Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| Star Trek (2009) | "
Writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman manage to morph the new actors into the general outlines of the original crew, but even as they slip into the old character molds, they immediately start to break out of them." — San Jose Mercury News Posted May 6, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 41%
| The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) | "
Chadwick and Morgan have cooked up a potboiler, the sort of thing that might have been fun to watch with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as the Boleyn sisters, while Charles Laughton lasciviously eyed the backs of their necks as Henry." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Feb 29, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 21%
| Semi-Pro (2008) | "
Ferrell is capable of a great deal more than he's been delivering. It might surprise him to learn that white men can jump. But first they have to try." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Feb 29, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 35%
| Vantage Point (2008) | "
The bones of a good idea for a conspiracy thriller lie buried in the corpse of Vantage Point. It feels more like a movie with a personality disorder." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Feb 21, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 16%
| Jumper (2008) | "
The only force on Earth so dense that it apparently can't be moved even by the movie's special effects is Christensen's wooden acting." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Feb 15, 2008 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 72%
| Definitely, Maybe (2008) | "
The picture does have a certain unimpeachable charm." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Feb 13, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 80%
| In Bruges (2008) | "
It somehow manages to never stop being brutally funny, while also becoming tragically bleak." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Feb 7, 2008 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 96%
| 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2008) | "
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 days feels like a kind of appendix -- and a bursting one at that -- to Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jan 31, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 14%
| Untraceable (2008) | "
Untraceable often seems to go out of its way to tip off what's coming, so that it's hard to tell whether the film's writers are lazy, clumsy or just painfully obvious." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jan 25, 2008 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 98%
| Nanking (2007) | "
Anyone who sees Nanking should know going in what a brutal story it is, but no one should miss it because of a restrictive rating." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jan 17, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 76%
| Cloverfield (2008) | "
Cloverfield is the ultimate movie for people who don't feel a cataclysm has really happened until they can videotape it, upload it and stream it live to the rest of the world." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jan 17, 2008 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 93%
| The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) | "
Director Julian Schnabel uses his skill as a painter to assemble a collage of fantastical images to reveal the exquisite physical wreck that Bauby has become." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jan 4, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 79%
| The Great Debaters (2007) | "
Even when it's just one person standing at a lectern, the frame is never static, the tension never slack." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 26, 2007 |
— | Fresh 85%
| War Dance (2007) | "
The perfect antidote to compassion fatigue." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 20, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 66%
| The Kite Runner (2007) | "
By the time it arrives at its final kite-flying scene back in the Bay Area, The Kite Runner has soared occasionally, but remains too grounded for its own good in the book from which it was supposed to spring." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 20, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 74%
| Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) | "
Milks the pat formulations of its brethren, such as Walk the Line, for all the laughs they're worth. And then some." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 20, 2007 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 81%
| Charlie Wilson's War (2007) | "
All of a sudden, Hoffman is having one of the most spectacular years any movie actor ever had." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 20, 2007 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 82%
| Atonement (2007) | "
In its first 45 minutes, Atonement achieves a kind of perfection rare even for big Oscar-bait movies. Every facet of the filmmaking is the equal of any picture released this year. The rest of the movie isn't so bad." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 13, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 69%
| I Am Legend (2007) | "
Even with Smith acting up a storm, what starts out as a potentially fascinating picture about an apocalyptic plague soon devolves into yet another special-effects laden zombie movie." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 12, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 42%
| The Golden Compass (2007) | "
There is enough fire in Dakota Blue Richards' first film performance to make you eager for the next installment in the series." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Dec 6, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 77%
| I'm Not There (2007) | "
Tiresome and plodding." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Nov 20, 2007 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 94%
| No Country for Old Men (2007) | "
Working from a Cormac McCarthy novel that has the heedless, headlong force of an action movie screenplay, Joel and Ethan Coen have improved upon the original by giving it a visual lyricism to match McCarthy's verbal barrage." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Nov 16, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 36%
| Southland Tales (2007) | "
By the time the movie rolls into its third hour, it's exhausted most of its comic energy, leaving you disoriented and unable to remember much of what you just saw." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Nov 16, 2007 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 37%
| Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007) | "
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is what happens when too many sappy sweet instincts chase too few original ideas." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Nov 16, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 71%
| Beowulf (2007) | "
Beowulf is being released in standard 2-D and a non-Imax 3-D version, neither of which I've seen, and neither of which I would recommend as long as there is an opportunity for the sensory overload of Imax 3-D." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Nov 15, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 79%
| American Gangster (2007) | "
In its title character, the movie has created a murdering, dope-slinging millionaire from the streets that even Denzel Washington has managed to make boring." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Nov 2, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 64%
| Dan in Real Life (2007) | "
The sort of movie that wears down your resistance until, finally, you feel as if something must be wrong with you if you don't fall for the cheap theatrics of its story and the emotional manipulations of its characters." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Oct 25, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| N/A | Brother's Shadow (2006) | "
Brother's Shadow is an admirable first film." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Oct 23, 2007 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 94%
| Gone Baby Gone (2007) | "
The film is full of scenes that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Oct 19, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 81%
| Lars And The Real Girl (2007) | "
It's a premise as fanciful as Jimmy Stewart's Harvey, and yet the movie has a sweetness that manages to be pixilated and plausible at the same time." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Oct 19, 2007 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 71%
| Lust, Caution (2007) | "
In the broad strokes and beautiful particularity of its bittersweet love story, Lust, Caution could not come from any other place but China." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Oct 12, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 34%
| Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) | "
Every time the camera finally settles on Blanchett's regal cheekbones, it's a relief." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Oct 12, 2007 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 30%
| The Heartbreak Kid (2007) | "
[The Farrelly Brothers] have taken what was a minor classic and annihilated everything that was funny about it." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Oct 4, 2007 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 82%
| Into the Wild (2007) | "
In its expansive spirit of investigation and embrace of life as a creative act, Into the Wild comes as close as any picture ever made to capturing the America that Jack Kerouac discovered half a century ago." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Sep 28, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 51%
| The Kingdom (2007) | "
The movie pretends to be a dramatic exploration of the gulf of mutual suspicion that has grown from the oil alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the most superficial way imaginable, it does that." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Sep 28, 2007 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 89%
| Eastern Promises (2007) | "
Eastern Promises is a subtle and precisely calibrated work of astonishing cumulative power." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Sep 20, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 72%
| In the Valley of Elah (2007) | "
Elah uses a slightly plodding police procedural format as an opening to a discussion about the effect the war is having on returning soldiers. It's a lot to ask of one movie." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Sep 20, 2007 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 88%
| 3:10 to Yuma (2007) | "
This Yuma is Shane with a train." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Sep 7, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 67%
| The 11th Hour (2007) | "
No matter what time it is in the grand, cosmic scheme of things, The 11th Hour arrives about a day late and an eco-dollar short of An Inconvenient Truth" — San Jose Mercury News Posted Aug 31, 2007 |
Rotten 0/4
| Rotten 20%
| Death Sentence (2007) | "
As rancid as its title is lurid, an example of pulp fiction run amok." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Aug 31, 2007 |
Rotten .5/4
| Rotten 33%
| The Nanny Diaries (2007) | "
There's a heart-sinking moment early in The Nanny Diaries when it becomes apparent that every literary gimmick that seemed arch and clever in the bestselling novel of 2002 is going to fall horribly flat in the worst movie of 2007." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Aug 24, 2007 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 51%
| Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007) | "
The Wikipedia page on gurning lists Atkinson right behind Jim Carrey as one of the world's leading practitioners of grotesque face-making. And this is his ghastly masterpiece." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Aug 24, 2007 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 81%
| Talk to Me (2007) | "
The movie's occasional narrative shortcomings are offset by the performances, which are uniformly fine." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Aug 3, 2007 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 93%
| The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) | "
From that first moment to the last of this peerlessly mounted action thriller, the chase never stops. Bourne's nerve never falters, or that of director Paul Greengrass, either." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Aug 2, 2007 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 39%
| No Reservations (2007) | "
You don't need to have been a fan of the terrific German film Mostly Martha that inspired this remake, or even to have seen the original, to recognize that her American cousin has a tendency to overcook things." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jul 27, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 90%
| The Simpsons Movie (2007) | "
The movie isn't a disaster, just a disappointment." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jul 25, 2007 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 91%
| Hairspray (2007) | "
The movie pulsates with so much energy and excitement that it sometimes seems it will come bouncing off the screen. But then someone applies another layer of lacquer to their 'do, and the whole boisterous bouffant of a show somehow sticks together." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jul 19, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 29%
| Goya's Ghosts (2007) | "
There's an unfortunate tendency in this movie for the forces of history to overtake scenes." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jul 19, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 62%
| Joshua (2007) | "
Sickeningly creepy." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jul 13, 2007 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 64%
| Vitus (2007) | "
We're supposed to be convinced that [Vitus has] proved himself a normal kid in spite of his virtuoso skills, not because of them. It's a bit of a stretch, but he's got the long fingers for it." — San Jose Mercury News Posted Jul 13, 2007 |
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