Rotten 3/6
| Fresh 64%
| Stop-Loss (2008) | "
It’s the film equivalent of a weary shrug – capturing the national mood at a moment when we’d all prefer some mood enhancers." — Time Out Posted Apr 25, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Tideland (2006) | "
Gilliam’s brash disregard for conventional narrative rhythms and structures is one of the many thrills of his best work, but here his freewheeling navigations veer so far off-road that the passenger is left exhausted and bewildered." — Time Out Posted Sep 23, 2006 |
Rotten
| Fresh 83%
| Akeelah and the Bee (2006) | "
Its clichés seem bigger and its characterisations broader than they would on the more forgiving telly." — Time Out Posted Aug 17, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 22%
| Alien vs. Predator (2004) | "
The title alone betrays an entire Hollywood mindset of rehash, reheat, recombine. Re-please." — Time Out Posted Jun 24, 2006 |
Rotten
| Fresh 86%
| Thank You For Smoking (2006) | "
Aiming at all targets and hitting none of them, the movie is as harmless and inconsequential as a candy cigarette." — Time Out Posted Jun 24, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 7%
| Surviving Christmas (2004) | "
The moral is that money can indeed buy happiness." — Time Out Posted Jun 24, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 26%
| Free Zone (2006) | "
Per usual, Gitai largely eschews exposition, but his reticence sits awkwardly beside his penchant for saddling his deliberately stereotyped figures with trite, unwieldy speeches and symbolic-ironic biographical data." — Village Voice Posted Apr 4, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 15%
| Stoned (2006) | "
The rock hero starts out dead and so does the movie." — Village Voice Posted Mar 21, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 41%
| Winter Passing (2006) | "
The film is so grindingly predictable that I was writing out a full plot synopsis in my notebook before it was half over, though the thick grains of Terry Stacey's photography and Deschanel's understated performance add a little kick." — Village Voice Posted Feb 14, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 0%
| Merci Docteur Rey! (2002) | "
A limp, smirky lark." — Time Out Posted Feb 9, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 48%
| S.W.A.T. (2003) | "
he high definition SWAT training footage resembles a US Army recruitment ad, appropriate since TV journeyman Johnson imagines downtown LA as an unpatrolled Baghdad, swarming with guntotin' mercenaries pursuing their share of the bounty." — Time Out Posted Feb 9, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 6%
| Gigli (2003) | "
Mitigating factors: a carefully curated sampling of J-Lo butt cleavage, and an arrhythmic Christopher Walken cameo which momentarily diverts the doomed ship from collision with the iceberg." — Time Out Posted Feb 9, 2006 |
Rotten
| Rotten 43%
| Casanova (2005) | "
The clumsy staging might not grate so much if the tone weren't so self-congratulatory." — Village Voice Posted Dec 21, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 42%
| Bee Season (2005) | "
Its hieroglyphics are vividly rendered, but Bee Season never manages to spell them out." — Village Voice Posted Nov 8, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 61%
| Shopgirl (2005) | "
A wan, world-weary representation of anomie, loneliness, and low expectations, dressed up in the ill-fitting designer duds of the studio rom-com." — Village Voice Posted Oct 18, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 69%
| North Country (2005) | "
Given the battle's enormous toll on the women's physical and psychological health, it's a perplexing irony that the movie 'inspired by' the case suffers such a bizarre failure of nerve." — Village Voice Posted Oct 18, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| Domino (2005) | "
Abusively moronic enough to inspire something like pity." — Village Voice Posted Oct 11, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 37%
| Dear Wendy (2005) | "
Especially in the climactic, clumsily staged gunfight, the prevailing mode is wide-eyed idiocy -- which might be the point." — Village Voice Posted Sep 20, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 62%
| Lord of War (2005) | "
As slick, flashy public-service announcements go, Lord of War is no Constant Gardener." — Village Voice Posted Sep 13, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 85%
| The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) | "
[Continues the trend] whereby ethnic inclusiveness can write a blank check for ethnic stereotyping and the homo-panic jokes are supposed to be on the hetero lunkheads, not on, y'know, the gays." — Village Voice Posted Aug 16, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 36%
| Asylum (2005) | "
Mackenzie and Marber opt for an anonymous viewpoint of clinical detachment, which generates about the same psychodramatic tension as reading the DSM-IV." — Village Voice Posted Aug 9, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| The Skeleton Key (2005) | "
Creaky in its mechanics and numbingly protracted, this is basement B horror that fancies itself a prestige chiller." — Village Voice Posted Aug 9, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 68%
| The Edukators (2005) | "
Shot on shoddy, harsh-lit DV, The Edukators casts Hardenberg as the avuncular voice of reason, his fat-cat complacency the destination point of a rational adulthood." — Village Voice Posted Jul 19, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Ma Mere (2005) | "
Lurching toward its inevitable incestuous showdown, Ma Mère makes a few hilarious attempts at the cerebral." — Village Voice Posted May 10, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 16%
| Monster-in-Law (2005) | "
Essentially Meet the Parents redux with Fonda in the scarifying De Niro role." — Village Voice Posted May 10, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Writer of O (2005) | "
Disappoints in its workmanlike approach to such fragrant material." — Village Voice Posted May 3, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 60%
| Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) | "
Studiously harmless, Disney's long-in-development film rendition pasteurizes the book's renegade verve with typical means: special effects and gooey romance." — Village Voice Posted Apr 26, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| Sahara (2005) | "
Sahara is many things, but it is not a movie. It is the skull-splitting cacophony of 21 producers and four screenwriters (that we know about, anyway) standing in the same room shouting into their cell phones." — Village Voice Posted Apr 12, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 62%
| Lipstick & Dynamite: The First Ladies of Wrestling (2004) | "
Director Ruth Leitman's interviews are lax and inconclusive." — Village Voice Posted Mar 22, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 46%
| The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) | "
[Lewis'] turn as lifestyle extremist Jack carries an authentic scent of tobacco and peat while much of the movie smells of the lamp." — Village Voice Posted Mar 22, 2005 |
Rotten
| N/A | The Venetian Dilemma (2005) | "
Bobs and lists between four main interviewees but barely skims the surface of the vast sociocultural, historical, and scientific issues it raises." — Village Voice Posted Mar 15, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 23%
| In My Country (2005) | "
Boorman's bathetic tourism is unconscionable for a subject of this magnitude." — Village Voice Posted Mar 8, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 35%
| Hostage (2005) | "
A steaming pile of siege clichés and screaming unlikelihoods." — Village Voice Posted Mar 7, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| The Upside of Anger (2005) | "
The film has exhausted itself with fits of glib hysteria long before its truly stupefying final twist, a stunning betrayal of audience trust." — Village Voice Posted Mar 7, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 80%
| Dear Frankie (2005) | "
The pat emotions contradict the lazily inconclusive life-goes-on ending, and the moral seems to be that kids just want to be lied to." — Village Voice Posted Mar 3, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 49%
| Rory O'Shea Was Here (2005) | "
A plea for equality of opportunity, a worthy objective somewhat obscured by non-disabled actors occupying the lead roles." — Village Voice Posted Feb 1, 2005 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| Hide and Seek (2005) | "
Follows no semblance of internal logic." — Village Voice Posted Feb 1, 2005 |
Rotten
| Fresh 71%
| William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (2004) | "
Even notwithstanding this version's inert blocking and awkward camera placements, The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's more crooked and hollow contraptions in any guise." — Village Voice Posted Dec 28, 2004 |
Rotten
| Fresh 77%
| A Very Long Engagement (2004) | "
Narrative thrust has never been the director's strong suit, and the movie gridlocks amid its crowds of characters, backstories, detours, and twists; the squealing gears of heavy plot machinery eventually drown out much else." — Village Voice Posted Nov 23, 2004 |
Rotten
| Rotten 26%
| Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) | "
All this unaccountable admiration is bestowed upon the ne plus ultra of the regressive rom-com heroine, a thirtysomething who displays the rudimentary motor functions, raging id, and darling pucker of a cuddly infant." — Village Voice Posted Nov 9, 2004 |
Rotten
| Rotten 49%
| Alfie (2004) | "
Charles Shyer (who processed the Parent Trap and Father of the Bride updates) plays coy with most matters sexual—an odd and puritanical approach to a character who molds his entire existence around the procurement and enjoyment of sex." — Village Voice Posted Nov 9, 2004 |
Rotten
| Fresh 97%
| The Incredibles (2004) | "
The Incredibles announces the studio's arrival in the vast yet overcrowded Hollywood lot of eardrum-bashing, metal-crunching action sludge." — Village Voice Posted Nov 2, 2004 |
Rotten
| Rotten 39%
| The Grudge (2004) | "
The soundtrack's Dolby thumps and screaming violins head off any genuine scares." — Village Voice Posted Oct 19, 2004 |
Rotten
| Rotten 7%
| Surviving Christmas (2004) | "
This ghastly comedy emits the subliminal whine of a sucking chest wound." — Village Voice Posted Oct 19, 2004 |
Rotten
| Fresh 65%
| Stage Beauty (2004) | "
Surely it can't come as news to the filmmakers that a distinction exists between gender and sexuality?" — Village Voice Posted Oct 6, 2004 |
Rotten
| Rotten 11%
| Taxi (2004) | "
Throughout this Americanization of the Luc Besson–scripted French hit, Latifah itches to check her watch, Fallon appears mortified, and only Ann-Margret mainlines any comic adrenaline." — Village Voice Posted Oct 6, 2004 |
Rotten
| Fresh 83%
| The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) | "
Lovely to look at but insipid, a lavishly illustrated Rough Guide to white liberal self-affirmation." — Village Voice Posted Sep 21, 2004 |
Rotten
| Fresh 60%
| Wimbledon (2004) | "
The appealing leads have strong chemistry, but it's the wrong kind: an affectionate big-brother / little-sister rapport that leaves a discomfiting taint on their more amorous clinches." — Village Voice Posted Sep 14, 2004 |
Rotten
| Rotten 23%
| Wicker Park (2004) | "
Dippy romantic thriller." — Village Voice Posted Aug 31, 2004 |
Rotten
| Rotten 52%
| The Notebook (2004) | "
The minutes of Allie and Noah's magical hysteria tour are duly recorded in the titular ledger-cum– framing device." — Village Voice Posted Jun 22, 2004 |
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