Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 73%
| Bruno (2009) | "
Brüno offers both succor and sucker bait for liberal-minded viewers who may feel harassed by prevailing and ever-shifting cultural sensitivities." Posted Jul 9, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 42%
| The Girl From Monaco (2009) | "
Somehow Ms. Fontaine’s attempt to mix styles and genres does not quite work, and instead of drawing tighter, The Girl from Monaco snaps and slackens, its apparent ingenuity revealed as a dubious contrivance." Posted Jul 3, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 45%
| Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) | What? Dawn of the dinosaurs? In the Ice Age? You’ve got to be kidding. Posted Jun 30, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 44%
| My Sister's Keeper (2009) | My Sister’s Keeper takes on a very tough subject, but ultimately it is too soft, too easy, and it dissolves like a tear-soaked tissue. Posted Jun 26, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 81%
| Quiet Chaos (2009) | "
The film, while uneven -- sometimes too on the nose, sometimes anecdotal and diffuse -- is generally absorbing, thanks mostly to the quality of the acting." Posted Jun 26, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 96%
| The Hurt Locker (2009) | "
If The Hurt Locker is not the best action movie of the summer, I’ll blow up my car." Posted Jun 25, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 79%
| $9.99 (2009) | "
$9.99 uses an extraordinary technique to bring the Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s world to life." Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 46%
| Whatever Works (2009) | "
My problem with Whatever Works is not that the premise is a wee bit familiar. Rather, it’s that the delivery is off." Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 80%
| Le combat dans lile (1962) | "
Anne [is] played with heart-stopping capriciousness by Romy Schneider, who was never lovelier and who is capable of distracting everyone in the film, and the audience above all, from whatever grave political matters are afoot." Posted Jun 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 50%
| The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) | "
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, an energetic updating of the 1974 mass transit thriller, takes account of how much the character of New York has changed." Posted Jun 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 88%
| Moon (2009) | "
The film's ideas are interesting, but don't feel entirely worked out, and Mr. Rockwell's intriguingly strange performance (or performances) is left suspended, without the context that would give Sam's plight its full emotional and philosophical impact." Posted Jun 12, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 66%
| Away We Go (2009) | "
Does it sound as if I hate this movie? Don’t be silly. But don’t be fooled. This movie does not like you." Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 78%
| The Hangover (2009) | "
What hangover? This movie is safe as milk." Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 92%
| Séraphine (2008) | "
The energies of Séraphine are devoted to examining the alchemy by which perception is transformed into vision." Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 100%
| Munyurangabo (2009) | "
Munyurangabo uses the fine-grained techniques of cinematic neorealism to illuminate the psychological and emotional landscape of a still-traumatized place." Posted May 29, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 73%
| Departures (2009) | "
Overlong, predictable in its plotting and utterly banal in its blending of comic whimsy and melodramatic pathos." Posted May 29, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 44%
| Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) | "
Pleasant, innocuous and intermittently thrilling family entertainment." Posted May 22, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 44%
| Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) | "
The paradox of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is that a movie so bursting with novelty can feel so utterly familiar." Posted May 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 58%
| The Girlfriend Experience (2009) | "
When the turmoil of the last 12 months has receded and the 10th-anniversary deluxe collectors edition comes around, this strange, numb cinematic experience may seem fresh, shocking and poignant rather than merely and depressingly true." Posted May 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 87%
| O'Horten (2009) | "
Made up of meticulously constructed, deadpan scenes that turn on Keatonesque visual jokes." Posted May 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 32%
| Terminator Salvation (2009) | "
Terminator Salvation feels both comfortable with its limitations and justly proud of its accomplishments." Posted May 20, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 89%
| Burma VJ (2009) | "
Burma VJ is a rich, thought-provoking film not only because of the story it tells, but also because of the perspective it offers." Posted May 19, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 83%
| Jerichow (2009) | "
There is nonetheless something haunting about this film, a sense of desperation and defeat that seems less like a generic convention than like a genuine insight." Posted May 15, 2009 |
Fresh 4.5/5
| Fresh 93%
| Summer Hours (2009) | "
Summer Hours, in spite of its potentially dowdy subject matter, is packed nearly to bursting with rich meaning and deep implication." Posted May 15, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 37%
| Angels & Demons (2009) | "
Angels & Demons, without being particularly good, is nonetheless far less hysterical than The Da Vinci Code." Posted May 14, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 25%
| Little Ashes (2009) | "
The tangled three-way friendship of Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali and Federico GarciÂa Lorca could make for a fascinating movie. Instead, we have Little Ashes." Posted May 8, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 76%
| Outrage (2009) | "
This indignant and methodical documentary offers a lot of insight into the ideology and psychology of present-day political homophobia." Posted May 8, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 70%
| Rudo and Cursi (2009) | "
It mixes soap-opera sentimentality with playful, jumpy aggression and dresses a bittersweet, rags-to-riches fable in the bright clothes of pop satire." Posted May 8, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 85%
| Three Monkeys (2009) | "
With Three Monkeys, Nuri Bilge Ceylan trains his cool, detached sensibility on a ripe and pulpy melodrama that might have originated in a James M. Cain novel." Posted May 1, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 92%
| Revanche (2009) | "
A tidy, glum thriller that aims for a tone of sour humanism, perched just on the near edge of cynical despair." Posted May 1, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 36%
| X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) | "
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, with its ungainly, geeky title and its relatively trim running time, helps explain just what makes this guy so intriguing and unusual." Posted Apr 30, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 15%
| The Informers (2009) | "
The performances run the gamut from twitchy to catatonic, and the stoned stiffness of the actors seems to have less to do with the affectlessness of the characters than with their own confusion." Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Fresh 4.5/5
| Fresh 86%
| Tyson (2009) | "
Tyson is worth seeing even if you have no particular interest in the sport or the man." Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 41%
| Fighting (2009) | "
You might expect a movie called Fighting to be a blunt, literal affair, and in the case of Dito Montiel’s new film, you would not be wrong." Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 85%
| State of Play (2009) | "
The chance to explore the swiftly changing culture of Web-age journalism is one of several intriguing possibilities that State of Play squanders." Posted Apr 17, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 57%
| Sleep Dealer (2009) | "
Sleep Dealer is an unusually thoughtful science fiction film, using the speculative energy of the genre to explore some troubling and complex contemporary issues." Posted Apr 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 92%
| Every Little Step (2009) | "
In Every Little Step, life imitates art, art reflects life, and the distinctions threaten, quite pleasantly, to blur altogether." Posted Apr 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 98%
| Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) | "
The success of Anvil! The Story of Anvil lies in its ability to make you care about an enterprise you might initially have been inclined to laugh at." Posted Apr 10, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 14%
| The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2009) | "
A clumsy and confused adaptation of Michael Chabon’s 1988 novel." Posted Apr 10, 2009 |
Rotten 1/5
| Rotten 58%
| Paris 36 (2008) | "
Mr. Barratier, in trying to evoke the great French films of the 1930s and ’40s, mistakes their elegant clarity for simple-mindedness and treats his material and his audience with condescension." Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 93%
| Sugar (2009) | "
It is both sad and hopeful, but the film’s sorrow and its optimism arise from its rarest and most thrilling quality, which is its deep and humane honesty." Posted Apr 2, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 88%
| Adventureland (2009) | "
The film, written and directed by Greg Mottola, plants its flag in thoroughly explored territory, but that familiarity turns out to be integral to its loose and scruffy appeal." Posted Apr 2, 2009 |
Fresh 4.5/5
| Fresh 96%
| Tulpan (2008) | "
Tulpan might be described as an epic landscape film or a sweetly comic coming-of-age story. But the setting gives the movie a science fiction mood." Posted Apr 1, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 72%
| Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) | "
A highly competent, smartly engineered delivery system for the very clichés it pretends to subvert." Posted Mar 26, 2009 |
Fresh 5/5
| Fresh 94%
| Goodbye Solo (2009) | "
The story told in Goodbye Solo, Ramin Bahrani's wonderful third feature, is moving and mysterious, and you may find yourself pondering its implications for a long time after the film's simple and haunting final images have faded." Posted Mar 26, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 90%
| Hunger (2008) | "
With calm, deliberate attention -- an approach at once compassionate and dispassionate -- Hunger explores physical extremity and political extremism." Posted Mar 20, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 32%
| Knowing (2009) | "
The draggy, lurching two hours of Knowing will make you long for the end of the world, even as you worry that there will not be time for all your questions to be answered." Posted Mar 20, 2009 |
Fresh 4.5/5
| Fresh 66%
| Duplicity (2009) | "
However you describe it, Duplicity is superior entertainment, the most elegantly pleasurable movie of its kind to come around in a very long time." Posted Mar 19, 2009 |
Rotten 3/5
| Rotten 43%
| Race to Witch Mountain (2009) | "
Modest and diverting, rough and bland, with some good (if not quite Bette Davis caliber) actors and so-so special effects." Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Fresh 73%
| Sunshine Cleaning (2009) | "
A better title for the movie...would be Sundance Recycling, since the picture is less a free-standing independent film than a scrap-metal robot built after a shopping spree at the Park City Indie Parts and Salvage Warehouse." Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
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