Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 93%
| Iron Man (2008) | "
Not only is it a good comic book movie (smart and stupid, stirring and silly, intimate and spectacular), it's winning enough to engage even those who've never cared much for comic books or the movies they spawn. Like me." RogerEbert.com Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 43%
| What We Do Is Secret (2008) | "
Where What We Do Is Secret succeeds is in the performances which (and this a compliment, I think) sometimes expose a stilted, amateurish strain that's oddly in tune with the characters' D.I.Y. aesthetic." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Aug 15, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 37%
| Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (2008) | "
A superficial primer for people who aren't likely to go see it in the first place." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Jun 27, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 73%
| Body of War (2008) | "
Body of War again demonstrates that we Americans still have some bitter truths to face." Chicago Sun-Times Posted May 16, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 66%
| The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) | "
With bigger battles and scarier monsters than its predecessor, the new movie flaunts grander visual effects, and, with one notable exception, a dash more individuality than the initial installment." Chicago Sun-Times Posted May 16, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 37%
| Speed Racer (2008) | "
Speed Racer is a manufactured widget, a packaged commodity that capitalizes on an anthropomorphized cartoon of Capitalist Evil in order to sell itself and its ancillary products." Chicago Sun-Times Posted May 9, 2008 |
Rotten 0.5/4
| Rotten 20%
| Chapter 27 (2008) | "
Chapter 27 just makes you feel bad for, and about, everybody -- including the wretched souls who made the thing." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 25, 2008 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 12%
| Deception (2008) | "
What can compare with the white-knuckle suspense of uploading a file?" Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 25, 2008 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 49%
| My Blueberry Nights (2008) | "
It's a store-bought bakery-window display cake, infused with flavor essences and color-enhancers. (Is there a cinematic MSG that intensifies the sweetness of eye candy?)" Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 18, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 84%
| Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) | "
You know exactly where, and the pleasure of Forgetting Sarah Marshall is in how it gets there." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 18, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 37%
| Street Kings (2008) | "
An anemic attempt to evoke the big, shiny action pictures of the late '80s and early '90s, the heyday of Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, when Timothy Dalton was 007 and Clint Eastwood had fewer wrinkles and bigger hair." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 11, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 31%
| Chaos Theory (2008) | "
Dramatically it's neither fish nor fowl, so you can't quite tell if the sandwich is tuna salad or chicken salad." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 11, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 49%
| Smart People (2008) | "
Parker, cast as the Life-Affirming Option, comes across as rather drab. Quaid disappears beneath his beard and into his role, yet because Lawrence is such a remote character, it's hard to care much. Page's role is pretty thin and monotonous." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 11, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 56%
| Shelter (2008) | "
A coming-out, coming-of-age movie that is mediocre and very well-intentioned." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 4, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 52%
| Leatherheads (2008) | "
Film fans used to speculate about whether Clooney could become the Cary Grant of our time, and now we know he's our Clark Gable and William Holden and Dean Martin, too." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Apr 4, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 49%
| CJ7 (2008) | "
This is a fable of forgiveness and regeneration, but it delves into a child's deepest, darkest fears. Fortunately, things turn out OK in the end." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 28, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 82%
| Teeth (2008) | "
Whether you view it as a primordial image from the collective unconscious or a practical warning against promiscuity, vagina dentata makes an indubitably memorable impression -- and an ideal premise for a tongue-in-cheek teen horror movie." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 28, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 35%
| 21 (2008) | "
Inspired by the real-life story of the M.I.T. students who took Las Vegas casinos for millions, 21 has been reshaped to fit a simple movie template -- and it's nearly as much fun as watching an insurance professional compute actuarial tables." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 28, 2008 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 96%
| Chop Shop (2007) | "
Three shots into Rahmin Bahrani's Chop Shop, and you're already pulled into its world with an effortless economy and precision that leave you no doubt you're in the best of cinematic hands." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 21, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 96%
| Let's Get Lost (1988) | "
Let's Get Lost is an atmospheric black-and-white portrait of a jazz trumpet player, an exemplar of West Coast 'cool jazz' in the age when rapid-fire bebop was hot, whose life, career and face were ruined by his various addictions." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 14, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 75%
| Paranoid Park (2008) | "
Paranoid Park is graced with those peculiar Van Sant touches of discovery and absurdity, delightful because they're at once so right and so inscrutable." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 14, 2008 |
Rotten 0.5/4
| Rotten 51%
| Funny Games (2008) | "
This isn't a movie, it's a thesis." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 14, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 79%
| The Bank Job (2008) | "
No worse than its generic title. And no better." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Mar 7, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 94%
| The Counterfeiters (2008) | "
The trouble is that the storytelling and filmmaking are routine (surely faux-documentary handheld camerawork is the most overused cliche in modern movies), even when the human drama is not." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Feb 29, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 41%
| The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) | "
If Russ Meyer had made The Other Boleyn Girl, Anne and Mary Boleyn would have yanked some hair, scratched some eyeballs, walloped each other in their respective kissers, and the movie would have been all the better for it." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Feb 29, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 79%
| Chicago 10 (2008) | "
As an activist documentary with a contemporary agenda, it doesn't pretend to be "objective" (whatever that means), but to find inspiration in the passion and irreverence of its heroes." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Feb 29, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 54%
| The Signal (2007) | "
A movie that explores the common ground between visceral horror and sketch comedy, and finds plenty of it." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Feb 22, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 54%
| Charlie Bartlett (2007) | "
Almost everything in Charlie Bartlett is based on successful teen comedy formulas of the '70s, '80s and '90s." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Feb 22, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 60%
| George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (2008) | "
You may not believe in zombies, but the unnamed dread in the air of Diary of the Dead is recognizably believable, because we live with it now." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Feb 15, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 16%
| Jumper (2008) | "
A movie so silly you may find yourself giggling helplessly even as you wish you could magically transport yourself almost anywhere else in the world but where you are, in front of the screen showing it." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Feb 15, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 13%
| Broken (2007) | "
'Why?' you may wonder as the end credits roll on director Alan White's Broken." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Oct 19, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| Persepolis (2007) | "
It's a movie that makes you glad to be alive." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 19, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| Atonement (2007) | "
Atonement is an intelligently, evocatively directed movie in every aspect..." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 19, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2008) | "
...a sharp political commentary about free-market forces in a socialist bureaucracy where nearly everything is regulated by the government." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| Chop Shop (2007) | "
Within the first 30 seconds or so of Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop, you know you're in good hands." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Secret Sunshine () | "
The film is brave and unsparing (as is Jeon's performance) and asks some challenging and disquieting questions..." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Rotten 52%
| Margot at the Wedding (2007) | "
Baumbach knows exactly what he's doing, and it works." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Rotten 44%
| Redacted (2007) | "
I don't know when De Palma has ever been accused of being sincere, but Redacted feels to me as close as he's ever come." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 77%
| I'm Not There (2007) | "
[It] is not only a kaleidoscopic view of events in the life, music and myth of Bob Dylan, but a critical deconstruction and synthesis of Dylan's various media representations." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| Into the Wild (2007) | "
Penn's empathy with his driven hero is unmistakable and deeply felt." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 90%
| Michael Clayton (2007) | "
...the kind of smart, crisp, 'serious' mainstream entertainment that gives Hollywood (or the part of it influenced by George Clooney) a good name." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 86%
| The Orphanage (2007) | "
I'd venture to say there are more goosepimply moments and well-earned jolts in this picture than in your average year's worth of commercial shockers. And yet, it's also the only horror film in recent memory that brought me to tears." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| No Country for Old Men (2007) | "
It could serve as a model of prose-to-film adaptation, choosing exactly the right moments and movements for the picture, and leaving alone others that are better suited to literature." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| Eastern Promises (2007) | "
Eastern Promises is shockingly gorgeous, for all the ugliness it portrays." RogerEbert.com Posted Sep 18, 2007 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 64%
| Vitus (2007) | "
The more sentimentally inclined in the audience may even feel like applauding." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Jul 27, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 71%
| Black Sheep (2007) | "
Like Snakes on a Plane, the whole movie is essentially contained within the title. All the picture itself does is to repeat that concept for 87 minutes." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Jul 6, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 78%
| You Kill Me (2007) | "
No offense to Sir Ben, who does a mean deadpan, but his performance here is frequently more dead than pan -- which, given the material, was probably the wisest acting choice." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Jun 22, 2007 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 77%
| Crazy Love (2007) | "
Crazy Love seems to promise a demented, true-life film noir love story and winds up delivering an above-average A&E documentary." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Jun 8, 2007 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 44%
| Angel-A (2007) | "
The movie doesn't aspire to be anything but a lightweight pastiche that rehashes your memories of other, better movies." Chicago Sun-Times Posted Jun 8, 2007 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 71%
| Inland Empire (2006) | "
Inland Empire opens and contracts in your imagination while you watch it -- and you're still watching it well after it's left the screen. It's a long but thoroughly absorbing three hours." RogerEbert.com Posted May 25, 2007 |