|
3.5/4
|
86%
|
Le Silence de Lorna (The Silence of Lorna) (Lorna's Silence) (2008) |
"
Lorna's Silence speaks volumes."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Sep 25, 2009
|
|
2.5/4
|
85%
|
Soul Power (2009) |
"
For a documentary about a music festival, Soul Power doesn't include nearly enough music."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Sep 4, 2009
|
|
3/4
|
48%
|
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
|
|
1/4
|
35%
|
The Edge of Love (2008) |
"
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
|
|
2/4
|
22%
|
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
|
|
1.5/4
|
13%
|
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
|
|
3/4
|
43%
|
Night at the Museum 2: 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
|
|
3/4
|
56%
|
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
|
|
3.5/4
|
87%
|
Earth (Disneynature's Earth) (Planet Earth) (2009) |
"
With such a photogenic and charismatic cast, how could Earth miss?"
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Apr 24, 2009
|
|
1/4
|
13%
|
The Informers (2009) |
"
An awful film about an awful time."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Apr 24, 2009
|
|
4/4
|
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
|
|
1.5/4
|
55%
|
17 Again (2009) |
"
You've seen it done better."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Apr 17, 2009
|
|
2/4
|
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
|
|
2.5/4
|
42%
|
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
|
|
1.5/4
|
46%
|
Hotel for Dogs (2009) |
"
Look, I love dogs. But this film tried my patience almost beyond endurance."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Jan 16, 2009
|
|
2/4
|
33%
|
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
|
|
2/4
|
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
|
|
3/4
|
64%
|
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
|
|
2.5/4
|
14%
|
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
|
|
1/4
|
56%
|
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
|
|
2/4
|
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
|
|
3.5/4
|
25%
|
Four Christmases (2008) |
"
Surprisingly deft and sometimes hilarious."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Nov 26, 2008
|
|
3.5/4
|
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
|
|
3/4
|
40%
|
My Name Is Bruce (2007) |
"
An exercise in self-indulgent filmmaking at its most endearing."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Nov 14, 2008
|
|
3.5/4
|
92%
|
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
|
|
2/4
|
62%
|
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
|
|
4/4
|
81%
|
Vanaja (2006) |
"
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
|
|
3.5/4
|
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
|
|
2/4
|
42%
|
Blindness (2008) |
"
[A] belabored allegory that fails to even set up any rules, much less abide by them."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Oct 3, 2008
|
|
1.5/4
|
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
|
|
C+
|
41%
|
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
|
|
C
|
19%
|
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
|
|
B-
|
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
|
|
B+
|
65%
|
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
|
|
C-
|
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
|
|
A
|
100%
|
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) |
"
It is, at once, among the most riveting and hard-to-watch documentaries of recent years."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Feb 22, 2008
|
|
C
|
56%
|
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
|
|
C-
|
35%
|
Vantage Point (2008) |
"
An overly gimmicky and fatally repetitive terrorist thriller that quickly wears out its welcome."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Feb 22, 2008
|
|
C+
|
62%
|
Diary of the Dead (2007) |
"
Even as a zombie film, it comes across not as something new, but as something warmed-over."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Feb 15, 2008
|
|
C
|
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
|
|
B
|
71%
|
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
|
|
c+
|
28%
|
Step Up 2 the Streets (2008) |
"
Undeniably energetic and viscerally satisfying, but emotionally hollow."
—
Baltimore Sun
Posted Feb 14, 2008
|
|
B-
|
11%
|
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
|
|
C
|
22%
|
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
|
|
A-
|
97%
|
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
|
|
D
|
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
|
|
B-
|
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
|
|
C
|
16%
|
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
|
|
A
|
92%
|
U2 3D (2007) |
"
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
|
