Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 82%
| Paranormal Activity (2009) | "
It illustrates one of my favorite points, that silence and waiting can be more entertaining than frantic fast-cutting and berserk f/x. For extended periods here, nothing at all is happening, and believe me, you won't be bored." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 15, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 81%
| Avatar (2009) | "
There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 77%
| Invictus (2009) | "
Clint Eastwood, a master director, orchestrates all of these notes and has us loving Mandela, proud of Francois and cheering for the plucky Springboks. A great entertainment." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 83%
| The Princess and the Frog (2009) | "
This is what classic animation once was like! No 3-D! No glasses! No extra ticket charge! No frantic frenzies of meaningless action! And...good gravy! A story! Characters! A plot!" — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 84%
| Me and Orson Welles (2009) | "
The impersonation of Welles by Christian McKay in Me and Orson Welles is the centerpiece of the film, and from it, all else flows. We can almost accept that this is the Great Man." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 80%
| Collapse (2009) | "
There is controversy over Ruppert, and he has many critics. But one simple fact at the center of his argument is obviously true, and it terrifies me." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| N/A | The New Year Parade (2009) | "
Quinn photographed his film over four years, and yet, as his own editor, has mastered what must have been hours of material into a story so convincingly embedded in the band and parade that it would have been impossible to create it just for a film." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 89%
| Up in the Air (2009) | "
Up in the Air takes the trust people once had in their jobs and pulls out the rug. It is a film for this time." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 57%
| Brothers (2009) | "
This becomes Tobey Maguire's film to dominate, and I've never seen these dark depths in him before. Actors possess a great gift to surprise us, if they find the right material in their hands." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 46%
| Everybody's Fine (2009) | "
All that could redeem this thoroughly foreseeable unfolding would be colorful characters and good acting. Everybody's Fine comes close, but not close enough." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 92%
| Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) | "
Children, especially, will find things they don't understand, and things that scare them. Excellent. A good story for children should suggest a hidden dimension, and that dimension of course is the lifetime still ahead of them." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 5%
| Old Dogs (2009) | "
Old Dogs seems to have lingered in post-production while editors struggled desperately to inject laugh cues. It obviously knows no one will find it funny without being ordered to." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 28%
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) | "
The Twilight Saga: New Moon takes the tepid achievement of Twilight, guts it, and leaves it for undead." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 86%
| Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) | "
No one is better at this kind of performance than Nicolas Cage. He's a fearless actor. He doesn't care if you think he goes over the top. If a film calls for it, he will crawl to the top hand over hand with bleeding fingernails." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 90%
| The Messenger (2009) | "
The Messenger knows that even if it tells a tearjerking story, it doesn't have to be a tearjerker. In fact, when a sad story tries too hard, it can be fatal." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 23%
| Planet 51 (2009) | "
Although not bowling me over, Planet 51 is a jolly and good-looking animated feature in glorious 2-D." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 20%
| The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009) | "
Can you fly forward through the air while firing two heavy-duty handguns without your arms jerking back and smacking you in the chin? Would that violate one of Newton's laws? Just askin'." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 16%
| Gentlemen Broncos (2009) | "
Jared Hess, who made Napoleon Dynamite, a film I admit I didn't get, has made a film I don't even begin to get." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 87%
| The House of the Devil (2009) | "
The film may provide an introduction for some audience members to the Hitchcockian definition of suspense: It's the anticipation, not the happening, that's the fun." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 60%
| Pirate Radio (2009) | "
Here the plot doesn't require a reason for the characters to keep running into one another; there's nowhere they can hide. No coincidences means more development. And the wall-to-wall '60s rock keeps things bright." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 88%
| Skin (2009) | "
This great film by Anthony Fabian tells this story through the eyes of a happy girl who grows into an outsider." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 39%
| 2012 (2009) | "
This is fun. 2012 delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 44%
| The Box (2009) | "
If you make a preposterous movie that isn't boring, I count that as some kind of a triumph." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 91%
| Harmony and Me (2009) | "
Austin, Texas, has never looked more unlovely, and its residents more clueless, than in Harmony and Me, a funny, wry mumblecore comedy by Bob Byington." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Rotten 55%
| Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) | "
The story that Dickens wrote in 1838 remains timeless, and if it's supercharged here with Scrooge swooping the London streets as freely as Superman, well, once you let ghosts into a movie, there's room for anything." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 91%
| Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009) | "
The film is a tribute to Sidibe's ability to engage our empathy. Her work is still another demonstration of the mystery of some actors, who evoke feelings in ways beyond words and techniques." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 54%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
It actually doesn't matter if the book is truthful. It doesn't claim the paranormal powers are real. Ronson simply says some officials thought they might be -- and that if they were, we had to get there first. The movie is funny either way." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 69%
| (Untitled) (2009) | "
(Untitled) is a comedy worthy of the best Woody Allen, and Adrian is not unlike Woody's persona: a sincere, intense, insecure nebbish, hopeless with women, aiming for greatness." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 18%
| The Fourth Kind (2009) | "
Why the aliens chose this community of 9,261 to abduct so many people is a mystery. Also why owls stare into bedroom windows." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 81%
| The Horse Boy (2009) | "
In the footage taken after the healing, we never see Rowan, except when he is happily playing with his new friends or smiling with his parents. Is that the whole story? You decide." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 78%
| Bronson (2009) | "
The movie takes on a fearsome purity, refusing to find reasons, indifferent to motives, not even finding causes and effects. It is 92 minutes of rage, acted by Tom Hardy." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 29, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 80%
| Yes Men Fix the World (2009) | "
The film is entertaining in its own right, and thought-provoking. Why don't more people quickly see through their hoaxes?" — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 29, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| N/A | 21 and a Wake-Up (2009) | "
I'm sure [McIntyre's] motivations were heartfelt, but his film is awkward and disjointed, and outstays its welcome." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 29, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 80%
| Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009) | "
The result is one of the most revealing music documentaries I've seen." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 28, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 21%
| Amelia (2009) | "
Amelia is a perfectly sound biopic, well directed and acted, about an admirable woman." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 94%
| An Education (2009) | "
[Mulligan] makes the role luminous when it could have been sad or awkward. She has such lightness and grace, you're pretty sure this is the birth of a star." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 48%
| Astro Boy (2009) | "
Astro Boy is better than most of its recent competitors, such as Monsters vs. Aliens and Kung Fu Panda." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 71%
| Walt and El Grupo (2009) | "
At a time when Hollywood doesn't remember last year, is obsessed with the bottom line and is run by men who often have no sense of history, Walt & El Grupo evokes a better time." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 37%
| Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009) | "
It's ... a mess. The movie is shot through with curious disconnects. Often within a single sequence of events, we won't know where we are, or how they're related in space or time." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 50%
| Antichrist (2009) | "
Von Trier, who has always been a provocateur, is driven to confront and shake his audience more than any other serious filmmaker -- even Bunuel and Herzog." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 73%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
The plot is simple stuff, spread fairly thin in terms of events but portentous in terms of meaning. It comes down to: What is right? -- a question that children often seek answers to." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 71%
| The Road (2009) | "
The Road evokes the images and the characters of Cormac McCarthy's novel. It is powerful, but for me lacks the same core of emotional feeling. I'm not sure this is any fault of the filmmakers." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 82%
| Black Dynamite (2009) | "
I am happy to say it brings back an element sadly missing in recent movies, gratuitous nudity." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 94%
| The Damned United (2009) | "
The enigma of Brian Clough has long fascinated British fans. The Dammed United offers no easy explanation, but plunges into the mysteries of the personality." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 83%
| We Live in Public (2009) | "
This is a remarkable film about a strange and prophetic man. What does it tell us? Did living a virtual life destroy him?" — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 24%
| Law Abiding Citizen (2009) | "
The explanation of Clyde's methods is preposterous, but it comes late enough that F. Gary Gray, the director, is first able to generate considerable suspense and a sense of dread." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 41%
| New York, I Love You (2009) | "
Inevitably, the film is a jumble sale, but you can make some nice discoveries." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 87%
| A Serious Man (2009) | "
This isn't a laugh-laugh movie, but a wince-wince movie. Those can be funny, too." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 12%
| Couples Retreat (2009) | "
It contains little comedy, except for free-standing one-liners, and no suspense, except for the timing of the obligatory reconciliation. It doesn't even make you think you'd like to visit its island paradise." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Rotten 56%
| Trucker (2009) | "
I concede the story arc is fairly predictable, assuming neither one murders the other. But Mottern and his actors take no hostages." — Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
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