Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 20%
| Planet 51 (2009) | "
A hideously annoying and emotionally blank tale." — Times [UK] Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 65%
| The Merry Gentleman (2009) | "
The film never quite convinces as anything other than a puff-piece for Keaton, but it is bolstered by another deeply empathetic turn from Macdonald." — Times [UK] Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 81%
| Me and Orson Welles (2009) | "
The film fails as a character portrait, a drama or a snapshot of an era, while simultaneously offering tantalising hints of each. Apart from watching the rising star McKay strut his stuff, there’s little to recommend in Me and Orson Welles." — Times [UK] Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 81%
| Departures (2009) | "
Fascinating, witty and heartfelt." — Times [UK] Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 40%
| Cracks (2009) | "
A film about the eruption of desire in an all-girls boarding school that marks the beguiling feature debut from Jordan (daughter of Ridley) Scott." — Times [UK] Posted Dec 4, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 15%
| Mr. Right (2009) | "
Mr Right must surely be the first gay movie that manages, by virtue of its overwhelming ineptitude, to be curiously homophobic." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 56%
| Bunny & The Bull (2009) | "
Bunny is an acquired taste. But there’s gold here, and it is certainly one of the most inventive British comedies of the decade." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 82%
| Paranormal Activity (2009) | "
Not since David Lynch’s Lost Highway has a movie manipulated so skilfully the disturbing power of black screen space and the potential horror hidden within." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh 5/5
| Fresh 100%
| Ulysses (1967) | "
An utterly definitive work." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 81%
| Examined Life (2009) | "
Never dull, but it will make your head hurt." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 29%
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) | "
The cinematic equivalent of a Jonas Brothers concert, The Twilight Saga: New Moon is slickly packaged entertainment that’s nonetheless predicated on a creepy vision of teenage sexuality that is desiccated of, well, sexuality." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 97%
| Tulpan (2008) | "
[A] beguiling feature debut." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| N/A | The Magic Hour () | "
Some of the tales are compelling...some need serious pruning." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 62%
| Love The Beast (2009) | "
An innocuous if not entirely successful attempt to convince “non-car people” about the joys of loving a 1974 Ford Falcon XB coupe." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 43%
| Lala Pipo - A Lot of People () | "
A vapid and misogynistic Japanese sex-dramedy. Idiotic." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 38%
| 2012 (2009) | "
2012, a near three-hour movie built entirely out of special effects set pieces and join-the-dots characterisation." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 77%
| Harry Brown (2009) | "
Harry Brown is one of the most gorgeous-looking British films of the decade." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 53%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
A raucous and rapid-fire military comedy that channels the absurdist spirit of Catch 22 and Three Kings but is often something else entirely." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 100%
| Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno () | "
Up there with Lost in La Mancha as a glorious chronicle of film-making folly, the documentary Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno is a beguiling account of a movie that never happened." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Fresh 83%
| Bright Star (2009) | "
Without major tension, conflict or crisis, Brawne and Keats simply mope about, moon at each other, talk about literature and wait for the great poet to die from tuberculosis." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 50%
| 1 Day () | "
It’s propulsive stuff that credibly mixes social realism with bursts of musical energy. Just occasionally, though, the movie falls for the gangland glamour — loving shots of guns, cars and posturing bad boys — it claims to despise." — Times [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 83%
| Bright Star (2009) | "
Dramatically static from first to final frame, it charts the non-progress of the central relationship as a series of nineteenth-century feints and counter-feints." — Little White Lies Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 80%
| Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009) | "
A strange and ultimately underwhelming way to say goodbye to a troubled, talented performer." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 28, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 87%
| Johnny Mad Dog (2008) | "
There is an odd whiff of post-colonial bongo-bongo about it — i.e. sit back, munch popcorn and watch the natives blow holes in each other." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 23, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 92%
| Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) | "
If the emotions in Mr Fox aren’t as overstated or saccharine as in recent Pixar movies, it is only because Anderson has saved his greatest love for the animation process itself." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 23, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Fresh 69%
| Coffin Rock (2009) | "
So bad it’s funny. And yet, so bad it’s just bad." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 23, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 94%
| Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee (2009) | "
Considine’s performance, for instance, is an enthralling piece of improvisation that carries the entire movie." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 94%
| Katalin Varga (2009) | "
A complex moral terrain and slow-burning tone reminiscent of Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love) announce the arrival of a genuine film-making talent." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 62%
| Vanishing of The Bees () | "
Of course something has to change. But let’s start with the eco-doc format." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 89%
| Zombieland (2009) | "
The pacing is lackadaisical and the plot riddled with holes, but the movie is savvy enough mostly to eschew excessive gore in favour of amiably droll lines." — Times [UK] Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 28%
| Fame (2009) | "
Culturally derivative, structurally bland and almost meaningless." — Times [UK] Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 59%
| Creation (2009) | "
Bettany himself seems hamstrung by a part that requires lots of concentrated frowns and fey swooning, and the ability to render credible a ridiculous rubber baldy cap." — Times [UK] Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 6%
| Whiteout (2009) | "
A whodunnit set on a scientific research base in Antarctica that slowly becomes a “Who cares?”" — Times [UK] Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 94%
| Fish Tank (2009) | "
Arnold draws flawless performances from her cast while making exemplary choices with her camera." — Times [UK] Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 23%
| Sorority Row (2009) | "
Over 100 long minutes, as each is murdered by an unseen assailant, the movie’s job is to draw empathy from the audience for its harem of harridans. It doesn’t work." — Times [UK] Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 47%
| Dorian Gray (2010) | "
Some neat formal flourishes from its director Oliver Parker and a truly handsome supporting turn from Colin Firth, this story demands a more versatile and charismatic central player than the powerfully blank Ben Barnes." — Times [UK] Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 82%
| Broken Embraces (2009) | "
Pedro Almodóvar is a film-maker so innately talented that even when half-cocked, as he is in Broken Embraces, he can somehow produce a movie that is effortlessly superior to most features." — Times [UK] Posted Aug 29, 2009 |
Fresh 5/5
| Fresh 82%
| In the Realm of the Senses (1976) | "
As the soundtrack moans in sympathy while the deep crimson colours dazzle in delirium, the entire movie comes desperately close to approximating the pell-mell emotional turmoil of sex itself. Not porn, sex." — Times [UK] Posted Aug 29, 2009 |
Fresh 5/5
| Fresh 98%
| The Hurt Locker (2009) | "
For, in short, in its gutsy, bare-bones beauty, The Hurt Locker is not simply a war movie. It is war poetry." — Times [UK] Posted Aug 29, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 38%
| The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) | "
Despite the saccharine trailer and the icky tear-jerking pedigree, The Time Traveler’s Wife is actually a movie of some substance. it is the film about disconnected love that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button should have been." — Times [UK] Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 88%
| Sin Nombre (2009) | "
For all its formal élan and gritty location shooting, Sin Nombre is a wearily hollow, morally specious movie." — Times [UK] Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 80%
| Bandslam (2009) | "
A bizarre tween movie vehicle for the High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens that gradually morphs into a two-hour homily on the perils of adolescence." — Times [UK] Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 29%
| Aliens in the Attic (2009) | "
Gremlins meets Goonies meets something stultifyingly inept in a sci-fi adventure for the very young." — Times [UK] Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 74%
| Just Another Love Story (2009) | "
Bornedal’s movie is slick and arresting, and proves again to Hollywood that mature genre film-making is thriving on this side of the Atlantic." — Times [UK] Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 84%
| The Blues Brothers (1980) | "
Formless, chaotic and lazy, and quite brilliant because of it." — Times [UK] Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 50%
| Antichrist (2009) | "
We can scoff and dismiss it as the last gasp ravings of a deranged opportunist. Or we can look, unflinchingly, at Von Trier’s fantastically painful mirror and acknowledge the Id within us all. Now that is scary." — Times [UK] Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 82%
| Kisses (2008) | "
Like arthouse Roddy Doyle it’s ambitious and phoney in equal measure." — Times [UK] Posted Jul 17, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 83%
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) | "
The strangest thing about the new Harry Potter movie is not that it’s unusually good, which it is, but that it unequivocally illustrates just how poorly we’ve been served by the previous five instalments in the franchise." — Times [UK] Posted Jul 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 96%
| Burma VJ (2009) | "
A moving and galvanic account." — Times [UK] Posted Jul 17, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 71%
| Ichi () | "
The villains are from the broad “har-de-har” school of banditry, the action is mostly fudged, and the resolution achingly obvious." — Times [UK] Posted Jul 10, 2009 |
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