|
|
67%
|
Wild Grass (Les Herbes Folles) (2010) |
"
The 87-year-old filmmaker's latest is an insufferable exercise in cutie-pie modernism, painfully unfunny and precious to a fault."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jun 22, 2010
|
|
|
55%
|
The Killer Inside Me (2010) |
"
The poster is stronger than any image in the movie."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jun 15, 2010
|
|
|
91%
|
Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work (2010) |
"
For all the frenzied activity, Joan Rivers is less informative dish than infomercializing cliché."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jun 8, 2010
|
|
|
51%
|
Alice in Wonderland (2010) |
"
The new Alice is casually absurd, off-handed in its violence, and doggedly on message. The movie is not just three-dimensional but blatantly programmatic."
—
Village Voice
Posted Mar 2, 2010
|
|
|
83%
|
Avatar (2009) |
"
The muscular, coming-atcha visuals trump the movie's camp dialogue and corny conception, but only up to a point."
—
Village Voice
Posted Dec 15, 2009
|
|
|
32%
|
The Lovely Bones (2009) |
"
Part Disney's Alice in Wonderland, part Fritz Lang's M, the movie is horrific yet cloying, alternately distended and abrupt, sometimes poignant and often ridiculous."
—
Village Voice
Posted Dec 8, 2009
|
|
|
91%
|
Up in the Air (2009) |
"
Like Juno, Up in the Air conjures a troubling reality and then wishes it away."
—
Village Voice
Posted Dec 2, 2009
|
|
|
75%
|
The Road (2009) |
"
Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning, Oprah-endorsed, post-apocalyptic survivalist prose poem... was a quick, lacerating read. John Hillcoat's literal adaptation is, by contrast, a long, dull slog."
—
Village Voice
Posted Nov 25, 2009
|
|
|
52%
|
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) |
"
What's mildly exasperating is that there is an actual quest involved: The Men Who Stare at Goats goes out to the desert in search of its tone-and never finds it."
—
Village Voice
Posted Nov 3, 2009
|
|
|
73%
|
Where the Wild Things Are (2009) |
"
Wild Things isn't overlong, but it is underwhelming."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 14, 2009
|
|
|
77%
|
Bronson (2009) |
"
The kernel of an idea -- brutish antihero as irrepressible life force -- is trampled into dust by the showy Sturm und Drang of Refn's filmmaking."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 6, 2009
|
|
|
50%
|
Whatever Works (2009) |
"
Whatever Works illustrates, even as it names, Allen's artistic limitations."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jun 16, 2009
|
|
|
89%
|
Moon (2009) |
"
Impressively pulled together on a modest budget, Moon has a strong lead and a valid philosophical premise but, despite Bell's fissured psyche, the drama is inert. Ground control to Major Tom: Moon orbits an idea, but it doesn't go anywhere."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jun 10, 2009
|
|
|
48%
|
Antichrist (2009) |
"
Antichrist, which, above all, wants to make pain visceral, is less successful at projecting authentic experience -- the shock tactics are ultimately numbing."
—
Village Voice
Posted May 27, 2009
|
|
|
13%
|
The Informers (2009) |
"
There's plenty of incident, but not much plot. As befits a tale of absolute self-absorption and unconscious revelation, The Informers often seems to be telling on itself."
—
Village Voice
Posted Apr 22, 2009
|
|
|
50%
|
The Feature (2008) |
"
Auder's life is more interesting than his art."
—
Village Voice
Posted Mar 17, 2009
|
|
|
65%
|
Watchmen (2009) |
"
Its failure is one of imagination -- although faithfully approximating Dave Gibbons's original drawings, the filmmakers are unable to teleport themselves to the level of the original concept."
—
Village Voice
Posted Mar 3, 2009
|
|
|
82%
|
Two Lovers (2008) |
"
The performers are attractive if unconvincing. The auteur's worldview is unappealing yet authentically his."
—
Village Voice
Posted Feb 10, 2009
|
|
|
32%
|
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) |
"
So embarrassing that, for the first time, I wanted to avert my eyes from the screen, although that might have also been because Repo! appears to have been shot with a cell phone."
—
Village Voice
Posted Nov 5, 2008
|
|
|
62%
|
Changeling (2008) |
"
Image trumps performance."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 22, 2008
|
|
|
70%
|
Religulous (2008) |
"
Religulous doesn't really go anywhere. It's ultimately a celebration of the old-time religion we call entertainment."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 3, 2008
|
|
|
54%
|
Battle in Seattle (2008) |
"
Townsend smothers any sense of global immediacy by covering the action with a frayed patchwork of melodramatic coincidences,"
—
Village Voice
Posted Sep 17, 2008
|
|
|
62%
|
Hamlet 2 (2008) |
"
Coogan will do anything for a laugh, and given how little he has to work with, he must."
—
Village Voice
Posted Aug 19, 2008
|
|
|
38%
|
Speed Racer (2008) |
"
Ideologically anti-corporate, previous Wachowski productions aspired to be something more than mind-less sensation; Speed Racer is thrilled to be less. It's the delusions minus the grandeur."
—
Village Voice
Posted May 7, 2008
|
|
|
54%
|
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) |
"
Unfortunately, nothing in Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo is funnier than its title."
—
Village Voice
Posted Apr 23, 2008
|
|
|
79%
|
Standard Operating Procedure (2008) |
"
Since The Thin Blue Line's remarkable intervention, Morris's work has grown more public and more problematic -- lofty yet snide, a form of know-it-all epistemological inquiry."
—
Village Voice
Posted Apr 23, 2008
|
|
|
30%
|
Boarding Gate (2008) |
"
There's basically only one reason to see Olivier Assayas's self-consciously hypermodern, meta-sleazy, English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller Boarding Gate, and her name is Asia Argento."
—
Village Voice
Posted Mar 18, 2008
|
|
|
51%
|
Funny Games (2008) |
"
Without ever acknowledging his own sadism, Haneke self-righteously lays his aesthetic and moral cards on the table."
—
Village Voice
Posted Mar 11, 2008
|
|
|
80%
|
Chicago 10 (2008) |
"
However authentically chaotic, Chicago 10 is insufficiently frenzied. For all its shock value, the trial was not the only game in town."
—
Village Voice
Posted Feb 27, 2008
|
|
|
37%
|
Rambo (Rambo IV) (2008) |
"
As the current obsession with Reagan suggests, it's back to fantasyland!"
—
Village Voice
Posted Jan 29, 2008
|
|
|
52%
|
The Walker (2007) |
"
This is a serious movie and, gliding around the center of power, a stylish one. But, like its protagonist, The Walker is unable to close the deal."
—
Village Voice
Posted Dec 4, 2007
|
|
|
79%
|
Jimmy Carter Man From Plains (2007) |
"
A book tour isn't even a political campaign, and traveling with Jimmy Carter isn't exactly going backstage with the Rolling Stones."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 23, 2007
|
|
|
13%
|
September Dawn (2007) |
"
September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials."
—
Village Voice
Posted Aug 21, 2007
|
|
|
79%
|
A Mighty Heart (2007) |
"
There's hardly a moment when Jolie is on-screen that you can't sense the presence of make-up artists and hair stylists hovering anxiously just off frame."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jun 20, 2007
|
|
|
70%
|
Ocean's Thirteen (2007) |
"
A spectacle blatantly predicated on a smug gaggle of mega movie stars in boss threads ostentatiously having fun by pretending to steal the house's money, while actually taking yours."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jun 6, 2007
|
|
|
40%
|
The Wendell Baker Story (2005) |
"
Low-key to comatose, Wendell Baker might have been improved were it shot in 16mm black and white."
—
Village Voice
Posted May 15, 2007
|
|
|
45%
|
Fay Grim (2007) |
"
With all manner of backstories and flashbacks jamming the road, the Posey-mobile starts to swerve and sputter and finally blows a tire."
—
Village Voice
Posted May 15, 2007
|
|
|
65%
|
Jindabyne (2006) |
"
A soberly, if sluggishly, crafted movie in which the bitterness never stops."
—
Village Voice
Posted Apr 24, 2007
|
|
|
93%
|
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) (2006) |
"
The Lives of Others is a compelling thriller but an unsatisfying character drama."
—
Village Voice
Posted Feb 6, 2007
|
|
|
88%
|
Shockproof (1949) |
"
A cheap 79-minute time-waster that's all business ..."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jan 25, 2007
|
|
|
69%
|
Alone with Her (2007) |
"
As the voyeur manages to enter the Amy Show, Nicholas uses this ontological shift as the basis for a 'real' movie of his own, effectively liquidating the original premise."
—
Village Voice
Posted Jan 9, 2007
|
|
|
——
|
Something Wild (1962) |
"
The movie's uneasy blend of symbolism and naturalism might have worked better onstage."
—
Village Voice
Posted Dec 29, 2006
|
|
|
33%
|
The Good German (2007) |
"
The Good German is seriously deficient in the stars' star power and narrative excitement. The movie is lovingly framed, carefully lit, and fatally insipid."
—
Village Voice
Posted Dec 12, 2006
|
|
|
65%
|
Apocalypto (2006) |
"
Apocalypto is unburdened by nationalist or religious piety -- it's pure, amoral sensationalism."
—
Village Voice
Posted Dec 5, 2006
|
|
|
51%
|
The Fountain (2006) |
"
The premise is lachrymose, the sets are clammy, and the metaphysics all wet. The screen is awash in spiraling nebulae and misty points of light, with the soundtrack supplying appropriately moist oohs and aahs."
—
Village Voice
Posted Nov 21, 2006
|
|
|
31%
|
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) |
"
You won't learn much about Arbus, aside from the correct pronunciation of her first name; you will get to see Kidman try (and fail) to find her inner freak."
—
Village Voice
Posted Nov 7, 2006
|
|
|
36%
|
Death of a President (2006) |
"
There's a far more subversive political mock-umentary coming next week. I invite President Bush, Senator Clinton, and all politicians to get down with Borat."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 24, 2006
|
|
|
29%
|
Tideland (2006) |
"
Gilliam has suffered more than his share of butchered projects, but with this exercise in kamikaze auteurism, he appears to have made exactly the mess he wanted."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 10, 2006
|
|
|
93%
|
The Departed (2006) |
"
Neither a debacle nor a bore, The Departed works but only up to a point, and never emotionally."
—
Village Voice
Posted Oct 3, 2006
|
|
|
32%
|
The Black Dahlia (2006) |
"
There are moments when The Black Dahlia projects a spectral world, but its ghosts in broad daylight are elusive at best."
—
Village Voice
Posted Sep 15, 2006
|
67%
——
98%
