Fresh 9/10
| Fresh 82%
| A Single Man (2009) | "
Wrenching and ravishing. ... An exquisite, almost sensual grief suffuses every frame." — NPR Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Fresh 76%
| Invictus (2009) | "
Loses steam in its last half-hour, but it has obvious virtues -- and it feels heartfelt, a generous elder's film about a generous elder's bequest to the world." — NPR Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Rotten 4.5/10
| Fresh 72%
| The Blind Side (2009) | "
Director John Lee Hancock's only aiming for a crowd pleaser, and by not challenging the established playbook for inspirational sports dramas, he's no doubt got one." — NPR Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Fresh 8.5/10
| Fresh 90%
| The Messenger (2009) | "
Messengers with the worst possible message, they nonetheless manage to be human and alive .... In a film that itself bears sad tidings about the costs of war, that is an affirming, even an inspiring, gift." — NPR Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh 9/10
| Fresh 92%
| Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009) | "
Daniels may be indulging in stunt casting, and slamming plot points home with sledgehammer subtlety, but the film's milieu and characters feel alarmingly real. And its story ends up packing an emotional wallop." — NPR Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten 4/10
| Rotten 21%
| Amelia (2009) | "
Swank's resemblance to Earhart is uncanny, but the result is verisimilitude without engagement %u2014 a risk-taker's story told entirely without narrative risk, and a movie that consequently never takes flight." — NPR Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Fresh 62%
| Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution (2009) | "
Rather than just putting you off your feed, this food documentary aims to point up a success story %u2014 a small French town called Barjac that went organic and thrived." — NPR Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 7/10
| Fresh 94%
| Good Hair (2010) | "
Part of the fun here is the way our narrator gets at complicated questions in his characteristically glib way. ... [But] real answers will have to be teased out elsewhere. Good Hair isn't selling anything but a good time." — NPR Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 84%
| Disgrace (2009) | "
Steve Jacobs' elegantly disturbing film follows the exploits - or, more accurately, the exploitations - of 52-year-old professor David Lurie, a dissolute aesthete whose erudition does little to mask grotesque character flaws." — NPR Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Fresh 85%
| Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) | "
It's nice that the film brings some real-world crunch to the story - ethnic characters whose presence make a social point ... and a clear message about the downside of a society where food is overabundant." — NPR Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Fresh 9/10
| Fresh 95%
| In the Loop (2009) | "
Blistering satire ... scabrous laughs. And it's so easy to imagine that this really is how governments make earth-shaking decisions." — NPR Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Fresh 83%
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) | "
It's a more mature magic. ... Now subject to the same raging hormones as any other 16-year-olds, our spell-casting heroes are learning to brew love potions this year, with results mostly played for laughs." — NPR Posted Jul 17, 2009 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 78%
| Humpday (2009) | "
The film ends up being about not just a really idiotic dare, but about the bounds of friendship and the bonds of marriage — and about much more besides." — NPR Posted Jul 10, 2009 |
Fresh 6.5/10
| Fresh 67%
| Bruno (2009) | "
When moments seem like setups with actors, they turn tame. But when things feel real -- as when Bruno conronts an Arkansas wrestling-match crowd -- they can get scary-real." — NPR Posted Jul 10, 2009 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Rotten 45%
| Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) | "
A sweet little comedy, both family-friendly and centered on a nontraditional family — and so suitable for pretty much everyone." — NPR Posted Jun 30, 2009 |
Fresh 9/10
| Fresh 97%
| The Hurt Locker (2009) | "
When it comes to getting an audience's attention, there's nothing quite like blowing up a major star within the first five minutes of a movie." — NPR Posted Jun 25, 2009 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 89%
| Séraphine (2008) | "
Yolande Moreau's Seraphine, all doughy and unreadable at first, lets you see how the passion that enriches her work might also upend her life." — NPR Posted Jun 10, 2009 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Fresh 96%
| Herb & Dorothy (2009) | "
Briskly and engagingly cinematic. ... [Their compulsive collecting seems] at once crazy, smart, generous and enormously endearing." — NPR Posted Jun 10, 2009 |
Rotten 5/10
| Rotten 51%
| Easy Virtue (2009) | "
There's supposed to be some distance between the main character and the family she marries into — but that distance probably shouldn't include acting styles." — NPR Posted May 28, 2009 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 81%
| Departures (2009) | "
Multiplexes are crowded with noisy summer films, from which Departures will represent a sophisticated and elegant departure." — NPR Posted May 28, 2009 |
Rotten 4/10
| Rotten 36%
| Angels & Demons (2009) | "
Presumably in response to criticism that The Da Vinci Code was static and talky, director Ron Howard has made Angels & Demons frantic %u2014 and, well, talky" — NPR Posted May 15, 2009 |
Fresh 9/10
| Fresh 94%
| Star Trek (2009) | "
The aim here is to court a new generation of fans without alienating the true believers speaking Klingon in the box-office lines." — NPR Posted May 7, 2009 |
Rotten 4.9/10
| Rotten 36%
| X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) | "
Those movies where people get sent to an island somewhere, then discover that everyone's a clone, or a reactor is melting down? Imagine all of that happening at once, only everybody is indestructible." — NPR Posted May 1, 2009 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 86%
| Earth (2009) | "
When a subject is as big as all outdoors, the big screen has some advantages." — NPR Posted Apr 22, 2009 |
Rotten 4.5/10
| Fresh 66%
| Is Anybody There? (2009) | "
At once predictable and implausible; so overplotted and overpopulated that the question isn't so much Is Anybody There? as "Why on earth are so many bodies here?"" — NPR Posted Apr 16, 2009 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 91%
| Every Little Step (2009) | "
A briskly self-aware, thoroughly stage-struck portrait ... of a show that itself is a stage-struck theatrical portrait." — NPR Posted Apr 16, 2009 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 93%
| Sugar (2009) | "
Scenes that would usually be mere setup ... become engaging in their own right. ... game and practice sequences have an easy authenticity from the start." — NPR Posted Apr 9, 2009 |
Rotten 5.5/10
| Fresh 72%
| Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) | "
Directors Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon push so hard for three-dimensionality that they basically have their animators putting sightlines before storylines." — NPR Posted Mar 27, 2009 |
Fresh 5/10
| Fresh 72%
| The Great Buck Howard (2009) | "
Any synopsis of The Great Buck Howard is going to make it sound more than a little like My Favorite Year. ... But that film had a compellingly poignant center." — NPR Posted Mar 20, 2009 |
Fresh 6.5/10
| Fresh 63%
| Brothers at War (2009) | "
Rademacher comes up with compellingly unfamiliar documentary footage. ... Firefights caught unvarnished and in the moment are harrowing because the cameraman himself is, well, harrowed." — NPR Posted Mar 12, 2009 |
Rotten 4/10
| Fresh 64%
| Watchmen (2009) | "
The moviemakers are too busy digitizing ice castles on Mars to bother with much in the way of meta-commentary. Or, for that matter, with personalities." — NPR Posted Mar 5, 2009 |
Fresh 8.5/10
| Fresh 79%
| 12 (2007) | "
The stories the jurors tell, of course, are different ... filled with arguments that reference local tensions and situations possessing a distinctly Chekhovian flavor." — NPR Posted Mar 5, 2009 |
Rotten 3/10
| Rotten 17%
| An American Affair (2009) | "
If you can get past the exploitation-of-minors thing, there's a tawdry exuberance to moments like the one in which the twerp and his overage girlfriend drunkenly splash paint on each other." — NPR Posted Feb 26, 2009 |
Fresh 7/10
| Rotten 59%
| The International (2009) | "
Having made a bank their villain %u2014 a bank, mind you, not a banker %u2014 director Tom Tykwer and his screenwriters have pretty firmly captured the zeitgeist." — NPR Posted Feb 13, 2009 |
Fresh 8.5/10
| Fresh 89%
| Coraline (2009) | "
Selick puts his real faith not in the gimmickry that Coraline's audiences will think they've shown up for, but in the stronger virtues that they'd likely view as old-fashioned: character, and story, and so on." — NPR Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Fresh 7/10
| Rotten 32%
| Fanboys (2009) | "
You'd think the weakest link in Fanboys would be that it's all in-jokes, but they're actually not so 'in' that a casual fan won't get them." — NPR Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Fresh 5/10
| Fresh 67%
| Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh (2009) | "
Grossman has a robust story to tell, and she's found remarkable World War II footage to help her tell it." — NPR Posted Jan 30, 2009 |
Rotten 3.5/10
| Rotten 18%
| New in Town (2009) | "
Broad accents, broader slapstick and a willful shrinking from anything remotely original. ... Also much condescension, toward both the characters and the audience." — NPR Posted Jan 30, 2009 |
Fresh 7/10
| Rotten 32%
| Good (2008) | "
Good is pretty schematic — betraying its theatrical roots, perhaps. It's also a little drawn out. But it demonstrates the surprising power of character flaws in drama." — NPR Posted Dec 29, 2008 |
Rotten 5/10
| Fresh 60%
| Valkyrie (2008) | "
What you miss in both Defiance and Valkyrie is inner conflict. Their protagonists have not an instant of self-doubt. They're figures in historical pageants, not characters in a drama." — NPR Posted Dec 29, 2008 |
Fresh 6/10
| Rotten 56%
| Defiance (2008) | "
It's an inspiring story, if one that doesn't need quite as much poetic inspiration as Ed Zwick's movie insists on giving it." — NPR Posted Dec 29, 2008 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Fresh 68%
| Revolutionary Road (2008) | "
Buy the house in the suburbs, go to work, take out the garbage, have an affair — slowly these two mortgage their dreams." — NPR Posted Dec 24, 2008 |
Fresh 5/10
| Rotten 55%
| The Tale of Despereaux (2008) | "
The Tale Of Despereaux may be a little slow for the very youngest kids — though the messages it imparts are certainly ones you'll want them to hear." — NPR Posted Dec 18, 2008 |
Rotten 3/10
| Rotten 20%
| The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) | "
Dunno about the Earth, but time certainly stands still for a goodly portion of Scott Derrickson's expensively produced but utterly boneheaded remake." — NPR Posted Dec 11, 2008 |
Fresh 6/10
| Fresh 78%
| Doubt (2008) | "
Doubt cast a long moral shadow on Broadway, but seems blunter on screen. Shanley's fussy directorial notions are less nuanced than the religious and moral arguments he's given his characters." — NPR Posted Dec 11, 2008 |
Fresh 8/10
| Fresh 91%
| Frost/Nixon (2008) | "
It wasn't really Frost who did Nixon in: It was Nixon's old nemesis, the TV camera — that unblinking eye, capturing every bead of perspiration, every nervous shift of posture ..." — NPR Posted Dec 5, 2008 |
Rotten 3/10
| Rotten 25%
| Four Christmases (2008) | "
Gordon's stars are charmless, his script cheerless, and his sterling supporting cast can't seem to figure out what they've been brought on board to do." — NPR Posted Dec 2, 2008 |
Fresh 9/10
| Fresh 94%
| Milk (2008) | "
Penn is so engaging, physically loose and just plain smart in the title role, he's bound to top everyone's shortlist come awards time." — NPR Posted Nov 26, 2008 |
Fresh 7.5/10
| Fresh 70%
| How About You (2008) | "
The material is familiar way past the point of cliche, but these folks are thoroughbreds — and they, if not the material, are irresistible." — NPR Posted Nov 14, 2008 |
Fresh 9.6/10
| Fresh 93%
| Slumdog Millionaire (2008) | "
Romantic, action-packed and always held together by an intriguing social conscience, Slumdog Millionaire is a rapturous crowd pleaser." — NPR.org Posted Nov 13, 2008 |
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