Rotten
| Fresh 66%
| Public Enemies (2009) | "
It's like spending an afternoon -- a long one -- at a beautifully lit wax-museum display inspired by earlier gangster movies." — Slate Posted Jul 1, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 96%
| The Hurt Locker (2009) | "
By keeping its scale miniature instead of epic (there are no combat scenes in the traditional sense), The Hurt Locker keeps its audience in a constant state of tension without risking battle fatigue." — Slate Posted Jun 26, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 19%
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) | "
The simplest thing Bay could have done to clarify the stakes of the robot wars would be to visually distinguish the robots from one another in some way. Armbands? Shirts and skins? "Hello, My Name Is" stickers?" — Slate Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 46%
| Whatever Works (2009) | "
The idea of wedding Woody Allen's comic persona (the introverted nebbish) to Larry David's (the entitled jerk) sounds promising on paper, but as Boris portentously observes just before his unsuccessful suicide attempt, life doesn't take place on paper." — Slate Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 17%
| Year One (2009) | "
Year One is a slapdash concoction with an overreliance on scatological gags and a long lag time between laughs. I freely admit that. Yet I have a certain affection for this movie, if only because of its conceptual simplicity." — Slate Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 66%
| Away We Go (2009) | "
Away We Go is like a disappointing term paper by a promising student." — Slate Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 28%
| Land of the Lost (2009) | "
Land of the Lost is an enjoyable regression to Saturday mornings gone by, as junky and sweet as a strawberry Pop-Tart." — Slate Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 78%
| The Hangover (2009) | "
This kind of 'one crazy night' tale relies on drum-tight structure to work. Without it, The Hangover sputters to a sentimental halt." — Slate Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 97%
| Up (2009) | "
What's marvelous about Up is how confidently it assumes the audience will smartly follow wherever it wants to take us." — Slate Posted May 28, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 58%
| The Girlfriend Experience (2009) | "
Though the result is thematically slight, it's structurally sophisticated enough to reward a second viewing (or at least, unlike Grey's previous work, to be watched all the way through)." — Slate Posted May 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 32%
| Terminator Salvation (2009) | "
A good summer movie isn't just an uninterrupted crescendo of cacophony. You need stuff in between the fireballs and the cyborgs." — Slate Posted May 21, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 47%
| Management (2009) | "
Despite the essential implausibility of the story, Management remains for the most part as endearing as its leads." — Slate Posted May 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 62%
| The Brothers Bloom (2009) | "
One question rings hollowly in the brain for the length this painfully twee romp: What hath Wes Anderson wrought?" — Slate Posted May 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 37%
| Angels & Demons (2009) | "
If nothing else, Angels & Demons proves that, as McGuffins go, a cylinder of antimatter is more fun than the Holy Grail." — Slate Posted May 14, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 70%
| Rudo and Cursi (2009) | "
I won't tell you who wins the Rudo/Cursi showdown, but when it comes to the Cuarón brothers, my money's on Alfonso." — Slate Posted May 8, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 95%
| Star Trek (2009) | "
Abrams' cannily constructed prequel respects (for the most part) the rules of that world and, more importantly, retains the original Star Trek's spirit of optimism, curiosity, and humor." — Slate Posted May 7, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 36%
| X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) | "
Even by the standard of a fourth-in-a-series summer blockbuster, Wolverine is remarkably lame." — Slate Posted Apr 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 86%
| Tyson (2009) | "
It's a movie that's thought-provoking without being intelligent and candid without being truthful. The same aesthetic choices that [director] Toback seems convinced will set his documentary apart are also what diminishes its credibility." — Slate Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 85%
| State of Play (2009) | "
Instead of luring us down an ever-darker and twistier path, it strands us in a tedious and ill-designed maze." — Slate Posted Apr 16, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 98%
| Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) | "
Anvil!'s deep kinship with Spinal Tap is more than circumstantial. Both films are, at heart, portraits of a lifelong collaboration between two musicians as dedicated as they are delusional." — Slate Posted Apr 10, 2009 |
— | Fresh 62%
| The History Boys (2006) |
Click here to read article — Slate Posted Apr 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 51%
| Observe and Report (2009) | "
Observe and Report tickets should come with a free breath mint, because however hard you've been laughing, that ending leaves a seriously bad taste in your mouth." — Slate Posted Apr 9, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 88%
| Adventureland (2009) | "
Adventureland, Greg Mottola's tale of coming of age in Pittsburgh in 1987, has the note-perfect melancholy of a classic young adult novel." — Slate Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 93%
| Sugar (2009) | "
The most remarkable thing Sugar does is give American viewers a sense of how our country must seem to a newly arrived immigrant, without caricaturing or condescending to either guest or host." — Slate Posted Apr 2, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| Goodbye Solo (2009) | "
There's hope yet for world cinema if an Iranian-American director can take the premise of an Iranian film, set it in North Carolina, cast the lead roles with an African fashion model and Elvis Presley's former bodyguard, and produce something utterly new." — Slate Posted Mar 26, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 82%
| I Love You, Man (2009) | "
Though the script doesn't always rise to their level, I Love You, Man is more than worth seeing for the chemistry between the shambling Segel and the endlessly inventive Rudd." — Slate Posted Mar 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 66%
| Duplicity (2009) | "
Duplicity plays as a less-successful comic remake of Michael Clayton." — Slate Posted Mar 19, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 89%
| Z (1969) | "
Z combines the intellectual heft of revolution-themed films like The Battle of Algiers with the drop-dead cool of mod touchstones like Blow Out or Le Samouraï." — Slate Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 73%
| Sunshine Cleaning (2009) | "
Adams and Blunt are just as determined to make this movie work as the Lorkowskis are to better their lot in life. Their luminescence and pluck, not to mention those two hypnotizing sets of eyeballs, carry the day." — Slate Posted Mar 12, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 58%
| Phoebe In Wonderland (2009) | "
[Elle Fanning is] an astonishingly natural and unmannered actress who carries this rather ungainly movie on her narrow shoulders." — Slate Posted Mar 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 64%
| Watchmen (2009) | "
Watchmen fans wondering whether their graphic novel has been ruined will be thrilled to see its key scenes reproduced with storyboardlike fidelity, but those who've never read it will be unlikely to understand what the big deal was in the first place." — Slate Posted Mar 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Crossing Over (2009) | "
All of its plot threads are equally dreadworthy." — Slate Posted Feb 26, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 84%
| Two Lovers (2009) | "
The movie's occasionally risible sincerity is what sets the flawed but riveting Two Lovers apart from other recent films about young New Yorkers in love." — Slate Posted Feb 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 23%
| Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) | "
If you spin out the unintended analogy of Confessions of a Shopaholic to the current financial crisis, the film starts to mutate from a not-that-funny comedy into a tragic allegory." — Slate Posted Feb 12, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 88%
| Coraline (2009) | "
Like Coraline in the doppelgänger world, we swoon over all the neat stuff without ever making ourselves at home." — Slate Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| New in Town (2009) | "
For many Americans, the only believable part of New in Town may be its ominous premise: There's a rich jerk in town, and she's come to take away your job." — Slate Posted Jan 29, 2009 |
Fresh
| Rotten 34%
| Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) | "
As cheapo larks go, it's a winningly unassuming one: no stars, no big action set pieces. Just a fat guy, a near-empty mall, and a lot of really ridiculous ideas." — Slate Posted Jan 16, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Notorious (2009) | "
The best way to remember Biggie Smalls is to listen to "Juicy" or "Things Done Changed" or any of the virtuosic autobiographical raps in which Christopher Wallace paints his own world with more immediacy and wit than Notorious ever manages to muster." — Slate Posted Jan 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 72%
| The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) | "
Fincher's magic can't transform him from the coldly dispassionate misanthropist of Se7en, Fight Club, and Zodiac into a sentimental humanist, and it can't turn Brad Pitt into the kind of actor who can carry a movie like this." — Slate Posted Dec 25, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 69%
| Revolutionary Road (2008) | "
Why does the movie feel as pleasantly deadening as the midcentury Connecticut suburb where it takes place?" — Slate Posted Dec 24, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 60%
| Valkyrie (2008) | "
For a thriller with a thoroughly foreordained outcome, Valkyrie does a pretty good job at making the viewer's palms sweat." — Slate Posted Dec 24, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 97%
| The Class (2008) | "
You walk out of the theater feeling unsettled, curious, and passionate to talk -- as if you just spent two hours in the best class you ever took." — Slate Posted Dec 18, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 43%
| Yes Man (2008) | "
Perhaps Yes Man's writers got confused by the film's tag line, 'Yes Is the New No.' In honor of that convoluted axiom, here's my one-word review. Should you go see Yes Man?: Yes." — Slate Posted Dec 18, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 98%
| The Wrestler (2008) | "
The scruffy, almost accidental beauty of The Wrestler comes as even more of a surprise than the greatness of Mickey Rourke's performance." — Slate Posted Dec 17, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 79%
| Gran Torino (2008) | "
This is the better by far of the two movies Eastwood has made this year, a stripped-down alternative to the overupholstered Changeling." — Slate Posted Dec 15, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 78%
| Doubt (2008) | "
Cinematically, Doubt is something of a dud. But if it remains a play, it's an ingeniously structured one, with smart, thought-provoking words spoken by fabulous actors." — Slate Posted Dec 15, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 62%
| The Reader (2008) | "
A titillating romance that suddenly morphs into a suspense-free courtroom drama, then trickles off in a wan coda of hand-wringing." — Slate Posted Dec 11, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 92%
| Frost/Nixon (2008) | "
Taking its cues from Rocky rather than All the President's Men, [Peter] Morgan's compact, satisfying drama presents presidential interviewing as a gladiatorial event." — Slate Posted Dec 5, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 68%
| Cadillac Records (2008) | "
One of the strengths of Cadillac Records, written and directed by Darnell Martin, is that it's a movie about music by someone who genuinely seems to enjoy listening to music." — Slate Posted Dec 5, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 94%
| Milk (2008) | "
It's nice to see Penn play a character of Spicoli-like sweetness and openness, rather than the glowering lugs that have become his specialty." — Slate Posted Nov 26, 2008 |
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