	Quarantine Offsite

A	The Illusionist Offsite
A	Thank You For Smoking Offsite
A	The Polar Express Offsite
A	Being Julia Offsite
A	Dogville Offsite
4/4	Winged Migration Offsite
4/4	Chicago Offsite
4/4	Road to Perdition Offsite
4/4	Amadeus Offsite
4/4	Mulholland Dr. Offsite

F	Virgin Offsite
F	The Whole Ten Yards Offsite
0.5/4	Teddy Bears' Picnic Offsite
0.5/4	Bubble Boy Offsite
D	Year One Offsite
D	Land of the Lost Offsite
D	Splinter Offsite
D	Quarantine Offsite
D	Semi-Pro Offsite
D	Smokin' Aces Offsite

HARVEY S. KARTEN

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