Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 86%
| Lorna's Silence (2009) | "
Lorna's Silence speaks volumes." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 84%
| Soul Power (2009) | "
For a documentary about a music festival, Soul Power doesn't include nearly enough music." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 49%
| Taking Woodstock (2009) | "
Maybe it's all too wonderful to be true, but that's OK. If Taking Woodstock is a fantasy, then it's a most benevolent one, and more power to it." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 28, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 34%
| The Edge of Love (2009) | "
It's so hard, being a poet. ... Such is the wisdom of The Edge of Love, a movie unfortunately as banal as its tagline, 'The only thing more dangerous than war is love.'" — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 23%
| Push (2009) | "
Push has plenty of attitude to go with an overabundance of style, in service to the sort of labyrinthine plot, where nothing is as it seems. That seems impressive as long as you don't think about it too hard." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 14%
| The Ugly Truth (2009) | "
The Ugly Truth can't escape its own ugly truth, that the central characters are written to extremes both ludicrous and tiring." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 44%
| Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) | "
The sense of wonder the movie engenders is palpable, and anything that makes museums look cool (which this movie does, in spades) deserves a vote of thanks from civilization as a whole." — Baltimore Sun Posted May 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 55%
| The Soloist (2009) | "
Foxx is magnificent, taking a role that could be exorbitantly showy (actors playing the mentally disabled tend to forget the word "restraint") and turning in a performance that's controlled and mesmerizing." — Baltimore Sun Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 86%
| Earth (2009) | "
With such a photogenic and charismatic cast, how could Earth miss?" — Baltimore Sun Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Fresh 1/4
| Rotten 14%
| The Informers (2009) | "
An awful film about an awful time." — Baltimore Sun Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 84%
| State of Play (2009) | "
Nothing is as it seems in State of Play, a crackerjack political thriller in which no individual, profession or institution gets away clean." — Baltimore Sun Posted Apr 17, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 58%
| 17 Again (2009) | "
You've seen it done better." — Baltimore Sun Posted Apr 17, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 44%
| Hannah Montana The Movie (2009) | "
Asked to anchor a full-length movie, she simply doesn't have the chops to pull it off." — Baltimore Sun Posted Apr 10, 2009 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 44%
| He's Just Not That Into You (2009) | "
It's a film that lets you embrace the lightheartedness of it all, even while chuckling knowingly at the absurdity." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 45%
| Hotel for Dogs (2009) | "
Look, I love dogs. But this film tried my patience almost beyond endurance." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jan 16, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 34%
| Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) | "
You might chuckle occasionally as the film drones on to a close, but mostly you'll be wondering when it will all end." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jan 16, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 62%
| The Reader (2008) | "
Finely nuanced and calibrated performances from Winslet (with a convincing German accent) and Kross notwithstanding, this is one film audiences won't embrace nearly as emphatically as it embraces itself." — Baltimore Sun Posted Dec 30, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 61%
| Marley & Me (2008) | "
I swear, my handkerchief was only out because I've been fighting a cold the past few days." — Baltimore Sun Posted Dec 29, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 15%
| The Spirit (2008) | "
Macht's weary, fatalistic take on his heroic duties is right out of the Batman mold, while Jackson's Octopus seems little more than The Joker without all the face makeup." — Baltimore Sun Posted Dec 29, 2008 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 55%
| The Tale of Despereaux (2008) | "
A film that seems less interested in telling a story than in moralizing to its young audience about the value of individuality, the danger of prejudging someone, the folly of jumping to conclusions, the joys of altruism, the sorrows of pettiness." — Baltimore Sun Posted Dec 19, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 51%
| Nothing Like the Holidays (2008) | "
Director Alfredo De Villa clumsily weaves his way in and out of the various plot threads, pausing at each one just long enough to let the audience wonder if this movie will ever get past its cliches. It rarely does." — Baltimore Sun Posted Dec 12, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 25%
| Four Christmases (2008) | "
Surprisingly deft and sometimes hilarious." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 26, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 88%
| Bolt (2008) | "
Its script is smart, its conceit a heart-tugger in the finest of senses, and it's the first Disney effort in way too long to be more concerned with being a movie than with being a breeding ground for product tie-ins." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 21, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 41%
| My Name is Bruce (2008) | "
An exercise in self-indulgent filmmaking at its most endearing." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 14, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 88%
| Ballast (2008) | "
Even as it stubbornly resists any sense of closure, it cautiously reminds its characters and its audience that hope, and the future it promises, is sometimes more a matter of conviction than revelation." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 14, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 61%
| Changeling (2008) | "
Even with a running time of nearly 2 1/2 hours (which, to Eastwood's credit, moves along at a brisk pace), it's hard to avoid the feeling there should be more to this story than what made it on screen." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 31, 2008 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 80%
| Vanaja (2007) | "
A wondrous piece of filmmaking and a sensitive, engaging movie from a first-time filmmaker working on a shoestring budget with a cast of nonactors." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 24, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 58%
| The Secret Life of Bees (2008) | "
Love and family may not be able to overcome everything, but you couldn't prove that by The Secret Life of Bees, a refreshingly clear-headed film version of Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling novel." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 17, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 41%
| Blindness (2008) | "
[A] belabored allegory that fails to even set up any rules, much less abide by them." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 3, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 41%
| Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) | "
It's hard to go wrong with a movie full of talking dogs. But the makers of Beverly Hills Chihuahua sure try." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 3, 2008 |
Rotten C+
| Rotten 39%
| The Rocker (2008) | "
It's a film that sometimes wants to be School of Rock, sometimes wants to be This Is Spinal Tap, but ends up more like an uninspired episode of The Partridge Family." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 20, 2008 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 17%
| Fly Me To The Moon (2008) | "
The film's respect for its source material goes only so far before reducing everything to the level of an old-style Saturday-morning cartoon, complete with stock characters finding themselves in stock situations." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 15, 2008 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 61%
| Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) | "
Simplistic as can be with its cliched squabbling-family dynamics offering little more than a hook for the 3-D technicians to hang their hats on. But for most audiences, this one included, that was plenty." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 11, 2008 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 64%
| Stop-Loss (2008) | "
Stop-Loss, a harrowing, emotional indictment of a war that has divided this country like no conflict since Vietnam, delves into what happens when the country doesn't do as well by its soldiers as they do by it." — Baltimore Sun Posted Mar 28, 2008 |
Rotten C-
| Rotten 26%
| Drillbit Taylor (2008) | "
If only it had some funny lines, a focused plot and an idea that stretched beyond the initial setup." — Baltimore Sun Posted Mar 21, 2008 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 100%
| Taxi to the Dark Side (2008) | "
It is, at once, among the most riveting and hard-to-watch documentaries of recent years." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 22, 2008 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 54%
| Charlie Bartlett (2007) | "
Seeing itself as a Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the 21st century, Charlie Bartlett the film is instead a testimony to how low we as a culture can stoop." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 22, 2008 |
Rotten C-
| Rotten 35%
| Vantage Point (2008) | "
An overly gimmicky and fatally repetitive terrorist thriller that quickly wears out its welcome." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 22, 2008 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 60%
| George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (2008) | "
Even as a zombie film, it comes across not as something new, but as something warmed-over." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 15, 2008 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 16%
| Jumper (2008) | "
There's enough kinetic energy in Jumper to light a thousand houses. Unfortunately, there's no one home in any of them." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 14, 2008 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 72%
| Definitely, Maybe (2008) | "
Definitely, Maybe adds some welcome spice to a genre that rarely ventures beyond the predictable anymore." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 14, 2008 |
Rotten c+
| Rotten 26%
| Step Up 2 the Streets (2008) | "
Undeniably energetic and viscerally satisfying, but emotionally hollow." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 14, 2008 |
Fresh B-
| Rotten 10%
| Fool's Gold (2008) | "
Screen couplings that work are things to be treasured. In that sense, Fool's Gold is as close to the real thing as we've come in a while." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 8, 2008 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 24%
| Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) | "
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins imagines slapstick farce as feel-good dramedy, which is to say, it's an unhappy (and largely unfunny) marriage of two movie types that don't really go together." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 8, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 96%
| Persepolis (2007) | "
At once a tribute to one young woman's stubborn resilience and a reminder that people are people, regardless of how their governments may want them to behave, Persepolis is a film of great wisdom and welcome perception." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 1, 2008 |
Rotten D
| Rotten 15%
| Over Her Dead Body (2008) | "
Parker, who must have phoned in her performance during a weekend break from Desperate Housewives, is simply awful." — Baltimore Sun Posted Feb 1, 2008 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 67%
| How She Move (2008) | "
How She Move sure has got the moves. And even if we've seen so many of them before, its young cast delivers the goods with such gusto and drive that the familiarity breeds more enjoyment than contempt." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jan 25, 2008 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 14%
| Untraceable (2008) | "
Untraceable lambastes us for being amoral voyeurs as it panders to our baser instincts at the same time." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jan 25, 2008 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 92%
| U2 3D (2008) | "
A concert film featuring one of the world's premier rock bands in top form, shot using cutting-edge technology that gives the audience a better-than-front-row seat. What's not to love?" — Baltimore Sun Posted Jan 23, 2008 |
Rotten C-
| Rotten 46%
| Cassandra's Dream (2008) | "
Allen's latest, his 42nd effort as a director, is the work of an artist devoid of ideas and energy. Perfunctorily staged and lazily written, it comes to life in only the briefest of spurts, usually when the ever-reliable Tom Wilkinson is on-screen." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jan 18, 2008 |
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