Fresh
| Rotten 58%
| Mammoth (2009) | "
Mammoth manages to be as affecting as it is heartfelt." Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 85%
| Red Cliff (2009) | "
Red Cliff is a legendary filmmaker's visual symphony." Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 85%
| Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) | "
If the new film commits the sin of entertainment, it's redeemed by a sense of life's contradictions and distinguished by surreal flourishes that include a pair of iguanas, slithery witnesses to Terence's mania." Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| Broken Embraces (2009) | "
Mr. Almodóvar's love of movies informs every frame of this beautiful film. When Harry's fingers explore the dotted landscape of a Braille script, they bespeak the writer's unbroken embrace of language and drama." Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) | "
Life is full of surprises. The best one I've had in a good while is Fantastic Mr. Fox." Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 59%
| Pirate Radio (2009) | "
Richard Curtis's comedy is anchored only in exuberance, but that's more than you can say for most movies these days; it keeps you beaming with pleasure." Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| 2012 (2009) | "
This oafish epic about the End of Days -- as predicted by the Mayan calendar -- operates in a dead zone roughly equidistant between parody and idiocy." Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
— | Fresh 93%
| The Wedding Song (2009) | "
The movie's distinction .. lies in two lovely performances, and in the passion and pain of parallel lives -- both girls suffering at the hands of men, both struggling to understand the brutality of the world they must share." Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| The Fourth Kind (2009) | "
Mr. Osunsanmi's chutzpah exceeds his skill." Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
You may wonder if this screen version of the book of the same name is as unfunny and strangely mushy as it seems, but trust your instincts." Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 91%
| Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009) | "
This is a fine movie, and a deep one. It's about unearthing buried treasure." Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 55%
| Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) | "
To put it bluntly, if Scroogely, Disney's 3-D animated version of A Christmas Carol is a calamity." Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 80%
| Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009) | "
It's an expertly packaged -- brilliantly packaged, considering how quickly the job was done -- phantasmagoria that emphasizes, quite convincingly, the energy that Michael could still draw from whatever was fueling his wraith-thin body." Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| Ong Bak 2 (2009) | "
Unfortunately, the movie could use a bit of pachyderm memory, given its habit of flashing back to Tien's childhood with exactly the same footage used in previous flashbacks. Instead of the narrative being deepened, it keeps getting shallowed." Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 49%
| Antichrist (2009) | "
By turns repellent, powerful and ludicrous, Antichrist piles horror on horror with pitiless passion." Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 20%
| Amelia (2009) | "
Amelia leaves you wondering how its abundantly gifted director, Mira Nair, and its Oscar-winning star, Hilary Swank, could have been complicit in such clumsiness." Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 42%
| New York, I Love You (2009) | "
What's remarkable here is the consistency of the mediocrity, the uniform fraudulence of the minipremises, the reliable awkwardness of such almost-English lines as "Your eyes would suffice to give tired men hope."" Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 70%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
Where the Wild Things Are honors the book in every imaginable way, and in ways no one could have imagined until Spike Jonze and his collaborators came along." Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| An Education (2009) | "
No movie I've seen in a very long time has touched me so deeply, or bestowed so much pleasure." Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 56%
| The Invention of Lying (2009) | "
Mr. Gervais's long-established gift for small-screen comedy goes terribly slack, leaving him likable, as always, but, on the big screen, looking lost." Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 86%
| A Serious Man (2009) | "
What do the Coen brothers want of us? More specifically, what do they want us to think of the repellent people in this pitilessly bleak movie?" Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| Zombieland (2009) | "
An improbably delicious comedy about a quartet of human survivors crossing an America that's been taken over by ravenous hordes. (There's even a Charlie Chaplin zombie working Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Chinese Theater.)" Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 73%
| More Than a Game (2009) | "
Sometimes the narrative suffers from a surfeit of hindsight -- earnest sermonizing on the importance of friendship, family and dedication in the boys' development. The sermons are worthy ones, though, and Mr. Belman's film dramatizes what it preaches." Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 79%
| Disgrace (2009) | "
Demanding but ultimately rewarding..." Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 65%
| Coco Before Chanel (2009) | "
It's a special pleasure to watch this vibrant Coco taking in the world around her and turning it to her use, in her fashion." Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 75%
| Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) | "
Mr. Moore aims to proselytize his friends and demonize his enemies. His movie hits both marks." Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 69%
| Paris (2009) | "
Mr. Klapisch's special gift is to populate his films with perfectly grounded eccentrics who use perfectly ordinary words to express poetic ideas." Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 76%
| The Informant! (2009) | "
Mr. Damon plays it admirably straight, for the most part, thereby serving as a counterweight to the clamorous self-delight that surrounds him. Unfortunately, that's not enough to save the production..." Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 83%
| Bright Star (2009) | "
A film that avoids any trace of musty reverence for a long-dead poet by concentrating our senses on the breathtaking girl next door." Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 75%
| Cold Souls (2009) | "
The more elaborate the plot becomes, the sillier it gets." Posted Aug 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 75%
| Julie & Julia (2009) | "
The joys of the Julia parts are cumulative, and addictive. The Julie parts keep forcing us to go cold turkey." Posted Aug 6, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 93%
| Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2009) | "
A survey of the week wouldn’t be complete without a left-handed salute -- not to be confused with a backhanded compliment -- to the gleeful rubbish of Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!" Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 65%
| Adam (2009) | "
Adam succeeds at getting inside its hero's mind and, more impressively still, gives us entrée to his singular soul." Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 86%
| Lorna's Silence (2009) | "
Like earlier Dardenne films, Lorna’s Silence is naturalistic, yet this one, beautifully shot in 35 mm film by Alain Marcoen, achieves a poetry of bereftness." Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 85%
| Flame & Citron (2008) | "
The film is based on true events: Flame and Citron (both noms de guerre) became national heroes. But it’s really a meditation on the nature of heroism, and the quest for purity of purpose." Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 95%
| The Cove (2009) | "
The film makes its case graphically, to say the least, yet muddies its bloody waters with an excess of artifice and a dearth of facts." Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 68%
| Funny People (2009) | "
The denizens of Judd Apatow’s Funny People have been pulled every which way to fit a misshapen concept, yet they remain painfully unfunny, and consistently off-putting." Posted Jul 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 87%
| 500 Days of Summer (2009) | "
For all its ambitiousness, (500) Days of Summer feels synthetic and derivative, a movie that’s popping with perceptions while searching for a style." Posted Jul 16, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 83%
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) | "
Potions play a pivotal part in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I wish I’d been able to find one for patience." Posted Jul 16, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| Herb & Dorothy (2009) | "
Herb and Dorothy, a documentary by Megumi Sasaki, grows on you just as its subjects do." Posted Jul 9, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 84%
| Soul Power (2009) | "
Soul Power is marvelous, and no wonder -- among the performers in this concert film are James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, Miriam Makeba and Celia Cruz, all at the peak of their powers." Posted Jul 9, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Bruno (2009) | "
It’s an exercise in offensiveness, an exploration of over-the-topness and a gleeful working of both sides of the street. What brings Brüno down, though, is sinful behavior. Mr. Baron Cohen commits the cardinal sin of unfunniness." Posted Jul 9, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| The Girl From Monaco (2009) | "
The film, having paraded itself fairly clumsily as a romantic comedy with psychological twists, turns absurdly serious on the treacherous roads that hug Monaco’s cliffs." Posted Jul 2, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 45%
| Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) | "
There’s a sense of ineptness in a script that constantly reaches, with only modest success, for amusing things that the mammoths and their friends can do." Posted Jul 2, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Public Enemies (2009) | "
Our connections with Public Enemies remain abstract. The darkness and the distance kill the fun." Posted Jul 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 54%
| The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009) | "
The film, shot elegantly in color but with the dramatic feel of black and white, functions as a parable of power abused by the multitude. It takes a village to turn craven stupidity into fascist bestiality." Posted Jun 26, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 47%
| My Sister's Keeper (2009) | "
For all its awkward structure, the film is heartfelt and deeply affecting." Posted Jun 26, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 98%
| The Hurt Locker (2009) | "
A first-rate action thriller, a vivid evocation of urban warfare in Iraq, a penetrating study of heroism and a showcase for austere technique, terse writing and a trio of brilliant performances." Posted Jun 26, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 19%
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) | "
Compared to this sequel, the first Transformers, which was released two years ago, ranks right up there with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason." Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 68%
| Tetro (2009) | "
[An] extravagant, and eventually lurid, tale of a tortured family." Posted Jun 12, 2009 |
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