Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 11%
| I Hate Valentine's Day (2009) | "
All I Hate Valentine's Day adds up to is an awkward, ritualized date between moviegoer and a still-learning triple hyphenate." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 3, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 45%
| Whatever Works (2009) | "
Coming off last year's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the freshest Allen film in more than a decade, Whatever Works plays like a hoary old Broadway stage comedy yanked, reluctantly, into the present." — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 20%
| The Narrows (2009) | "
The Narrows is too riddled with clichés reaching past Scorsese all the way to Cagney flicks to be any more effective than a mowed-down capo." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 66%
| Away We Go (2009) | "
Glib and charming in roughly equal measure, the road-tripping "Away We Go" is worth seeing for Maya Rudolph, best known for being underutilized on "Saturday Night Live."" — Chicago Tribune Posted Jun 11, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 58%
| The Girlfriend Experience (2009) | "
An exquisitely filmed piece of urban impressionism that, unfortunately, leaves one feeling that a sleek gadget has been needlessly purchased." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 22, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 63%
| The Brothers Bloom (2009) | "
The irony is that outside of the manufactured oddities, Weisz's performance is the best thing in the movie: an old-school screwball turn of hypercurious pep." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 15, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 70%
| Rudo and Cursi (2009) | "
As Cuarón's enjoyable film about brotherhood and the beautiful game zestfully points out, a block and a save are two sides of the same play." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 8, 2009 |
Fresh 1.5/5
| Rotten 18%
| Love 'N Dancing (2009) | "
It is unfortunate when someone with a history of staging musical numbers and directing musical sequences can't make dialogue scenes flow." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 8, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 50%
| Empty Nest (2009) | "
In the end, it all can't help feeling a little slight, more a pleasant wade into a writer's neurotic playground than a satisfyingly deep dip." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 1, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 92%
| The Lemon Tree (2008) | "
A sober-hearted take on the righteous blowback from whittled-away souls, and a movie that invariably rights itself with each return to the beautifully steely gaze of Abbass." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 1, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 46%
| Battle for Terra (2009) | "
An atmospheric sci-fi saga that may lack major studio marketing heft, but deserves a chance to win over toon-tested audiences." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 30, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 15%
| The Informers (2009) | "
It's a movie with Altmanesque pretensions, but under Gregor Jordan's flat-line direction amounts to flipping through an out-of-date fashion magazine, one that barely spurs the energy to point and laugh." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 23, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 58%
| Skills Like This (2009) | "
Energetic if incoherent." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 52%
| American Swing (2009) | "
The film treats Levenson's rapid descent as if someone had turned on the lights at a sex party: scurrying away with pity and irritation that the good times had to end." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 50%
| The Education of Charlie Banks (2009) | "
Too often Durst's direction is overly earnest, heavy in long takes, atmosphere wise but scene foolish." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 27, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 59%
| Explicit Ills (2008) | "
A movie that too often feels comprised of arty public service announcements can only be considered a lost opportunity." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 20, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 33%
| Sherman's Way (2009) | "
Shulman, though, who also produced, is a personality drag, unable to make us care that Sherman's off-putting arrogance warrants even by-the-numbers enlightenment." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 17%
| The Lodger (2009) | "
This strained, empty effort doesn't work as homage or update, and in its darkly violent sensibility has neither the glamour of Brian De Palma's referential nightmares or even the narrative fuel of the serial-killer-obsessed procedurals that dominate tv." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jan 23, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 48%
| Donkey Punch (2009) | "
It's got enough formulaic flair to make it a guilty-pleasure cousin of seaborne nailbiters Knife in the Water and Dead Calm." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jan 23, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 48%
| Chandni Chowk to China (2009) | "
Sold as a groundbreaking convergence of Asia's leading cinematic influences -- kung fu flicks and Bollywood extravaganzas -- it can only be termed genre-mashup overkill." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jan 16, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| N/A | Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) | "
This agreeably amusing comedy/romance/musical is Another Mash-Up Made by Bollywood. Writer-director Aditya Chopra's film suggests a star-powered Billy Wilder love farce, Grease and Shall We Dance." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 19, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| N/A | Fix (2008) | "
Ruspoli's empathy for the high-and-low personalities that make up our urban web -- personified in Leo's friend-to-everyone, destructive-to-himself charm -- infuses his amped-up travelogue." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 5, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 35%
| Tennessee (2009) | "
The dramatic payoffs are either nonexistent or overly manipulated, and for a journey that starts with so much deep-set pain and regret to end with a sentimental twist feels, to use a phrase anathema in Carey's world, off-key." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 5, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 94%
| Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) | "
An undeniably shattering story, if forgivably shaky in its impassioned, therapeutic unfolding." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 7, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 43%
| The Tree of Life (2008) | "
It's a sympathetic notion, to be sure, but it leaves one feeling you're on the couch with Volterra, not on a roots quest." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 24, 2008 |
— | Fresh 67%
| Last Stop For Paul (2008) |
Click here to read article — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 100%
| The Order of Myths (2008) | "
An invaluable portrait of us-and-them America, a smart, generous, poignant, quietly disturbing movie about secrecy and hospitality." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 75%
| The Last Mistress (2008) | "
[An] entertaining, elegantly shot adaptation of Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's 19th century novel." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 37%
| Henry Poole Is Here (2008) | "
Henry too often seems like a suffering cipher rather than a real guy with real problems." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Rotten 1/5
| N/A | Mattie Fresno and the Holoflux Universe (2008) | "
Pitched as a crypto-scientific yet sentimental satire about perception and reality, it's really just an unfunny, jumbled Charlie Kaufman-esque rip-off." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 17, 2008 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 96%
| Moving Midway (2008) | "
Quirky yet thoughtful." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 17, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 30%
| Morning Light (2008) | "
If the makers were hoping they'd chronicled a metaphor for life's struggle, they probably weren't counting on the struggle being monotony." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 17, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 80%
| Call + Response (2008) | "
All in all, Call + Response makes alarmingly clear how ugly, pervasive and out-in-the-open the trade in humans for sex or labor often is, from the expected places -- Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia -- to our own backyard." — Chicago Tribune Posted Oct 10, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 50%
| City of Ember (2008) | "
A grim fantasy about a cloistered subterranean metropolis that wants to be both a kids' adventure and a dystopian finger-wag. That director Gil Kenan's second feature never quite succeeds as either is a shame for all the dazzling craftsmanship." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 10, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 37%
| Fireproof (2008) | "
Unfortunately, the emphasis on what God wants has a way of overwhelming who Caleb and Catherine are as characters." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 2, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 22%
| Shoot on Sight (2008) | "
Shoot on Sight has good intentions but winds up a thematically simplistic, dryly plotted and perfunctorily shot melodrama, one of those movies where dialogue is there to categorize people, not parse the complexities of human beings." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 26, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 54%
| Choke (2008) | "
As the story of a wallowing pig, Choke is often pretty entertaining, but when it comes to where-do-I-come-from poignancy, it can't always keep from gagging." — Chicago Tribune Posted Sep 26, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 47%
| Lakeview Terrace (2008) | "
Lakeview Terrace is a serviceable enough popcorn exercise in a few floundering Angelenos who can't just get along." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 19, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 11%
| Proud American (2008) | "
Aside from a few, thankfully, professionally acted performances, it too often carries the preachy, stilted aura of something you'd see in civics class or at a trade show." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 12, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 40%
| YPF (2008) | "
The cast tries but rarely achieves an authenticity of emotional intimacy, as if everyone knows they're going to be cut away from -- how else to say it? -- prematurely." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 12, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 28%
| The Doorman (2008) | "
[Director] Price keeps the humor believably shallow and the movie from getting too far from the aim of chronicling an exclusivity junkie's fall." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 12, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 72%
| Mister Foe (2008) | "
Although it's nice to see Mackenzie find uplift in the erotic, what helps drive Mister Foe is how deftly he turns chasm into intimacy between Bell and Myles, both of whom give sharply observed, charismatic portrayals." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 5, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 68%
| America The Beautiful (2008) | "
With so many pointless detours ripping you away, the film feels as lamely digressive as the proverbial one-track guy whose head won't stop turning as each new temptation walks by." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 22, 2008 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 68%
| Love Comes Lately (2007) | "
Fear of intimacy trumps fear of death in Love Comes Lately, filmmaker Jan Schütte's plaintively effective merging of three Isaac Bashevis Singer short stories." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 25, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 65%
| Bustin' Down the Door (2008) | "
Bustin' Down the Door entertainingly captures surfing's last great hoorah of no-holds-barred radicalism." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 25, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 44%
| Take (2008) | "
Take is too enamored of its time-shifting gimmick and cheap suspense to ultimately have much impact." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 25, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| Kenny (2008) | "
The Australian charmer Kenny, about a hard-working, jovial employee for a portable toilet company, is a low-key study of underdog pride rather than a Larry the Cable Guy bodily function jokefest." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 18, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 86%
| Kabluey (2008) | "
A dark piece of whimsy that enchants and befuddles in equal measure." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 11, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 27%
| Harold (2008) | "
There's little indication, beyond the endlessly unfunny school humiliations and fogey-dom signposts (ha ha, he uses Old Spice), that the notion of a preteen codger is worth our sympathies." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 11, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 84%
| Live and Become (2008) | "
The bounty of incident is balanced by knowing humor, compelling characters and a dedicated compassion toward those for whom the search for home sends their head, heart and feet flying in all directions." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jun 27, 2008 |
IGN RSS Feeds