Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 97%
| Jules And Jim (1962) | "
Jules and Jim is sad yet humorous, breathless yet contemplative, universal yet hermetic." — Slant Magazine Posted May 30, 2005 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 73%
| The Upside of Anger (2005) | "
Endeavors to airmail the middle-aged suburban angst made fashionable by American Beauty safely back to cynicism-free sitcom territory." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 14, 2005 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 23%
| In My Country (2005) | "
Peace, love, and understanding, apparently, are best served with a side order of .45-caliber satisfaction." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 10, 2005 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 61%
| Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) | "
A textbook example of why the odds of finding a good genre film are currently about equal to those of winning the lottery." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 13, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 49%
| Bruce Almighty (2003) | "
In several ways the movie is an apathetic revision of The Truman Show, with Carrey starring as both Truman and Christof." — Slant Magazine Posted May 21, 2003 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| The Matrix Reloaded (2003) | "
Arrives with the same chilling thud that accompanied the dashed hopes and ruined promises of the last two Star Wars movies." — Slant Magazine Posted May 9, 2003 |
Rotten
| Fresh 98%
| Spellbound (2003) | "
Blitz is not a filmmaker interested in his subjects, but only in manipulating their experiences for entertainment value." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 2, 2003 |
Rotten
| Fresh 77%
| The Good Thief (2003) | "
Even with the drugs and the gambling and a host of oddballs who are thankfully never romanticized to the point of nausea, the film is ultimately much too sanitary for its own good." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 1, 2003 |
Rotten
| Rotten 21%
| Basic (2003) | "
There’s some magic on display worthy of the great Houdini--in scene after scene, logic and reason vanish before our very eyes with a well-timed poof!" — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 28, 2003 |
Fresh
| Rotten 48%
| Assassination Tango (2003) | "
At age 72, Robert Duvall has pretty much earned the right to do whatever the hell he wants. Assassination Tango is exactly that: whatever the hell he wants." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 27, 2003 |
Rotten
| Rotten 36%
| Levity (2003) | "
The kind of downsized, misguidedly sincere movie that is meant to transparently serve as its participants’ penance for the slop they make the rest of the year." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 22, 2003 |
Fresh
| Rotten 31%
| The Hunted (2003) | "
In its handful of principal moments the film compares favorably with the perceptive lyricism of Walter Hill and Michael Mann." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 12, 2003 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| Tears of the Sun (2003) | "
An imminent favorite at the White House screening room, but the film is ultimately so dry and remote that one can’t imagine Chaney or Ashcroft trooping through all the exposition and moral finagling to get to the carnage." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 5, 2003 |
Rotten
| Rotten 8%
| Gods and Generals (2003) | "
As remote and unyielding as an untouched textbook, often so much so that its academic fanaticism causes it to resemble a spectacular parody of daytime television’s breathy, on-the-fly awkwardness." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 24, 2003 |
Fresh
| Rotten 34%
| Poolhall Junkies (2003) | "
A brassy bit of entertainment that makes up in hard-boiled showmanship what it lacks in subtlety." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 14, 2003 |
Rotten
| Rotten 57%
| Dark Blue (2003) | "
That Dark Blue’s template roughly coincides with the Rodney King race riots reeks of a pathetic attempt to over-conceptualize what is, at heart, a superficial, obvious morality play." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 14, 2003 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Laurel Canyon (2003) | "
If the booze-swilling, oversexed evil sister of McDormand’s Almost Famous matron were to make her own movie, it might look something like Laurel Canyon." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 9, 2003 |
Fresh
| Fresh 71%
| All the Real Girls (2003) | "
Broadens the director’s rural visual beauty but also benefits from a sharper placement of his narrative shrapnel and his characters’ acute internal dilemmas." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 9, 2003 |
Rotten
| Rotten 43%
| The Recruit (2003) | "
Apparently making a spy thriller that amounts to something more than James Bond clichés taken seriously is indeed mission: impossible." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 28, 2003 |
Rotten
| Fresh 63%
| The Dancer Upstairs (2003) | "
Feels less tantalizingly ambiguous than it does like a prologue that has somehow taken the place of the story that was meant to succeed it." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 18, 2003 |
Fresh 0.5/4
| Fresh 88%
| Chaos (2003) | "
Remarkable in that it approaches its assortment of characters with an even hand, regardless of their behavior--until the final third, that is." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 18, 2003 |
Fresh
| N/A | 2002 Year-in-Review (2002) | "
Gangs of New York is Marty's show, the culmination of a career and the decisive statement from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 27, 2002 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 78%
| Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) | "
The overload of murders and double-crosses make Barris’s life seem more and more like the folly of a screenwriter’s imagination." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 27, 2002 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| Catch Me If You Can (2002) | "
One of Spielberg's most gratifying films--quick and charming and exciting without ever being too obvious about its intentions." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 22, 2002 |
Fresh
| Fresh 76%
| Gangs of New York (2002) | "
Never before has Scorsese been so willing to let his naked enthusiasm--his love not only for the history within the film and its characters but also the purity of cinema--reveal itself in all of its unabashed glory." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 20, 2002 |
Fresh
| Fresh 83%
| Narc (2002) | "
Carnahan works with a rough-hewn classicism that recalls the tenacity and resilience of Hollywood in its glory days." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 19, 2002 |
Rotten
| Fresh 78%
| Antwone Fisher (2002) | "
Fisher greedily encourages Washington and Hollywood to rape his integrity in the name of Ben Franklin, not to mention Oscar." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 14, 2002 |
Rotten
| Fresh 78%
| 25th Hour (2002) | "
The various elements of 25th Hour are invariably provocative, but the husk of the story isn’t up to the challenge." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 14, 2002 |
Fresh
| Fresh 84%
| Morvern Callar (2002) | "
Few films this year have been as resolute in their emotional nakedness." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 7, 2002 |
Fresh
| Fresh 65%
| Evelyn (2002) | "
Told just proficiently enough to trounce its overly comfortable trappings." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 7, 2002 |
Rotten
| Rotten 21%
| Empire (2002) | "
Too clumsy and vulgar a melodrama to be viewed as a calculated piece of racism, but its obtuse unawareness doesn’t excuse it." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 2, 2002 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| The Emperor's Club (2002) | "
Hundert may be remembered by his pupils but the movie will be quickly forgotten." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 30, 2002 |
Rotten
| Fresh 87%
| Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) | "
Only in its final surprising shots does Rabbit-Proof Fence find the authority it's looking for." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 25, 2002 |
Rotten C-
| Fresh 79%
| Punch-Drunk Love (2002) | "
The kind of brain fart a young and creatively impotent hothead thinks up when what he really wants to do isn’t coming to him." — Matinee Magazine Posted Oct 11, 2002 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 63%
| Unknown Pleasures (2003) | "
As fascinating as some of the individual scenes and shots are, they never connect into a formative whole." — Matinee Magazine Posted Oct 1, 2002 |
Fresh B+
| Rotten 51%
| The Man from Elysian Fields (2002) | "
If The Man from Elysian Fields is doomed by its smallness, it is also elevated by it--the kind of movie that you enjoy more because you’re one of the lucky few who sought it out." — Matinee Magazine Posted Oct 1, 2002 |
Rotten D-
| Fresh 64%
| Moonlight Mile (2002) | "
Cranks up the oldies soundtrack and embraces narrative contrivance like there will be no tomorrow, as if the concept of death is nothing more than a feel-good exercise in smiley primetime enlightenment." — Matinee Magazine Posted Oct 1, 2002 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 92%
| Bloody Sunday (2002) | "
An authentically vague, but ultimately purposeless, study in total pandemonium." — Matinee Magazine Posted Oct 1, 2002 |
Rotten C-
| Fresh 90%
| The Magdalene Sisters (2003) | "
Nuns stomp down hallways like Storm Troopers while the girls are treated to the full Lars von Trier victim package, complete with bloody beatings, sexual assaults, and ugly full-frontal nude scenes." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 24, 2002 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 82%
| Chi-hwa-seon (2002) | "
An undeniably robust and sporadically entertaining film." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 23, 2002 |
Rotten D+
| Rotten 41%
| The Four Feathers (2002) | "
Kapur gives us lush desert images that are meant to disguise the film’s imaginary political objective--a way of blowing sand in our eyes as literally as possible." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 23, 2002 |
Rotten C-
| Rotten 48%
| City by the Sea (2002) | "
A standard police-oriented drama that, were it not for De Niro’s participation, would have likely wound up a TNT Original." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 17, 2002 |
Rotten C
| Rotten 38%
| 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002) | "
One half is a characteristic sex farce, the other a surprisingly genuine and amiable romance." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 17, 2002 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 77%
| Changing Lanes (2002) | "
There’s something to be said for a studio-produced film that never bothers to hand viewers a suitcase full of easy answers." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 17, 2002 |
Fresh B
| Rotten 42%
| Death to Smoochy (2002) | "
Its cruel pointlessness zaps Williams back into the fearless encroachment his best work has contained." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 17, 2002 |
Rotten C-
| Fresh 77%
| Panic Room (2002) | "
Has all the charm of a filmed industrial presentation on recent technological advancements." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 17, 2002 |
Rotten D
| Rotten 51%
| S1m0ne (2002) | "
Simone is about a person who doesn’t exist, and by the time it ends you wonder if there’s even as much substance in the person who made it." — Matinee Magazine Posted Sep 3, 2002 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 90%
| Master of the Flying Guillotine (1975) | "
It’s raw and it’s dusty, just as a good martial arts movie should be." — Matinee Magazine Posted May 29, 2002 |
Rotten F
| Fresh 81%
| Ocean's Eleven (2001) | "
A landfill of toxic star personas and auteur laziness." — Matinee Magazine Posted May 20, 2002 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 93%
| About a Boy (2002) | "
Like its lead character, About a Boy exists in a stale vacuum of time-killing routine." — Matinee Magazine Posted May 20, 2002 |
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