Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 50%
| Armored (2009) | "
Features Antal's characteristic emphasis on his characters rather than the situations into which they're thrust." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Rotten 0/0
| Rotten 28%
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) | "
Parents: If I can (poorly) discipline a 16-year-old cat to not howl before sunrise, you can teach your kids to not emulate Bella Swan." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Rotten 0/4
| Rotten 39%
| 2012 (2009) | "
Roland Emmerich provides the next entry in the "Apocalyptically Disastrous" subgenre of mega-blockbuster cinema, following up Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with an equally soulless depiction of life at the end of the world." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 10, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 18%
| The Fourth Kind (2009) | "
Osunsanmi knows that everybody secretly wants to believe and when it comes to giving the people what they want, he does not disappoint." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 4, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 22%
| The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009) | "
There’s a good reason why it’s taken Duffy this long to secure funds for a sequel to his D.O.A. meal-ticket: It was never funny in the first place." — New York Press Posted Oct 28, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 47%
| Ong Bak 2 (2009) | "
Ong Bak 2 is infused with an urgency and relentlessness that few contemporary action films have." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Fresh 69%
| (Untitled) (2009) | "
Parker reduces the art world to the insipid backbiting and conniving of malign thugs that enthusiastically bat around grandiose, self-serving endorsements" — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| N/A | Independencia (2009) | "
Filipino filmmaker Raya Martin confuses broad scope with great depth in his alternate-history fable." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 4, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 26%
| Pandorum (2009) | "
[Pandorum] makes no sense. It doesn't really try to by the end but nevertheless, it should be said up front so that nobody has any illusions about the film since its creators certainly didn't." — New York Press Posted Oct 2, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 35%
| Blind Date (2009) | "
Tucci has such a disdain for subtlety that he doesn't even allow the viewer to suss out for themselves what made-up identities Don and Janna have assumed in each encounter." — Slant Magazine Posted Sep 21, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| N/A | Evangelion 1.01: You Are (Not) Alone (2009) | "
Essentially a condensed version of the first few episodes of the series with a few elements from later episodes tossed in to make the show's climax appear more grounded." — Slant Magazine Posted Sep 14, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 23%
| Sorority Row (2009) | "
Before seeing Sorority Row, I couldn't imagine that any slasher film released this year could possibly be more misogynistic than either the Friday the 13th reboot or Donkey Punch." — Slant Magazine Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 28%
| The Final Destination (2009) | "
The Final Destination is a mean little film with little brains on its side." — Slant Magazine Posted Aug 28, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 87%
| Big Fan (2009) | "
With Big Fan, screenwriter Robert Siegel’s directorial debut, the schmaltz-meister that wrote The Wrestler shows us that he’s grown leaps and bounds as an artist in the span of just one year." — New York Press Posted Aug 19, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 45%
| Shorts (2009) | "
Robert Rodriguez's Shorts may have a more complex narrative than Spy Kids but it's otherwise just as bland." — Slant Magazine Posted Aug 17, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 80%
| Taxidermia (2007) | "
Pálfi’s skill at making something as churlishly repulsive as a scene of self-mummification completely mesmerizing is a testament to his unparalleled dedication to imaginary grotesques." — New York Press Posted Aug 12, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Fresh 68%
| Grace (2009) | "
There's a pervasive and unintentional Raimian sensibility to Grace, writer-director Paul Solet's feature debut, that thoroughly undermines its Polanskian underpinnings." — Slant Magazine Posted Aug 10, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 86%
| Yasukuni (2009) | "
Writer-director Li Ying should be commended for the complexity he's given a subject as controversial as the Yasukuni shrine." — Slant Magazine Posted Aug 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 86%
| Flame & Citron (2008) | "
As a film about the underground resistance movement in Denmark during the Nazi occupation, Flame & Citron’s spies are the historical equivalent of superheroes." — New York Press Posted Jul 29, 2009 |
Rotten .5/4
| Rotten 25%
| The Collector (2009) | "
The Collector signals much of what's wrong with torture porn." — Slant Magazine Posted Jul 26, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| Moon (2009) | "
Co-writer/director Duncan Jones’ debut feature Moon is a modest but nonetheless exciting bit of (derivative) speculative fiction." — New York Press Posted Jun 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 96%
| Food, Inc. (2009) | "
The most a muckraking film like this can hope to do is frighten the viewer out of their complacence so much that they feel like, if only for a moment, they need to do something." — Slant Magazine Posted Jun 8, 2009 |
Rotten 0/4
| Rotten 10%
| My Life in Ruins (2009) | "
It's one thing to poke fun of stereotypical Greek behavior, but it's another to bitch about the tourists who clog the already varicose-thin Athenian streets." — Slant Magazine Posted Jun 4, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| Pontypool (2009) | "
With any luck, it will develop the cult it deserves because while its urgency makes it an easy target, Pontypool’s new ideas are commendably gripping." — New York Press Posted Jun 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 92%
| Drag Me To Hell (2009) | "
There’s something fundamentally disappointing about watching Raimi use his considerable resources to just make more wonderful scat." — New York Press Posted Jun 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 81%
| Departures (2009) | "
An overlong, sap-happy crowd-pleaser." — New York Press Posted Jun 3, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 63%
| New World Order (2009) | "
Up-and-coming filmmaking duo Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel’s latest doc, New World Order, admirably humanizes the “9/11 truthers,” a seemingly impossible task they accomplish handily by never condescending to or patronizing their less-than-credible subjects." — New York Press Posted May 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| O'Horten (2009) | "
Events unfold at an unfathomably cool pace, making Horten a comfortably numb cipher." — New York Press Posted May 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 86%
| Kabei: Our Mother (2009) | "
This is not a story about lamenting the inevitability of time but rather of living in denial." — New York Press Posted May 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 63%
| The Brothers Bloom (2009) | "
[Director Rian] Johnson presents an intolerably glossy and emotionless exercise in style; he’s so in thrall with his skill at blank pastiche that he only half-heartedly tries to make us care about the film’s characters." — New York Press Posted May 13, 2009 |
— | Fresh 87%
| The House of the Devil (2009) |
Click here to read article — Twitch Posted Apr 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 92%
| Il Divo (2009) | "
Sorrentino’s version of Andreotti’s story is thus only really fascinating as a bloated vanity project, one that is unlikely to win him many new American defenders." — New York Press Posted Apr 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| Dragonball: Evolution (2009) | "
[Chow's] hamminess doesn’t make Dragonball Evolution make more sense, but it’s a great way to cope with an otherwise inexplicable kitschfest." — New York Press Posted Apr 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 59%
| Sleep Dealer (2009) | "
Sleep Dealer should have something striking to say about what the future looks like according to the third-world workers that are building it at their own expense but it has nothing memorable nor particularly coherent to offer." — New York Press Posted Apr 15, 2009 |
Rotten .5/4
| Rotten 29%
| The Golden Boys (2009) | "
The Golden Boys, writer-director Daniel Adams's adaptation of Joseph Lincoln's novel Cap'n Eri, could just as easily be called Grumpy Old Sea-Men or Two Brides for Three Salty Seadogs." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 13, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 54%
| The New Twenty (2009) | "
There's something uniquely irritating about the kind of too-serious-for-its-own-good alternative-lifestyle drama subheading that Chris Mason Johnson's The New Twenty neatly falls under." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 23, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | 13B (2009) | "
There’s a disarmingly benign, albeit decidedly precious, charm to the film." — New York Press Posted Mar 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Tokyo Sonata (2009) | "
Tokyo Sonata is an Ozuan domestic melodrama and for almost its entire length, it holds together wonderfully as a bleak but rich vision of a contemporary family on the verge of collapse." — New York Press Posted Mar 11, 2009 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 7%
| Reunion (2009) | "
A soap opera disguised as a serious chamber drama in the tradition of Paddy Chayefsky." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 1, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 25%
| Friday the 13th (2009) | "
Somewhere inside Jason Voorhees’ latest escapade is a hilarious comedy yearning to break free from the stifling clutches of its over-serious guardians." — New York Press Posted Feb 18, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 80%
| Serbis (2009) | "
As a twitchily sensational series of interconnected images, it’s an awesome nugget of faux-trash gold." — New York Press Posted Jan 28, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Fresh 60%
| Dealing and Wheeling in Small Arms (2009) | "
Dealing and Wheeling's argument is almost entirely based on the emotional resonance that its straight-laced reportage evokes, which is effectively zilch." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 25%
| Four Christmases (2008) | "
Four Christmases is the kind of film that you should only watch if you’re trapped on an airline and can’t fall asleep, the kind of holiday film that makes Jingle All the Way look like a cinematic tour de force." — New York Press Posted Dec 3, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 85%
| JCVD (2008) | "
For such a self-deluded vanity project, Van Damme brings the film to life, serving up a terrific lead performance." — New York Press Posted Nov 5, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) | "
While it may be unfair to compare Repo! to Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a vastly superior three-webisode-long comic- book musical, it’s necessary." — New York Press Posted Nov 5, 2008 |
Fresh
| N/A | Tirador (2008) | "
With its gritty but gorgeous visual style, Slingshot confirms Mendoza’s status as a provocateur with talent and ambition to burn." — New York Press Posted Oct 22, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| Fear(s) of the Dark (2008) | "
As a holistic experience, Fear(s) of the Dark feels at odds with itself, torn between highlighting its contributors’ distinct voices and enforcing an artificial unity." — New York Press Posted Oct 22, 2008 |
— | Rotten 24%
| The Caller (2009) |
Click here to read article — Twitch Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 28%
| Filth and Wisdom (2008) | "
An otherwise tired vanity project." — New York Press Posted Oct 15, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 72%
| Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) | "
Cera and Dennings’ pouting is obviously not clever or even jaded enough for their stale one-liners to sustain them as anything more than just walking scapegoats for the pretentious." — New York Press Posted Oct 1, 2008 |
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