Rotten
| Rotten 48%
| Antichrist (2009) | "
Von Trier's previous sorties into torturing the audience ...were structured around issues of faith, God ... and the human condition. This time around, however, the thrust is either incoherent or so complex as to require a sharper mind than my own." — Brand X Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 70%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
Thanks to both the added story elements and the visual choices, there is barely a drop of "magical" to be found; it's neither wondrous nor scary." — Brand X Posted Oct 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 0%
| Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) | "
The result is at times genuinely suspenseful ... and if the final twist doesn't drive you crazy, the cleverness may win you over." — Brand X Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 59%
| The Headless Woman (2009) | "
Martel -- having listed Herk Harvey's ultra-low-budget 1962 horror film Carnival of Souls as a favorite -- has now more or less remade it as an "art film": that is, she's slathered the pretentiousness on so thick that all the fun is gone." — Christian Science Monitor Posted Sep 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 76%
| Cold Souls (2009) | "
Had Cold Souls come out exactly a decade earlier, it would have seemed utterly original and daring ... because it would have beaten Being John Malkovich to the screen by a few months." — Brand X Posted Sep 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 68%
| Funny People (2009) | "
Apatow packs enough decent jokes into an hour and a half to earn our affection. The problem is that after that hour and a half the movie goes on for nearly another hour, for a grand total of 2 hours and 25 minutes." — Brand X Posted Aug 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Public Enemies (2009) | "
Mann and his writers recount Dillinger's story clearly and with more historical accuracy than some of the earlier film versions, but you're left wondering, "So what?"" — Brand X Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 36%
| Angels & Demons (2009) | "
It [has] the sort of exposition that gives exposition a bad name." — Brand X Posted Jul 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 91%
| Gomorrah (2009) | "
[T]here's nothing here to draw us in -- nothing particularly interesting or engaging about the stories or the characters." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Dec 19, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 80%
| Nothing But the Truth (2008) | "
Lurie's style has grown increasingly fluid, and the players (especially Farmiga) deliver, but he tosses everything away with the last twist." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Dec 19, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 36%
| Adam Resurrected (2008) | "
It seems to have been written in a tone of magical realism, but the director is Paul Schrader, a filmmaker who has many talents, but no feel for whimsy, let alone magic." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Dec 19, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 21%
| The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) | "
Gort the robot looks the same but is ten times bigger and a tenth as interesting -- a good metaphor for the whole project." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Dec 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| N/A | B.O.H.I.C.A (2008) | "
Director D.J. Paul and screenwriter Joseph "Bo" Colen don't bring much new to the notion of boredom being the toughest part of war." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 17, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 14%
| The Alphabet Killer (2008) | "
...a big problem is the preposterousness of the mystery's solution..." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 17, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| Flashbacks of a Fool (2008) | "
... an uninspired rearrangement of familiar elements, with little emotional force to justify the entire project." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| An American Carol (2008) | "
... the jokes are lame and the caricatures too removed from any defensible reality." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 20%
| Righteous Kill (2008) | "
Russell Gewirtz's script is built around a trick, one that is simultaneously too clever by half and not clever at all (which itself is quite a trick)." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 59%
| Sukiyaki Western Django (2008) | "
... for all its virtues, Sukiyaki Western Django is a one-gimmick film that eventually wears out its welcome." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 52%
| What Women Want (2000) | "
English's attempts to fit The Women into a modern setting are intelligent, but that, unfortunately, does not suffice, because the film is so limp in so many other ways." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| Towelhead (2008) | "
Ball drops the poisonous little voodoo dolls he mistakes for characters into a ... realistic environment, as though that will somehow render his story more "serious."" — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 74%
| A Girl Cut in Two (2008) | "
Chabrol does his best work in the thriller genre, but he seems colder and frankly humorless when he works with real-life stories [as he does here]." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 61%
| Traitor (2008) | "
For most of its length, Traitor is a serious and suspense-filled film ... But as the movie approaches its climax, the plot goes crazy -- and [not] in a good way." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 63%
| Hamlet 2 (2008) | "
Coogan is a master at playing jerks, but Dana is too silly, too stupid, and too unappealing to enlist us on his side." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Stealing America: Vote By Vote (2008) | "
This is not so much a documentary ... as a recruiting tool. We never hear anything from the other side; and the film ends with a fulsome patriotic call to action." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Re-Cycle (2006) | "
The plot is intriguing -- it took me some time to really figure out what the ending meant -- but the execution is too much like Silent Hill, i.e., like a video game." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Nov 12, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 11%
| Hell Ride (2008) | "
Bishop ... seems to have thrown his prolonged-adolescence wet dream up on the screen, and I don't mean that in an entirely negative way." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Aug 8, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) | "
But the script frankly sucks. It lifts from sources that were themselves tired liftings from other sources. The funniest lines don't appear to have been intended to be funny." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Aug 1, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 53%
| Mamma Mia! (2008) | "
Nusicals traditionally rely rather heavily on things like singing and dancing; but what stage director Phyllida Lloyd throws onto the screen could better be described as "singing" and "dancing."" — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Aug 1, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 64%
| Brideshead Revisited (2008) | "
Boiled down to a manageable 2 1/4 hours, the story becomes uneven and the thematic development lopsided." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Aug 1, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 46%
| Death Defying Acts (2008) | "
...a decidedly minor addition to the résumé of Australian director Gillian Armstrong...The film moves quickly enough, and it's a passably glossy entertainment, but, as Houdini, Pearce is too young..." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Jul 18, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 72%
| Wanted (2008) | "
Whether you find the whole thing thrilling or exhausting will depend in large part on the health of your adrenal glands." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Jul 2, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| The Happening (2008) | "
[N]owhere near the level of The Sixth Sense, and not quite as good as the subsequent Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village, but at least it suggests that the awfulness of Lady in the Water may have been an aberration." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Jun 20, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 20%
| Meet Bill (2008) | "
Not awful or offensive, but pretty weak broth nonetheless." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Jun 20, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 49%
| Mother of Tears (2008) | "
... goofy fun, in its own way. But it's the same goofy fun we've seen in dozens of other films for years now, by Argento and others." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Jun 20, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 0%
| Short Order (2008) | "
There is pleasure to be had in the visual style and some of the performances, suggesting that Byrne the director has been ill served by Byrne the writer." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted May 30, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 86%
| Reprise (2008) | "
...both showy and precious.... On top of that, it feels like self-consciously warmed over Godard, with traces of Run, Lola, Run tossed in." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted May 14, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 46%
| Mister Lonely (2008) | "
... begins and ends with a wonderful, striking image -- Luna gliding by a red and white wall, riding a very low bike with a toy monkey suspended from the back -- but nothing in between is nearly as effective." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted May 11, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 48%
| Before the Rains (2008) | "
The first third is frankly plodding, though the story begins to engage us by the midpoint. While there is nothing wrong with Roache's or Das's work, Bose's performance gives it whatever power it has." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted May 11, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 24%
| Anamorph (2008) | "
Sure, it's better than 88 Minutes [what isn't?] but it's still pretty pointless, with unclear exposition and murky plot developments." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted May 1, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Deception (2008) | "
[D]espite a fair amount of suspense and good performances from all three leads, this is one of those films where [the central] scheme ... depends on a million little unpredictable details breaking properly." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 24, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 3%
| Deal (2008) | "
Director/co-writer Gil Cates Jr. gives us a by-the-numbers execution of a by-the-numbers story, which would barely be movie-of-the-week material but for [Burt] Reynolds's "star power."" — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 24, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 5%
| 88 Minutes (2008) | "
Is it as bad as everyone says? Why, yes! It is!" — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 24, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 10%
| Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) | "
[T]he No. 1 agenda [here] has much less to do with academic freedom than with political ideology." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 16, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 30%
| Young Yakuza (2007) | "
I kept looking for signs that Young Yakuza was a scripted mockumentary. But eventually I came to believe Limosin's claims, simply because, with all the options fiction provides, no one would deliberately construct so dull and meandering a story." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 3, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 20%
| Chapter 27 (2008) | "
[Leto's] mumbled voiceover may perfectly reflect Chapman's inner world. [But] who wants to enter that world? Neither Chapman ... nor his inner life is very interesting ... I was looking at my watch before the first third of the movie had passed." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 3, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 26%
| Drillbit Taylor (2008) | "
The kids are generally good, and Frost makes a really convincing psycho, but the energy level is generally dragged down by Wilson, who gives a depressive edge to his zillionth version of this character." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 3, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 35%
| 21 (2008) | "
For most of its length, 21 seems like a cautionary tale ... at least, until the whole point is negated by a tacked-on happy ending." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Apr 3, 2008 |
Rotten
| N/A | Dying to Live (2008) | "
record of the events is often quite moving, though likely too disorganized and personal for much outside consumption." — Variety Posted Mar 17, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 51%
| Funny Games (2008) | "
It's one of the most repugnant, unpleasant, sadistic movies ever made. No matter what virtues of craft one can find within, no matter what themes lie beneath, Funny Games is aesthetically indefensible." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Mar 13, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 49%
| CJ7 (2008) | "
[D]ownright disturbing." — Los Angeles CityBeat Posted Mar 13, 2008 |
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