Rotten
| Rotten 33%
| Cracks (2009) | "
Jordan Scott's confident directorial debut is a faintly ridiculous, sexually overheated mixture." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 81%
| Departures (2009) | "
The film, mostly set in a wintry landscape surrounded by snow-capped mountains, is fastidiously composed." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 63%
| The Girlfriend Experience (2009) | "
A rather uninteresting example of the small-scale films Soderbergh likes to do between more expensive and expansive movies." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 23%
| Planet 51 (2009) | "
A thin joke becomes attenuated to breaking point." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 64%
| The Merry Gentleman (2009) | "
There are undercurrents of a Catholic kind about grace and redemption." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 44%
| The Box (2009) | "
For the first half-hour the movie is engagingly mystifying in a David Lynch vein. Subsequently it modulates into a piece of didactic transcendental science-fiction in the manner of The Day the Earth Stood Still and Close Encounters." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 83%
| Me and Orson Welles (2009) | "
Never before have I seen a theatrical production so brilliantly re-created, and for this major credit must go to the British cinematographer Dick Pope, who makes us feel we're there on the historic night." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 84%
| Disgrace (2009) | "
This chilly film gets surprisingly close to the tone of Coetzee's precise prose." — Observer [UK] Posted Dec 11, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 28%
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) | "
The film takes itself rather earnestly, the heroine is more than half in love with easeful death, and the lighting by Spanish ace cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe is impressive." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 77%
| The Informant! (2009) | "
Matt Damon gives the best performance of his career so far." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 50%
| Glorious 39 (2009) | "
An enjoyable conspiracy thriller in the manner of John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 76%
| The First Day of the Rest of Your Life () | "
A funny, deeply affecting and often painfully truthful movie about families, parenthood, growing up, growing old and dying, devoid of sentimentality." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 78%
| Examined Life (2009) | "
For those interested in seeing philosophers on the screen, this engaging movie offers the opportunity to see eight of them walking the streets." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 87%
| A Serious Man (2009) | "
This film is at once laugh-out-loud funny and deeply serious, troubling and satisfying, warm and bleak, both respectful of the Jewish heritage and mocking its restrictions and false comforts." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 27, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Welcome () | "
A gripping French contribution to the cycle of movies about exile and refugees." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 60%
| Paper Heart (2009) | "
An extremely irritating, narcissistic picture." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
The picture soon runs literally and figuratively into the sands and can't dig itself out." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno () | "
A fascinating picture." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 84%
| Bright Star (2009) | "
Sit and savour this marvellous film until the lights come up." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 44%
| Jennifer's Body (2009) | "
The film is not without merit and has more corpses and red corpuscles than the anaemic Twilight series of vampire flicks." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 55%
| Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) | "
Faithfully rendered and extremely frightening." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| Tales from the Golden Age (2009) | "
This is a low-key, deadpan movie and the jokes creep up on you." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 73%
| Starsuckers (2009) | "
This lively, ludic documentary about fame, celebrity and the mass media is an entertaining mess." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 57%
| 9 (2009) | "
A combination of the cute and the cataclysmic, the film has its moments but becomes increasingly frantic and morally self-important." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 10%
| Dead Man Running (2009) | "
A little uncertain in tone, but brisk and likely to go down well with the patrons of Albert Square's Queen Vic." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 91%
| Love Exposure () | "
A strange, deftly scripted brew, alternately involving and distancing, and often very funny." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| The Horseman (2008) | "
A disgusting, repetitive, badly scripted movie, lacking any redeeming feature." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| An Education (2009) | "
Danish director Lone Scherfig seems at home in Britain and the details of clothes, haircuts and so on are dead right." — Observer [UK] Posted Nov 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 60%
| Made in Jamaica (2006) | "
One suspects the film-makers have deliberately excluded numbers of a homophobic nature." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 87%
| Johnny Mad Dog (2008) | "
A gut-wrenching, documentary-style look at a company of Kalashnikov-wielding kids." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| The Cove (2009) | "
This outstanding documentary is as exciting as a thriller." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 42%
| Colin (2009) | "
A confused, unoriginal and unimaginative hand-held account." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 37%
| Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009) | "
Infinitely more inventive than the sweetly romantic Twilight." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 69%
| Coffin Rock (2009) | "
Murky, predictable, but well enough played." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 26%
| The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009) | "
Vulgar, pointless, unfunny comedy." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 93%
| Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) | "
When the film escalates into hectic action, it draws on Hollywood genres, westerns in the Sergio Leone mode and crime movies." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 81%
| Triangle (2009) | "
It's creepy, atmospheric stuff and at every twist of this Möbius strip we wonder how Smith will keep things going. But he manages it with considerable skill and we leave his picture suitably shaken." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 82%
| Thirst (2009) | "
A truly bizarre movie, a tragicomedy that Graham Greene might have written in collaboration with Bram Stoker. But it's repetitive and overstays its initial welcome." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| Pontypool (2009) | "
Compellingly apocalyptic." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| Ong Bak 2 (2009) | "
The fights are stunning, the narrative thin and repetitive, the characterisation perfunctorily functional." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Couples Retreat (2009) | "
Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, wrote the witless script, so have only themselves to blame." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 65%
| The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) | "
Somewhat intellectually mushy and sentimental, though never less than visually impressive." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 20, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee (2009) | "
Considine is outrageously funny and never steps out of character, but the film hardly adds up to an evening's entertainment." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 62%
| Vanishing of The Bees () | "
A serious, didactic, rather rambling documentary." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 98%
| Up (2009) | "
One of its best: touching, funny and graphically exciting." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| Katalin Varga (2009) | "
The most striking aspect of a slow, self-consciously poetic film is the complex soundtrack." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| Love Happens (2009) | "
The film is sentimental and deeply embarrassing... There isn't a laugh or an honest emotion in the whole picture." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 95%
| Goodbye Solo (2009) | "
The final sequence up in the mountains is particularly affecting." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 85%
| Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) | "
Charmless." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Fame (2009) | "
This remake of Alan Parker's 1980 musical follows a rainbow coalition of sketchily characterised teenagers." — Observer [UK] Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
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