Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 83%
| Videocracy (2010) | "
A stylized, scattershot inquiry into Italy's TV-dominated culture, Videocracy is a portrait of 21st-century media fascism." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 9, 2010 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 67%
| District 13: Ultimatum (2010) | "
The fight-the-power scenario operates as a rebel fantasy of empowered French multicultural youth, yet it's one that never rises above cartoonishness." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 1, 2010 |
Rotten 0/4
| Rotten 17%
| When in Rome (2010) | "
A romantic comedy of such staggering ineptness that it actually makes one wish the filmmaker would redirect his attention back to the superhero genre he sullied." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 28, 2010 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 41%
| 44 Inch Chest (2010) | "
This limp psychodrama proves woefully short on character development or narrative structure." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 25, 2010 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 11%
| Saint John of Las Vegas (2009) | "
A tone-deaf odyssey of personal discovery striving to echo Dante's Inferno." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 25, 2010 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 18%
| Legion (2010) | "
Legion has the good sense to mimic a classic but otherwise makes no sense at all." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 22, 2010 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 44%
| Creation (2010) | "
Jon Amiel's portrait of Darwin's efforts to accept and acclimate to a new reality is mucked up by all manner of directorial flim-flam." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 20, 2010 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 45%
| The Book of Eli (2010) | "
Eli is nothing less than a prophet-superman on a divine mission, and while he naturally saves the word of God and, thus, humanity at large, he's powerless to salvage the film from its derivativeness." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 14, 2010 |
Rotten 0/4
| Rotten 8%
| The Spy Next Door (2010) | "
Following in Mr. Nanny and The Pacifier's turgid footsteps, Brian Levant's film mushifies Chan into a comedic parody of his rock-'em-sock-'em big-screen persona." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 13, 2010 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 38%
| Wonderful World (2010) | "
Ben is such a stock type, and his circumstances are so doggedly implausible, that his ultimate transformation and happily-ever-after are a preordained conclusion that one must dutifully await while enduring squishy dramedy." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 5, 2010 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 66%
| Daybreakers (2010) | "
The Spierigs' latest doesn't do much to carve out a unique identity." — Slant Magazine Posted Jan 5, 2010 |
Rotten
| Fresh 81%
| The Chaser (2008) | "
The pessimism of Na's slick debut rings false." — Village Voice Posted Dec 30, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 68%
| Sherlock Holmes (2009) | "
Whiplash quick and twice as exciting." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 22, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 66%
| The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) | "
Unsuccessfully attempts to fashion an actual story out of slapdash, seemingly improvised sequences awash in uneven CG effects." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 22, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 58%
| It's Complicated (2009) | "
In Meyers’s milquetoast hands, the way the scenario plays out isn’t so much tricky as treacly, with sporadic bursts of sitcom goofiness." — Time Out New York Posted Dec 16, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 93%
| Crazy Heart (2009) | "
This is simply a showcase for Jeff Bridges, and a reasonably decent one at that even when the script thrusts Bad down tediously hackneyed roads." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 15, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 82%
| Avatar (2009) | "
With Avatar, a cinematic revolution doesn't begin so much as proceed into its next phase." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 14, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 95%
| Revanche (2009) | "
An unbearably taut, slow-simmering noir transposed to the vast countryside and its patient, drawn-out rhythms." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 14, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 83%
| A Single Man (2009) | "
Requires more than incessant slow-motion and escalating orchestral music to pass as serious drama." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 14, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 11%
| Hannah Free (2009) | "
Gray-haired Gless grouches with embarrassing abandon while chatting with the young ghost of her soulmate and befriending a mysterious girl (Jackson)." — Time Out New York Posted Dec 9, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 87%
| The Sun (2005) | "
Finds beauty, madness and outright bizarreness in the sight of a lost, slightly freakish man attempting to understand his altering reality." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 7, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 77%
| Invictus (2009) | "
Clint Eastwood's films are often termed "classical," a term that, with regard to Invictus, also suggests something close to stale." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 6, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 33%
| The Slammin' Salmon (2009) | "
The film isn't any uglier than its antecedents, but it is more lethargic." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 6, 2009 |
Rotten D
| Rotten 48%
| Everybody's Fine (2009) | "
Begins as merely intolerable and ends up borderline-reprehensible." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| N/A | Lake Tahoe (2008) | "
Eimbcke's Jarmusch-ian comedy is laced with something stronger." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Fresh B-
| Fresh 69%
| Loren Cass (2009) | "
An oppressive sense of brutality, loneliness and ennui remains visceral." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 90%
| Up in the Air (2009) | "
Pleasant enough in the moment but maintains considerable distance from actually plumbing the raw emotions of its central subject." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 70%
| The Last Station (2009) | "
Michael Hoffman’s biopic of Leo Tolstoy’s final year filters its historical drama through a turgid coming-of-age experience." — Time Out New York Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 46%
| Until the Light Takes Us (2009) | "
It not only crucially fails to address the cultural forces that might have spawned the country's prime musical export but it also neglects to include more than cursory snippets of the tunes themselves." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 30, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 85%
| The Princess and the Frog (2009) | "
It's the socio-cultural suggestions of this storytelling choice that's ultimately most troublesome." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 23%
| Planet 51 (2009) | "
It’s just an excuse for classic-cinema shout-outs and roller-coaster-like commotion." — Time Out New York Posted Nov 25, 2009 |
Rotten .5/4
| Rotten 6%
| Old Dogs (2009) | "
So wretched that it should be unceremoniously put down." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 24, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 76%
| The Road (2009) | "
A cinematic adaptation at once faithful and superior to its source material." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh B
| Fresh 85%
| Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) | "
May not result in a coherent whole but nonetheless delivers bursts of random, inspired madness." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 16, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 25%
| Staten Island (2009) | "
Staten Island has the stench of meat left on the counter for too long." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 15, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 89%
| Red Cliff (2009) | "
The film's shortcomings have less to do with Woo's orchestration of his ambitious tale and more to do with the Frankenstein hatchet job enacted against it." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 15, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 57%
| Fix (2008) | "
Ruspoli's scenic cross-section L.A. travelogue conveys a strong sense of milieu even as his wannabe-Strung aesthetics reveal the project's underlying style-over-substance concerns." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 15, 2009 |
Rotten D
| Rotten 39%
| 2012 (2009) | "
The defining entrant in, and the nadir of, the disaster porn genre." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 87%
| A Serious Man (2009) | "
Isn't drawn in one-to-one cause-effect lines, its obliqueness lending suspense and interpretative depth to the Job-like suffering of Larry." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 86%
| The White Ribbon (2009) | "
Another of the Funny Games auteur's unpersuasively rigid portraits of man's venality." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 93%
| Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) | "
Anderson prizes the funny over the profound to an extent that keeps the proceedings a tad too light and jovial to register as anything more than a lightweight aside to his more acute, earnest work." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 9, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 82%
| Paranormal Activity (2009) | "
The same old thing dressed up in very slightly different clothes." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 9, 2009 |
Fresh B+
| Fresh 91%
| The Messenger (2009) | "
Moverman's scripting is subdued and emotionally authentic." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 9, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 60%
| Pirate Radio (2009) | "
Writer-director Richard Curtis is about as rock n' roll as the average great-grandmother, so it's no surprise that Pirate Radio, his ode to the irrepressible spirit of '60s classic rock, has all the electricity of a knitted sweater." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 8, 2009 |
Rotten C+
| Fresh 88%
| Adventureland (2009) | "
Content to occupy that middle ground where insights are authentic but far from revelatory and comedy is more amiable than riotous." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 44%
| The Box (2009) | "
Though his narrative's morality-play suspense and Bernard Herrmann-esque score recall Hitchcock, Kelly seems to have selected the '70s so that he can fully channel early-years Steven Spielberg." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 55%
| Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) | "
A clear step in the right direction for Zemeckis and his pet techno-project, the film nonetheless ultimately sabotages itself by prizing the hectic over the heartfelt." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 3, 2009 |
Rotten .5/4
| Rotten 27%
| Splinterheads (2009) | "
Despite positioning itself as a Napoleon Dynamite-style comedy about a spazzy social retard, Splinterheads seems to have misplaced most of its jokes." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 1, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 81%
| Collapse (2009) | "
Smith's subject Michael Ruppert never registers as much more than an eloquent but largely untrustworthy quack." — Slant Magazine Posted Nov 1, 2009 |
Rotten C
| Fresh 95%
| An Education (2009) | "
A teen-targeted public service announcement." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Oct 28, 2009 |
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