|
4/10
|
52%
|
Safe House (2012) |
"
Safe House is a twisted claw of a movie, a picture so visually ugly that, to borrow a line from Moms Mabley, it hurt my feelings."
—
Movieline
Posted Feb 9, 2012
|
|
9/10
|
92%
|
Chico & Rita (2012) |
"
This is the kind of sophisticated storytelling you rarely get even in live-action movies any more, full of unexpected turns and unruly human complications."
—
Movieline
Posted Feb 9, 2012
|
|
8/10
|
63%
|
The Woman in Black (2012) |
"
Watkins gets the mood right, which is the major thing."
—
Movieline
Posted Feb 2, 2012
|
|
5.5/10
|
73%
|
Kill List (2012) |
"
Kill List is meticulously designed to be a cult film, which means it can never truly be one: It grabs its audience by the collar instead of beckoning seductively and carelessly."
—
Movieline
Posted Feb 2, 2012
|
|
6.5/10
|
72%
|
Big Miracle (2012) |
"
The whales at the center of the story ... get lost amid all the criss-crossing love stories, political wheeler-dealing and well-intentioned but inadequate rescue missions."
—
Movieline
Posted Feb 2, 2012
|
|
6.5/10
|
32%
|
Man on a Ledge (2012) |
"
At the very least, Leth allows us to bask in the illusion that the movie's farfetched conclusion actually might make sense - until you start taking it apart, piece by piece, and realize that it's all utter ishkabibble."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 26, 2012
|
|
8/10
|
77%
|
The Grey (2012) |
"
Carnahan is smart enough to know what not to show. When those largely unseen wolves start hooting and moaning, the sound goes right through you: It's a howl of existential pain from nature's peanut gallery."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 26, 2012
|
|
6.5/10
|
88%
|
Declaration of War (2012) |
"
Declaration of War is the classic example of the small-scale movie with lofty intentions that simply tries too hard."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 26, 2012
|
|
6/10
|
36%
|
Red Tails (2012) |
"
It's a shame the idea had to come from George Lucas, whose enthusiasm for his subject translates mostly into a peculiar strain of inept awkwardness."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 19, 2012
|
|
8.5/10
|
80%
|
Haywire (2012) |
"
This is the best kind of action film: One in which we're actually granted the pleasure of watching bodies move."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 19, 2012
|
|
9/10
|
82%
|
Crazy Horse (2012) |
"
Even Wiseman, cerebral, perceptive, and a maestro in the editing room, can't resist urging us, with images if not with words, "Just look at them!" And so we do."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 18, 2012
|
|
7/10
|
94%
|
Sing Your Song (2012) |
"
If nothing else, Sing Your Song works as a testament to Belafonte's drive and dedication to causes well outside the usual goals of simply making money."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 13, 2012
|
|
8/10
|
73%
|
Domaine (2012) |
"
Chiha knows when the story is wobbling off the rails of credibility and leans into the turn, embracing the narrative's full-on nuttiness."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 12, 2012
|
|
6/10
|
34%
|
Joyful Noise (2012) |
"
A well-intentioned, pleasant-enough picture that shoots off in too many directions to ever ignite."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 12, 2012
|
|
6.5/10
|
74%
|
Norwegian Wood (2012) |
"
It takes no significant liberties with the plot, and it captures the novel's delicate, half-hopeful, half-mournful tone. So why, unlike its source material, does it feel only half-alive?"
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 6, 2012
|
|
8/10
|
57%
|
It's About You (2012) |
"
The result is a kind of homespun video scrapbook, bumpy seams and glue splotches and all; it's flawed, but at least it feels handmade and human."
—
Movieline
Posted Jan 6, 2012
|
|
4.5/10
|
45%
|
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012) |
"
Never has the tragedy of 9/11 been made so shrinky-dinked."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 23, 2011
|
|
8.5/10
|
76%
|
War Horse (2011) |
"
It's the largest, most lavish handful of wistfulness money can buy, and sometimes it's too much. Yet it's nice to know that even Steven Spielberg can still wish for something."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 23, 2011
|
|
9/10
|
95%
|
Pina (2011) |
"
Less a strict documentary than a heartfelt - and visually gorgeous - celebration of Bausch's work and her mode of working."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 21, 2011
|
|
7.5/10
|
75%
|
The Adventures of Tintin (2011) |
"
Winning in a rousing, let's-hunt-down-a-treasure way, once you get past - if you can - the Polar Express-style creepiness of animated figures who gaze through human-looking eyes."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 21, 2011
|
|
8.5/10
|
87%
|
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) |
"
The Fincher version doesn't actively negate the presence of the earlier one - it doesn't have to - but its confidence and bravado are like a strong blast of sunlight with the ability to fade the memory of whatever came before."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 20, 2011
|
|
7.5/10
|
71%
|
Carnage (2011) |
"
The craftsmanship is obvious - there's no flashiness here, just lots of micro-control. But the picture is less artistic than it is artisinal."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 15, 2011
|
|
5.5/10
|
13%
|
W.E. (2012) |
"
Even though it's something of a slick mess, Madonna's W.E. is just the kind of movie you'd expect from an artist who once, with a delightful lack of irony, declared herself a material girl."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 8, 2011
|
|
9.5/10
|
84%
|
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) |
"
The movie's intricacy, and the way it finds its way into the emotional lives of its characters via (and not in spite of) that intricacy, is what makes it extraordinary. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy challenges audiences to believe in craftsmanship again."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 8, 2011
|
|
7.5/10
|
50%
|
Sleeping Beauty (2011) |
"
The picture is clinical in its approach and its technique, yet it leaves so many questions unanswered - it's straightforward in a vague, maddening way. It's also strangely, obliquely compelling."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 1, 2011
|
|
8.5/10
|
80%
|
Shame (2011) |
"
Shame could have gone all wrong with the wrong actor. Luckily, McQueen has the right one in Fassbender, and that makes all the difference."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 1, 2011
|
|
6.5/10
|
93%
|
Coriolanus (2011) |
"
If there are slack patches in the narrative, Fiennes and his fellow actors get us through them efficiently enough."
—
Movieline
Posted Dec 1, 2011
|
|
10/10
|
97%
|
The Artist (2011) |
"
A picture that romances its audience into watching in a new way - by, paradoxically, asking us to watch in an old way. The Artist is perhaps the most modern movie imaginable right now."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 24, 2011
|
|
7.5/10
|
84%
|
My Week with Marilyn (2011) |
"
There are some movies that have little or nothing to recommend them, except as a frame for a performance. My Week with Marilyn is that kind of movie."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 23, 2011
|
|
9/10
|
94%
|
Hugo (2011) |
"
Scorsese's Hugo is oversized, ambitious and expensive-looking - and still it manages to be lovely, which is the hardest task of all to pull off, even for an alleged movie genius like Scorsese."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 23, 2011
|
|
8/10
|
77%
|
A Dangerous Method (2011) |
"
Probably the most fun you'll ever have watching a movie about Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud duking it out - and nurturing a deep-rooted but fragile friendship - in early 20th century Austria and Switzerland."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 22, 2011
|
|
6/10
|
44%
|
Happy Feet Two (2011) |
"
Happy Feet Two is just too big and overloaded - too much of an almost-good thing."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 17, 2011
|
|
7.5/10
|
25%
|
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011) |
"
It's the most imaginative picture in the franchise, and I say that as a fan of the first picture, Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight, an irony-free adolescent romance that took the idea of teenage erotic fantasy seriously."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 17, 2011
|
|
5.5/10
|
90%
|
The Descendants (2011) |
"
An ultra-polished picture in which every emotion we're supposed to feel has been cued up well in advance. There's nothing surprising or affecting about it. Not even Clooney, who works wonders with the occasional piece of dialogue, can save it."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 16, 2011
|
|
8/10
|
33%
|
London Boulevard (2011) |
"
The confidence of London Boulevard never tips into cockiness. This is style with some intelligence behind it."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 10, 2011
|
|
5.5/10
|
44%
|
J. Edgar (2011) |
"
It's all too earnest, to the point of serving, unwittingly or otherwise, as an apologia."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 9, 2011
|
|
5.5/10
|
69%
|
A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (2011) |
"
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas lacks the freewheeling, generous spirit of the first two Harold & Kumar movies and tries to make up for that lack with extra crudeness."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 3, 2011
|
|
7/10
|
68%
|
Tower Heist (2011) |
"
Ratner loves to go for the big, excessive finish, and Tower Heist is most fatiguing in the last stretch. But his movie is also dotted, here and there, with comic gracefulness."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 3, 2011
|
|
5/10
|
18%
|
The Son of No One (2011) |
"
It's as if Montiel, who also wrote the script, came up with a cool idea and then had no idea how to spin it out into an even minimally plausible story."
—
Movieline
Posted Nov 3, 2011
|
|
8/10
|
50%
|
The Rum Diary (2011) |
"
After years of watching Johnny Depp give performances from behind thick rings of pirate eyeliner or masks of outlandish Tim Burton makeup, it's a relief to see him, more and more often these days, acting with nothing but his real face."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 27, 2011
|
|
7.5/10
|
47%
|
Anonymous (2011) |
"
It is, at the very least, a curiosity, one with some clever casting and a few very fine performances at its core."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 27, 2011
|
|
9/10
|
37%
|
In Time (2011) |
"
The movie doesn't punish its characters for being young and beautiful. Instead it revels in the sight of them, and that's just one of the ways Niccol makes sure that his movie, despite its blunt message, never succumbs to preachiness."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 26, 2011
|
|
6/10
|
38%
|
Johnny English Reborn (2011) |
"
The problem, maybe, is that English is a character modeled on a concept rather than one built from the inside out, like Mr. Bean."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 20, 2011
|
|
8.5/10
|
90%
|
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) |
"
Even if you think your brain is soap-proof, Durkin succeeds in washing it just a little bit."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 18, 2011
|
|
|
98%
|
Le Havre (2011) |
"
Lovely, unassuming, [and] buoyantly sad-sacky."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 18, 2011
|
|
5.5/10
|
33%
|
Texas Killing Fields (2011) |
"
Mostly, we see characters glancing significantly toward one another or arguing about things that don't matter all that much in the outcome, and there is one oh-so-clever red herring."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 14, 2011
|
|
4.5/10
|
36%
|
The Thing (2011) |
"
Comes from a world where everything needs to be explained in meticulous, knowing detail."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 13, 2011
|
|
9/10
|
70%
|
Footloose (2011) |
"
It's as if Brewer is taking a stand for movies that look like movies instead of audience hipness barometers."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 13, 2011
|
|
7.5/10
|
89%
|
Miss Bala (2012) |
"
Naranjo keeps the action tense but understated; instead of allowing explosions and shootouts to pile up, he rations them in taut doses."
—
Movieline
Posted Oct 13, 2011
|
