Fresh
| Rotten 55%
| Ricky (2009) | "
In Ozon’s distinctively eccentric style, Ricky applies modern skepticism to the prospect of parthenogenesis (based on an American short story by Rose Tremain), then deepens the concept." — New York Press Posted Dec 22, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| A Single Man (2009) | "
It is the year’s most subtle movie acting and the finest performance of Firth’s career." — New York Press Posted Dec 9, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 57%
| Brothers (2009) | "
Sheridan declines the dissociative artiness and blame that hipster filmmakers use to exempt themselves from today’s wars." — New York Press Posted Dec 9, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 72%
| The Blind Side (2009) | "
All Bullock’s films promote an edifying sense of human experience -- she has an instinct for what people like to see -- and that gift makes The Blind Side the perfect, God-sent antidote to Precious." — New York Press Posted Nov 18, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 93%
| Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) | "
Fantastic Mr. Fox renews one’s sense of animation’s possibilities." — New York Press Posted Nov 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 80%
| Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009) | "
Spielberg’s failure to engage Jackson on a movie-musical project (Peter Pan or Earth Song or Childhood) deprived the world of a possible Minnelli-level masterpiece." — New York Press Posted Oct 29, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 16%
| Gentlemen Broncos (2009) | "
This is personal filmmaking, surveying the private emotions that generally embarrass people or make us feel out of step -- a daring proposition in an era that frantically insists upon marketable conformity." — New York Press Posted Oct 28, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 25%
| Motherhood (2009) | "
Revealing the contradictions of this postfeminist age, Motherhood is good enough to recall Up the Sandbox, the elegant and eccentric 1972 response to feminism, race, class and media..." — New York Press Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 73%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
The most daring kid’s-movie adaptation since Altman’s still-avant-garde Popeye from 1980." — New York Press Posted Oct 14, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 78%
| Bronson (2009) | "
Hardy’s portrayal is more than a real-life impersonation of Bronson; it realizes the Stunt Movie opportunity to present an actor’s thoroughly romantic admiration of force." — New York Press Posted Oct 7, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 87%
| A Serious Man (2009) | "
A Serious Man rejects the bland Jewishness of Judd Apatow films; it’s similar to the black filmmakers’ project in Next Day Air, in which social stereotypes get burlesqued, yet are used to reveal an essentially moral exercise." — New York Press Posted Sep 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 31%
| Irene in Time (2009) | "
Against this Judd Apatow era, Jaglom’s exploratory filmmaking requires a personal response unhindered by TV formula. His semi-improvised vignettes go in unexpected places, often profoundly emotional directions..." — New York Press Posted Sep 23, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | Rage (2009) | "
Eschewing the lazy carelessness of so many misguided digital enthusiasts, Potter’s rigor becomes a refreshing reminder of true cinematic values." — New York Press Posted Sep 23, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 95%
| 35 Shots of Rum (2009) | "
Precisely, rigorously, technically, 35 Shots of Rum is a masterpiece." — New York Press Posted Sep 16, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| Odd Man Out (1947) | "
This is not director Carol Reed’s best film (ranking behind The Third Man,The Stars Look Down, Outcast of the Islands, Night Train to Munich), but it impressively displays Reed’s command of image and atmosphere." — New York Press Posted Sep 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 87%
| Amreeka (2009) | "
Amreeka isn't great, but it's a relief when a movie that touches on America's post-9/11 unease regarding Muslims and the Arab world isn't full of condemnation." — New York Press Posted Sep 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 80%
| Bandslam (2009) | "
The barely hyped Bandslam must settle for simply being the best American movie this summer." — New York Press Posted Aug 19, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 36%
| G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) | "
G.I. Joe must be understood as an authentic measurement of our cultural values. Its appeal to the pop-commercial synapses also demonstrates livelier filmmaking than such utter banality as Iron Man and Star Trek and Harry Potter’s Half-Blooded Chintz." — New York Press Posted Aug 12, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | Hell Drivers (1957) | "
The working-class personal/political tension leads to a splendidly drawn immigrant characterization by Herbert Lom and the human drama of Baker dangling from a precipice. Both remain memorable." — New York Press Posted Aug 5, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 63%
| Husbands (1970) | "
The history of American male aggression and insecurity comes filtered through Cassavetes, Falk and Gazzara’s bravado. Better than authentic, they’re fascinating." — New York Press Posted Aug 5, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 86%
| Lorna's Silence (2009) | "
Belgian film team Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne do small things profoundly." — New York Press Posted Jul 29, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| You, the Living (2009) | "
More laughs -- belly-deep, thought-provoking ones -- are to be had in the first 10 minutes of Roy Andersson’s You, the Living than in all of Judd Apatow’s Funny People." — New York Press Posted Jul 29, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| Somers Town (2009) | "
Somers Town is not Shane Meadows’ best film, but it has his finest qualities: an appreciation of British working-class life as detailed as Ken Loach’s, characterizations as realistic as Mike Leigh’s and an interest in adolescent male impudence and longing" — New York Press Posted Jul 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| In a Lonely Place (1950) | "
Nicholas Ray’s 1950 film deserves to be better known; it’s one of Hollywood’s finest examinations of masculinity." — New York Press Posted Jul 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009) | "
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is really a lament for contemporary Jewish comedy’s loss of ethnic confidence. Kempner’s nostalgia becomes irrefutable in those faded images of Berg’s beaming face and discreet intelligence." — New York Press Posted Jul 8, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 97%
| The Hurt Locker (2009) | "
So far, the best fiction films about the Iraq War are Nick Bloomfield’s Battle for Haditha, Irwin Winkler’s Home of the Brave and John Moore’s allegorical Flight of the Phoenix remake. It’s sufficient praise to say The Hurt Locker joins that short list." — New York Press Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 20%
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) | "
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is more proof [Bay] has a great eye for scale and a gift for visceral amazement." — New York Press Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | Raging Sun, Raging Sky (2009) | "
[Director] Hernández further develops his ideas on form, romanticism and spirituality. His images are beautiful and intriguing enough to win the popular audience he deserves." — New York Press Posted Jun 10, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| Séraphine (2008) | "
Next to Demme’s expressionism and Troell’s realism, Provost’s good film is banal." — New York Press Posted Jun 3, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 25%
| Land of the Lost (2009) | "
Land of the Lost sheds its TV-formula origins as a 1970s network series and becomes glib fun." — New York Press Posted Jun 3, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 61%
| Zabriskie Point (1970) | "
Almost 40 years later, Zabriskie Point exists to teach us more exact and sensitive perceptions about a cultural moment that its original audience was too close to appropriately observe." — New York Press Posted May 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 18%
| Dance Flick (2009) | "
It isn’t highbrow -- or encumbered by scruples -- but the Wayanses retain their vulgar, adolescent derision of sex, class and race. In this bow down to Hollywood millennium, their irreverence is almost subversive." — New York Press Posted May 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 51%
| Easy Virtue (2009) | "
[Elliott] tends toward camp, yet respects Coward’s light sentiment (and pays homage to Ealing Studios’ genteel tradition)." — New York Press Posted May 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 32%
| Terminator Salvation (2009) | "
McG’s boyish sensationalism is inoffensive, justified by paying attention to how Wright preserves an unlikely human essence. Worthington is a find." — New York Press Posted May 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 93%
| Summer Hours (2009) | "
For André Téchiné and Patrice Chéreau, who have specialized in probing/expansive family melodramas, Summer Hours would be a trifle. For Olivier Assayas, it’s almost a masterpiece." — New York Press Posted May 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 22%
| Next Day Air (2009) | "
Filmgoers who think outside the artmovie box will discover that the artful and enjoyable Next Day Air offers an episode of 21st-century black American life that August Wilson never got to." — New York Press Posted May 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| Revanche (2009) | "
Through intelligent formalism, [director] Spielmann crafts a penetrating perception of the world and human experience." — New York Press Posted Apr 29, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 85%
| Tyson (2009) | "
Tyson is a mirror portrait that gets under our skin. Through film, [Director James] Toback achieves what even his mentor Norman Mailer’s magnificent writing on boxing was never able to accomplish." — New York Press Posted Apr 22, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Leon Morin, Priest (1961) | "
This extraordinary drama doesn’t just play games with sexual disorientation and philosophical argument; it’s also implicitly about life turned upside down." — New York Press Posted Apr 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 98%
| Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) | "
After 1984’s heavy-metal satire This Is Spinal Tap started the mockumentary craze, most documentary makers pandered to audiences through sarcasm and propaganda. But the true-life heavy-metal Anvil finally -- beautifully -- restores the genre." — New York Press Posted Apr 8, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 88%
| Adventureland (2009) | "
Adventureland adds appreciable humanity to the genre, improving the adolescent egotism inflected by Dazed and Confused and the vulgar excesses of Superbad." — New York Press Posted Apr 1, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 77%
| Valentino: the Last Emperor (2009) | "
A genuine Felliniesque procession of the rich, powerful and over-awed." — New York Press Posted Mar 18, 2009 |
Fresh
| N/A | The Girl on the Train (2009) | "
It’s a love story from the uniquely expansive -- and inquiring -- point of view that makes Téchiné France’s most fascinating contemporary filmmaker." — New York Press Posted Mar 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 91%
| Z (1969) | "
Years later, Costa-Gavras’ shrewd contrivance and superb form hold up impressively." — New York Press Posted Mar 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| Everlasting Moments (2009) | "
It’s through Troell’s sense of the landscape and seasons and his attention to gender sensibilities that Everlasting Moments represents the height of filmmaking technology and emotional sophistication." — New York Press Posted Mar 4, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 91%
| Katyn (2007) | "
It’s a story of personal legends -- unknown soldiers and civilians. As Wajda deliberately unravels their various narrative strands, like a desperately ripped flag, a national tragedy doesn’t cease; it haunts." — New York Press Posted Feb 18, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 23%
| Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) | "
Australian director P.J. Hogan is one of the most original contemporary comic filmmakers -- better than the chick-flick genre ever had." — New York Press Posted Feb 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 32%
| Fanboys (2009) | "
It’s a ticklish footnote to the Star Wars phenomenon." — New York Press Posted Feb 4, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| Coraline (2009) | "
An animated film that might be too good for children. It arrives in time to expose the atrocious Wall-E." — New York Press Posted Feb 4, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 57%
| Taken (2009) | "
Action-movie aficionados know to look forward to Besson’s spatially energized productions, and the new film Taken maintains his high standards." — New York Press Posted Jan 28, 2009 |
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