Rotten 3/5
| Rotten 25%
| Staten Island (2009) | "
The tonal idiosyncrasies may grate early on but things coalesce nicely until the whole thing starts to resemble a diverting short story." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| N/A | Blood Equity (2009) | "
As rough-hewn and stylistically awkward as the film is -- editing car crash sound effects over nasty on-field collisions -- the stories make for gripping testimony." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 20, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 77%
| Collapse (2009) | "
Collapse" is a grueling peek at a doomsday prophet's rigorous mind but in a sly way also a compassionate look at the strain Ruppert endures from knowing he has only ever been right." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 42%
| Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon (2009) | "
Spending more observational time with her smart, resilient and stirringly positive subjects -- even seeing less-edited footage of their business plan speeches -- might have helped sell her inspirational story." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 13, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 18%
| The Fourth Kind (2009) | "
Writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi attempts an Orson Welles-like confluence of "real" and imagined that might have worked had he gotten out of the way more, literally and figuratively." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 80%
| Yes Men Fix the World (2009) | "
Fleet and amusing." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 88%
| The House of the Devil (2009) | "
West's assured way with widescreen framing, long takes and silences followed by sharp if explainable noise are almost cruelly funny in their heart-stopping pleasures." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 22%
| The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009) | "
Time may have healed some of Duffy's wounds, but it hasn't made him a better Tarantino knockoff, unfortunately." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 45%
| Saw VI (2009) | "
The usual critiques apply: terrible acting, zero suspense, laughable logic and the promise of another one next year." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 26, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 82%
| Black Dynamite (2009) | "
An enjoyable celebratory ode to a fiercely entertaining counterculture-inspired genre." — Los Angeles Times Posted Oct 16, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 39%
| Surrogates (2009) | "
While the notion holds promise, the execution is strictly campy and adrenaline-driven." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 75%
| The Vanished Empire (2009) | "
A nicely turned film about the crushing inevitability of change." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 45%
| Jennifer's Body (2009) | "
[Cody's] glib teen-hip dialogue mostly feels like self-conscious splatter over a sorely lackluster scare flick." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 18%
| Love Happens (2009) | "
That this superficial romance between a successful self-help author and a nurturing florist is also a film about overcoming the tragedy of losing a loved one only makes its clichéd insipidity that much more irksome." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 62%
| Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself (2009) | "
Unashamedly fond of mixing messages of vengeance and piety, Perry nevertheless manages to reduce the tonal whiplash, so that this newest entry glides a little more easily from broad laughs to teary anguish and finally sweeping uplift." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 14, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 0%
| Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) | "
The leads can't lend either spunk or gravitas to what was already a preposterous yarn 50 years ago." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| N/A | Ink (2009) | "
There's a rapacious DIY showmanship at work here reminiscent of the calling-card chutzpah Robert Rodriguez and Peter Jackson showed in scrappier, pre-blockbuster days." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Rotten 0.5/5
| Rotten 6%
| All About Steve (2009) | "
If you ever wanted to know what kind of movie plays deaf children falling into a sinkhole for laughs, look no further." — Los Angeles Times Posted Sep 3, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 28%
| Play the Game (2009) | "
Veering between syrupy sweet and awkwardly dirty, Play the Game is a woefully scoreless exercise." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 28, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 9%
| Post Grad (2009) | "
A joyless fluffball about after-college job woes with a dispiriting message for smart young women." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 21, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 38%
| X Games 3D: The Movie (2009) | "
Although the competitions are undoubtedly impressive achievements in the daredevil arts, as a record of what these mentally tough participants do, it too often feels like a warmed-over energy drink." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 21, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 26%
| The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009) | "
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard has a beater's clunky, fast-moving charm." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 75%
| Cold Souls (2009) | "
This quaintly goofy premise makes for pointedly neurotic Sleeper-ish fun, not to mention nifty digs at our culture of self-reinvention." — Los Angeles Times Posted Aug 7, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 75%
| Humpday (2009) | "
Unlike a lot of institutional raunch in today's comedy, Humpday finds laughs out of what is rarely made explicit between buddies." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 0%
| Homecoming (2009) | "
Neither trashy nor self-consciously funny enough to make its genre-trapped ludicrousness sing." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 16%
| 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 47%
| 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
| Fresh 61%
| 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 64%
| 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 73%
| 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 47%
| 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 14%
| 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 57%
| 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 47%
| 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
| Rotten 57%
| 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 33%
| 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 |
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