|
|
93%
|
The Kids Are All Right (2010) |
"
There are not only glancing moments but whole sequences in this movie when the agony of social embarrassment makes you want to haul the characters to their feet and slap them in the chops."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jul 5, 2010
|
|
|
43%
|
Robin Hood (2010) |
"
"And so the legend begins," the new movie tells us at the end. But it's too late."
—
New Yorker
Posted May 17, 2010
|
|
|
83%
|
Anton Chekhov's The Duel (2010) |
"
Little happens onscreen. The characters bicker, picnic, bathe, and borrow money: the usual small change of the Chekhovian deal."
—
New Yorker
Posted May 3, 2010
|
|
|
96%
|
Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010) |
"
Exit Through the Gift Shop feels dangerously close to the promotion of a cult -- almost, dare one say it, of a brand."
—
New Yorker
Posted Apr 19, 2010
|
|
|
76%
|
Kick-Ass (2010) |
"
When filmmakers nudge a child into viewing savagery as slapstick, are we not allowing them to do what we condemn in the pornographer -- that is, to coarsen and inflame?"
—
New Yorker
Posted Apr 19, 2010
|
|
|
28%
|
Clash of the Titans (2010) |
"
On July 10th, it will be released on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and only then, I feel, will it truly come into its own."
—
New Yorker
Posted Apr 5, 2010
|
|
|
50%
|
Chloe (2010) |
"
What seemed like standard practice for Parisians comes across here as unsmiling porno-farce."
—
New Yorker
Posted Mar 22, 2010
|
|
|
85%
|
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) |
"
Noomi Rapace throws herself into the title role, but something about the conception of her character, and about the far-reaching urgency of the sociopathic shocks behind the killing, smacks of a filmmaker pushing too hard."
—
New Yorker
Posted Mar 22, 2010
|
|
|
53%
|
Green Zone (2010) |
"
Green Zone approaches every human activity as if preparing to defibrillate."
—
New Yorker
Posted Mar 8, 2010
|
|
|
46%
|
Creation (2010) |
"
As a journey through Darwin's discoveries, Creation fails, although, given the intricacy and the patience of his working methods, it is hard to imagine how such a film might succeed."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jan 19, 2010
|
|
|
63%
|
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) |
"
[Gilliam] can follow any train of thought, so he does, and it's no surprise when the trains run out of steam."
—
New Yorker
Posted Dec 14, 2009
|
|
|
37%
|
Nine (2009) |
"
You long for the ghost of Lorenz Hart to be unleashed on the whole affair, with a hard blue pencil and a head full of rhymes."
—
New Yorker
Posted Dec 14, 2009
|
|
|
39%
|
2012 (2009) |
"
2012 is so long, and its special effects are at once so outrageous and so thunderously predictable, that by the time I lurched from the theatre I felt that three years had actually passed and that the apocalypse was due any second."
—
New Yorker
Posted Nov 16, 2009
|
|
|
81%
|
Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) (Broken Hugs) (2009) |
"
Seems a touch too long, too airless, and too content with its own contrivances to stir the heart."
—
New Yorker
Posted Nov 16, 2009
|
|
|
52%
|
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) |
"
Clooney gives it everything, but what does he get in return? A void where the story is meant to be."
—
New Yorker
Posted Nov 2, 2009
|
|
|
57%
|
The Invention of Lying (2009) |
"
The last third of the movie is as bad as anything I've seen this year, with the laughs trailing off, and half of the supporting characters, the zestier ones, being airbrushed from the frame."
—
New Yorker
Posted Oct 5, 2009
|
|
|
63%
|
Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel) (2009) |
"
I missed the desperation that goaded the real Coco-not just the sulks that pass like rain showers across Tautou's prettiness but that brisk contempt for existing conditions which led Chanel, like any French revolutionary, to overturn them."
—
New Yorker
Posted Sep 21, 2009
|
|
|
49%
|
Taking Woodstock (2009) |
"
You can't deny the smiling mood that wafts through the film like incense, and to that extent it honors the original three days; but not once does a character's show of feeling stir you, send you, or stop you in your tracks, and the loss is unsustainable."
—
New Yorker
Posted Aug 24, 2009
|
|
|
94%
|
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008) |
"
Although Not Quite Hollywood was clearly put together with fanatical love, the suspicion remains, as often with genre cinema, that these trash-rich movies are a lot more fun to hear about, and to watch in snatches, than to sit through."
—
New Yorker
Posted Aug 3, 2009
|
|
|
84%
|
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) |
"
All in all, despite the verve that drives the grander set pieces, it's hard to avoid the sensation of a film toiling overtime to convince itself of its own solemnity."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jul 20, 2009
|
|
|
94%
|
In the Loop (2009) |
"
By the end of the film, you just want to get away from these people."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jul 20, 2009
|
|
|
67%
|
Brüno (Bruno) (2009) |
"
Wholly unsuitable for children, yet propelled by a nagging puerility that will appeal only to those in the vortex of puberty, or to adults who have failed to progress beyond it."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jul 13, 2009
|
|
|
51%
|
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) |
"
Can a director be arrested for the attempted hijack of our emotions?"
—
New Yorker
Posted Jun 15, 2009
|
|
|
33%
|
Terminator Salvation (2009) |
"
Terminator Salvation is a confused, humorless grind, with nobody, from the stars to the set designers, prepared to prick its self-importance."
—
New Yorker
Posted May 26, 2009
|
|
|
95%
|
Star Trek (2009) |
"
Quinto is the one person here who may leave teen-aged viewers more perplexed than puffed up; he somehow rebukes the movie's whole obsession with backstory and immaturity by seeming riper and wiser than the charmless folly that is spun around him."
—
New Yorker
Posted May 7, 2009
|
|
|
43%
|
The Limits of Control (2009) |
"
For all its cinematic references, [the movie] seems impatient with the need to tell a narrative at all, as if its secret wish were to be a photography exhibit, or an album of half-connected songs."
—
New Yorker
Posted Apr 27, 2009
|
|
|
72%
|
Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) |
"
As I took off my gray-lensed 3-D spectacles at the end of Monsters vs. Aliens, I felt not so much immersed as fuzzy with exhaustion."
—
New Yorker
Posted Mar 30, 2009
|
|
|
72%
|
The Great Buck Howard (2009) |
"
The cast is speckled with lively souls like Steve Zahn and Griffin Dunne, but the only person who wakes the movie from its slumbers is Emily Blunt."
—
New Yorker
Posted Mar 16, 2009
|
|
|
65%
|
Watchmen (2009) |
"
Incoherent, overblown, and grimy with misogyny, Watchmen marks the final demolition of the comic strip, and it leaves you wondering: where did the comedy go?"
—
New Yorker
Posted Mar 2, 2009
|
|
|
58%
|
Taken (2009) |
"
[Neeson's] performance is the most perturbing thing in the film, even more so than its electrical-torture sequence or its revelations about sex-trafficking."
—
New Yorker
Posted Feb 2, 2009
|
|
|
67%
|
Che: Part One (The Argentine) (2009) |
"
For all the movie's narrative momentum, Che retains the air of a study exercise -- of an interest brilliantly explored. How else to explain one's total flatness of feeling at the climax of each movie?"
—
New Yorker
Posted Jan 12, 2009
|
|
|
61%
|
Valkyrie (2008) |
"
The problem is not that we know the outcome. The problem is the buildup."
—
New Yorker
Posted Dec 29, 2008
|
|
|
78%
|
Doubt (2008) |
"
If only Doubt had been made in 1964, shot by Roger Corman over a long weekend, and retitled Spawn of the Devil Witch or Blood Wimple, all would have been forgiven."
—
New Yorker
Posted Dec 8, 2008
|
|
|
61%
|
The Reader (2008) |
"
The whole film, in fact, with its loping pace and plaintive score, feels like a woefully polite, not to say British, take on a foreign horror; was there really no one, from the fierce new wave of German filmmakers, prepared to dramatize the Schlink?"
—
New Yorker
Posted Dec 8, 2008
|
|
|
94%
|
Slumdog Millionaire (2008) |
"
There are no surprises in this movie, and most people will be able to predict, within the first ten minutes, roughly how the last ten will pan out."
—
New Yorker
Posted Nov 17, 2008
|
|
|
69%
|
Synecdoche, New York (2008) |
"
If you want to show a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, go right ahead, but give that hour all the life you can."
—
New Yorker
Posted Oct 27, 2008
|
|
|
59%
|
RocknRolla (2008) |
"
If RocknRolla clings to the company of ne'er-do-wells, it's not because they bristle with the frustrations of society, but purely because Ritchie wants to borrow their cheeky charm -- a virtue that, in reality, none of them possess."
—
New Yorker
Posted Oct 13, 2008
|
|
|
25%
|
Filth and Wisdom (2008) |
"
In technical terms, more professional productions than this are filmed and cut on iMovie, by ten-year-olds, a thousand times a day."
—
New Yorker
Posted Oct 13, 2008
|
|
|
51%
|
What Just Happened? (2008) |
"
Levinson has assembled a fine field of actors, no question, but the going is too easy for them underfoot; movies about movies are old ground."
—
New Yorker
Posted Oct 13, 2008
|
|
|
42%
|
Blindness (2008) |
"
Blindness feels at once honorably serious and way too pleased with its own soothsaying. You stagger from the dimness of the cinema, beaten down and longing for the light."
—
New Yorker
Posted Sep 29, 2008
|
|
|
46%
|
Lakeview Terrace (2008) |
"
It's a shame that the later stages of Lakeview Terrace should overheat and spill into silliness."
—
New Yorker
Posted Sep 15, 2008
|
|
|
13%
|
The Women (2008) |
"
The funniest thing about The Women is that Mick Jagger is one of the producers. There was a knowing laugh in the theatre as his name sprang up in the opening credits -- our last chance to laugh, as it turned out, for the next two hours."
—
New Yorker
Posted Sep 15, 2008
|
|
|
9%
|
Bangkok Dangerous (2008) |
"
Hollywood and the television industry have long since sucked what they require from the tropes and rhythms of Asian films, and parts of Bangkok Dangerous, far from seeming unfamiliar or freshly stylized, offer nothing that you couldn't catch on CSI."
—
New Yorker
Posted Sep 2, 2008
|
|
|
74%
|
La Fille Coupée en Deux (The Girl Cut in Two) (A Girl Cut in Two) (2008) |
"
Never more than semi-plausible."
—
New Yorker
Posted Aug 18, 2008
|
|
|
83%
|
Tropic Thunder (2008) |
"
After the dazzle of the early scenes, something droops and flags in Tropic Thunder."
—
New Yorker
Posted Aug 18, 2008
|
|
|
54%
|
Mamma Mia! (2008) |
"
The legal definition of torture has been much aired in recent years, and I take Mamma Mia! to be a useful contribution to that debate."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jul 21, 2008
|
|
|
18%
|
The Happening (2008) |
"
The Happening is an awful letdown, yet it leaves you with something new, as a gently waving tree -- that classical image of pastoral tranquillity -- mutates into a harbinger of doom."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jun 23, 2008
|
|
|
71%
|
Wanted (2008) |
"
What looks set to be a boyish, pop-eyed fantasy warps into a welter of bloodletting."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jun 23, 2008
|
|
|
50%
|
Sex and the City (2008) |
"
I walked into the theatre hoping for a nice evening and came out as a hard-line Marxist, my head a whirl of closets, delusions, and blunt-clawed cattiness. All the film lacks is a subtitle: The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe."
—
New Yorker
Posted Jun 2, 2008
|
|
|
38%
|
Speed Racer (2008) |
"
I reckon the M.P.A.A. should use the advent of Speed Racer to revive an old ratings symbol: a big Roman X, meaning 'of no conceivable interest to anyone over the age of ten.'"
—
New Yorker
Posted May 5, 2008
|
68%
——
98%
