|
|
82%
|
Live Free or Die Hard (2007) |
"
God must love summer movies, since He designed my nervous system so the frontal lobes could be left idle while the core delights in bursts of pulsing orange fireballs set against an otherwise gun-metal palette. But we must evolve!"
—
Nation
Posted Jul 21, 2007
|
|
|
63%
|
Spider-Man 3 (2007) |
"
Don't even expect coherence."
—
Nation
Posted May 19, 2007
|
|
|
33%
|
The Good German (2007) |
"
You may notice that Soderbergh, for all his intelligence, hasn't gotten beneath the surface of his stock figures, into the lived experience that might underlie them."
—
Nation
Posted Dec 30, 2006
|
|
|
72%
|
Inland Empire (2006) |
"
Though certain of his fans may stare mistakenly at his narrative threads, hoping for a pattern to emerge, wiser moviegoers know that Lynch just wants to pull the rug out from under them. Then he slips it back under their feet so he can pull it again."
—
Nation
Posted Dec 30, 2006
|
|
|
62%
|
Blood Diamond (2006) |
"
How do the stars of Blood Diamond make so many improbable escapes from hails of bullets? You'd think the movie ought to be called Near-Death Experience."
—
Nation
Posted Dec 30, 2006
|
|
|
25%
|
The Da Vinci Code (2006) |
"
They make fun of you for watching their movies, and still they get paid!"
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
76%
|
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005) |
"
It is spendthrift in budget yet cautious in style, steadfast in holding to Lewis's imagination yet timorous about using any of its own."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
72%
|
Syriana (2005) |
"
This is neither realism nor tragedy. It's cynicism, which exposes itself most nakedly in Damon's addresses to the Arab characters, and in Gaghan's own portrayal of them."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
54%
|
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) |
"
Two and a half hours of cinematic slog."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
73%
|
V for Vendetta (2006) |
"
Revenge is liberty. I can't recall hearing that particular idea from Tolstoy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama or the makers of Batman Begins. But as the Wachowski brothers would say, that's another paradigm."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
69%
|
Hollywoodland (2006) |
"
A well-meaning mediocrity."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
56%
|
The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) |
"
The film was directed by Mary Harron from a screenplay she wrote with Guinevere Turner. In the past, these two did substantial work. Now they play, so that audiences may have the double pleasure of enjoying their porn while feeling superior to it."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
80%
|
Why We Fight (2006) |
"
How does all this disparate material fit together? Uneasily."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
32%
|
The Black Dahlia (2006) |
"
The Black Dahlia turns out to be something of questionable structural integrity, pieced together from old movies."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
86%
|
Thank You For Smoking (2006) |
"
Thank You for Smoking scarcely seems able to recognize a character trait, let alone develop it."
—
Nation
Posted Nov 11, 2006
|
|
|
88%
|
American Beauty (1999) |
"
Complexity, say quite a few of my colleagues. Lies, I say."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
71%
|
Bringing Out the Dead (1999) |
"
It's another burnout role for Nicolas Cage, to which he brings his vast repertoire of grimaces and shuffles, as if he were variously impersonating a gargoyle on amphetamines and late Elvis on downers."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
96%
|
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) |
"
I began to wonder, as the waves crashed about: Is it still possible for a movie to get excited about people?"
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
83%
|
Narc (2002) |
"
For a picture that's billed as fresh and bracing, this is a pretty formulaic scheme, which Carnahan attempts to jolt into life through jittery direction."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
87%
|
The Quiet American (2003) |
"
By cutting Greene's novel down to its most basic action, the screenplay makes the situations look bare and silly--including the Vietnam War itself, which seems to have been merely the opium dream of an old, horny Brit."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
88%
|
Chicago (2002) |
"
Chicago has been brought to the screen by first-time movie director Rob Marshall, who has shot it like one of those commercials for Broadway musicals, the ones that run on the late news in New York City."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
93%
|
Shakespeare in Love (1998) |
"
Although Shakespeare in Love benefits from a delightful screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard -- and a flattering one, for viewers who can congratulate themselves on recognizing this or that tatter of the Bard -- the film's virtues peter out."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
39%
|
She's All That (1999) |
"
With She's All That, we see how true garbage may nevertheless teem with a life of its own."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
92%
|
Minority Report (2002) |
"
The movie's ponderousness is relieved only by Samantha Morton's uncanny portrayal of the psychic Agatha and by Lois Smith's turn as Dr. Hineman..."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
88%
|
Almost Famous (2000) |
"
It's a well-modulated, immensely likable picture that's finally too polite for both its subject matter and its critical theme."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
81%
|
Wonder Boys (2000) |
"
Wonder Boys has a delightfully malicious beginning, an increasingly muddled second act and a conclusion of such moral uplift that it probably should not be shown to the characters themselves."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
32%
|
When Will I Be Loved (2004) |
"
[Don't] mistake it for anything new."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
81%
|
The Bourne Supremacy (2004) |
"
Tries to top the original by offering two car chases; but they both chop space into blurry, discontinuous fragments...As with the car chases, so with The Bourne Supremacy."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 3, 2005
|
|
|
22%
|
8MM (1999) |
"
The horror. The horror."
—
Nation
Posted Jan 1, 2000
|
|
|
78%
|
Gladiator (2000) |
"
Like its hero, the film is solemnly pious; and though Christianity this time is noticeably missing from Hollywood's Rome, the sense of morality oppresses as never before."
—
Nation
Posted Jan 1, 2000
|
|
|
39%
|
Black and White (2002) |
"
Not content to throw together a collage of people and places, Toback added a plot, on the theme of guilt and betrayal."
—
Nation
Posted Jan 1, 2000
|
|
|
87%
|
The Matrix (1999) |
"
The Matrix is to overblown silliness as Mount Rushmore is to big stone heads."
—
Nation
Posted Jan 1, 2000
|
|
|
57%
|
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) |
"
Everything seems to have been doubled."
—
Nation
Posted Jan 1, 2000
|
|
|
77%
|
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) |
"
It's a hollowness not of technique but of conception."
—
Nation
Posted Jan 1, 2000
|
|
|
9%
|
Virus (1999) |
"
I'd even be tempted to call it old-fashioned, except for the existence of far more sophisticated films from the fifties."
—
Nation
Posted Jan 1, 2000
|
|
|
95%
|
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) |
"
For people who take their movies seriously, a quick course in Romanian might now be necessary -- and so is a trip to the theater to see 4 Months."
—
Nation
Posted Oct 18, 2008
|
|
|
80%
|
Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge (The Flight of the Red Balloon) (2007) |
"
As if playing a serenely refined game, Hou transforms constraint into freedom -- which feels more to the point than any plotbound interpretation."
—
Nation
Posted Oct 18, 2008
|
|
|
89%
|
Zodiac (2007) |
"
Zodiac is, as everyone says, an unusually complex and ambitious true-crime story, and (more important) a deeply engaging study of three obsessed men."
—
Nation
Posted Oct 18, 2007
|
|
|
96%
|
A fost sau n-a fost?, (12:08 East of Bucharest) (2007) |
"
You will laugh till the streetlights blink on again in the damp Romanian twilight."
—
Nation
Posted Oct 6, 2007
|
|
|
90%
|
Knocked Up (2007) |
"
I chuckled some; I smiled a lot."
—
Nation
Posted Sep 15, 2007
|
|
|
88%
|
3:10 to Yuma (2007) |
"
The studiousness, or maybe affectation, that has informed Mangold's visual style has now been applied to the reproduction of classic Western moviemaking."
—
Nation
Posted Sep 15, 2007
|
|
|
79%
|
The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun (2006) |
"
A sly, quiet documentary."
—
Nation
Posted Sep 1, 2007
|
|
|
90%
|
The Simpsons Movie (2007) |
"
Is The Simpsons Movie funny? ...Yes -- but not as funny as it is wide."
—
Nation
Posted Aug 18, 2007
|
|
|
94%
|
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) |
"
The Bourne Ultimatum gives you the satisfaction of seeing conventions fulfilled, then exceeded."
—
Nation
Posted Aug 18, 2007
|
|
|
83%
|
Paprika (2006) |
"
Paprika stays in your mind as pure freedom and pure exhilaration."
—
Nation
Posted Jul 17, 2007
|
|
|
80%
|
Czech Dream (Ceský sen) (2003) |
"
Some of this is hilarious, and some appalling."
—
Nation
Posted Jun 30, 2007
|
|
|
93%
|
Sicko (2007) |
"
What will you see in Sicko? Heartbroken, worried, angry, feisty, funny and valiant people. They're irrefutable."
—
Nation
Posted Jun 30, 2007
|
|
|
79%
|
A Mighty Heart (2007) |
"
About a search and not a discovery; about the value of an individual life and the reality of multitudes."
—
Nation
Posted Jun 30, 2007
|
|
|
95%
|
Offside (2006) |
"
You will probably have a ball with Offside, as you get to know the characters, marvel at their get-ups, share in their boisterous defiance and at last watch them join the celebration."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 31, 2007
|
|
|
97%
|
Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection (2007) |
"
Killer of Sheep is one of those rare films that's so substantial, you feel you could walk around it, test its weight, observe how firmly and forthrightly it meets the ground."
—
Nation
Posted Mar 31, 2007
|
67%
——
98%
