A.O. Scott Movie Reviews & Previews

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A.O. Scott

Agrees with the Tomatometer 76% of the time.

Publications:: At the Movies , New York Times
Critics' Group:: New York Film Critics Circle

Total Reviews:: 1817

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Showing 51 - 100 of 1817

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
3.5/5	52%	This is 40 (2012)	" There are a lot of loose ends and a few forced conclusions. But, then again, the acceptance of imperfection is Mr. Apatow's theme, so a degree of sloppiness is to be expected. That's life." — New York Times Posted Dec 20, 2012
1.5/5	61%	Jack Reacher (2012)	" The self-confident, supercompetent Reacher is a character Mr. Cruise could play in his sleep, which is pretty much what he does." — New York Times Posted Dec 20, 2012
2/5	65%	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)	" Tolkien's inventive, episodic tale of a modest homebody on a dangerous journey has been turned into an overscale and plodding spectacle." — New York Times Posted Dec 13, 2012
5/5	89%	Consuming Spirits (2012)	" At a time when animation is expected to be computer-generated, three-dimensional and relentlessly upbeat, Mr. Sullivan's film is flat, handmade and melancholy, a dark and painful fantasy for grown-ups." — New York Times Posted Dec 11, 2012
5/5	88%	Tchoupitoulas (2012)	" It is alive with the risk and curiosity of youth, and unapologetic in insisting that the pursuit of fun can be a profound and transformative experience." — New York Times Posted Dec 6, 2012
1.5/5	19%	Lay the Favorite (2012)	" Best to say as little as possible, cut one's losses and move on." — New York Times Posted Dec 6, 2012
2.5/5	84%	Dragon (2012)	" As a whole, it does not quite work, especially at the end, when Mr. Chan tries for a Shakespearean climax of filial rebellion and paternal rage." — New York Times Posted Nov 29, 2012
2/5	75%	Killing Them Softly (2012)	" The movie is more concerned with conjuring an aura of meaningfulness than with actually meaning anything." — New York Times Posted Nov 29, 2012
3.5/5	98%	Beware Of Mr. Baker (2012)	" Mr. Bulger ... does not let "Behind the Music" sensationalism overwhelm the music itself, which is Mr. Baker's great passion and the only reason anyone should take an interest in him." — New York Times Posted Nov 27, 2012
4/5	92%	The Gatekeepers (2013)	" It is hard to imagine a movie about the Middle East that could be more timely, more painfully urgent, more challenging to conventional wisdom on all sides of the conflict." — New York Times Posted Nov 25, 2012
4/5	82%	De rouille et d'os (Rust and Bone) (2012)	" "Rust and Bone" is a strong, emotionally replete experience, and also a tour de force of directorial button pushing." — New York Times Posted Nov 22, 2012
3.5/5	74%	Rise of the Guardians (2012)	" The busy, 3-D animation relies a bit too much on madcap flight sequences and vast, vaulted spaces, but the character design has real warmth, and the animation is frequently witty and sometimes mesmerizing." — New York Times Posted Nov 20, 2012
2/5	88%	Life of Pi (2012)	" The movie invites you to believe in all kinds of marvelous things, but it also may cause you to doubt what you see with your own eyes - or even to wonder if, in the end, you have seen anything at all." — New York Times Posted Nov 20, 2012
1/5	46%	The Comedy (2012)	" If you can discern any critical distance or interesting perspective here, or even a good reason to spend 90 minutes in such company, I'm afraid the joke is on you." — New York Times Posted Nov 15, 2012
4/5	98%	Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God (2012)	" There is something to be said for a clear and unblinking recitation of facts, and thankfully Mr. Gibney does a lot of that." — New York Times Posted Nov 15, 2012
5/5	64%	Anna Karenina (2012)	" It is risky and ambitious enough to count as an act of artistic hubris, and confident enough to triumph on its own slightly - wonderfully - crazy terms." — New York Times Posted Nov 15, 2012
3/5	81%	In Another Country (2013)	" A movie may be a representation of the world, but it is also something that happens in the world, which means that sustaining a cinematic illusion and breaking it are equally beside the point." — New York Times Posted Nov 8, 2012
2/5	89%	A Royal Affair (2012)	" Unfortunately it never fully comes to life." — New York Times Posted Nov 8, 2012
5/5	89%	Lincoln (2012)	" To say that this is among the finest films ever made about American politics may be to congratulate it for clearing a fairly low bar. " — New York Times Posted Nov 8, 2012
3.5/5	68%	This Must Be The Place (2012)	" The plot turns are playful as well as jolting, and the visual shocks are gentle: a bison on the porch, the world's largest pistachio, Mr. Penn in his makeup." — New York Times Posted Nov 1, 2012
2/5	76%	The Bay (2012)	" There is a lot of nasty stuff to look at, but very little that is genuinely haunting, jolting or terrifying." — New York Times Posted Nov 1, 2012
5/5	86%	Wreck-it Ralph (2012)	" The movie invites a measure of cynicism - which it proceeds to obliterate with a 93-minute blast of color, noise, ingenuity and fun." — New York Times Posted Nov 1, 2012
5/5	100%	The Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling - Ireland 1965 ()	" Mostly ... what you see is the intensity of rock 'n' roll at a time when it still felt risky and thrilling." — New York Times Posted Oct 25, 2012
3/5	79%	The Other Son (2012)	" Ms. Lévy is rescued from her maudlin, preachy tendencies by the skill and sensitivity of the actors, who turn a wobbly parable of tolerance into a graceful and touching story of real people in a surreal situation." — New York Times Posted Oct 25, 2012
3.5/5	70%	The Loneliest Planet (2012)	" It is gripping and haunting, but also coy and elusive." — New York Times Posted Oct 25, 2012
3/5	67%	Cloud Atlas (2012)	" This is by no means the best movie of the year, but it may be the most movie you can get for the price of a single ticket." — New York Times Posted Oct 25, 2012
3/5	68%	Wuthering Heights (2012)	" An admirable, frustrating attempt to strip away the novel's inherited "classic" status and restore its raw and earthy passion." — New York Times Posted Oct 4, 2012
3/5	87%	Frankenweenie (2012)	" While "Frankenweenie" is fun, it is not nearly strange or original enough to join the undead, monstrous ranks of the classics it adores." — New York Times Posted Oct 4, 2012
2.5/5	44%	The Paperboy (2012)	" It is by turns lurid, humid, florid, languid and stupid, but it is pretty much all id all the time." — New York Times Posted Oct 4, 2012
1.5/5	32%	Won't Back Down (2012)	" However you take its politics, the film upholds a dreary tradition of simplifying and sentimentalizing matters of serious social concern, and dumbing down issues that call for clarity and creative thinking." — New York Times Posted Sep 27, 2012
4/5	88%	Head Games (2012)	" "Head Games" gains credibility and power from compassion for athletes and respect for their accomplishments. But it also tries to open the eyes of sports lovers to dangers that have too often been minimized and too seldom fully understood. " — New York Times Posted Sep 20, 2012
3/5	51%	Trouble with the Curve (2012)	" The pat and occasionally preposterous story is really just a pretext, a serviceable scaffolding for a handful of expert, satisfying performances." — New York Times Posted Sep 20, 2012
3.5/5	100%	Radio Unnameable (2012)	" It can make you wish - or, if you're lucky, remember - that you were a sleepless New Yorker in 1967, kept from loneliness by a gentle, soulful voice on the radio." — New York Times Posted Sep 18, 2012
5/5	86%	The Master (2012)	" This is a movie that defies understanding even as it compels reverent, astonished belief." — New York Times Posted Sep 13, 2012
4/5	60%	I'm Carolyn Parker: The Good, The Mad and the Beautiful (2012)	" She is undoubtedly someone you should know." — New York Times Posted Sep 11, 2012
3/5	73%	Hello I Must Be Going (2012)	" [It's] better than the story it has to tell, and that is thanks to the bravery and sensitivity of Ms. Lynskey's performance and the sweet, intense love affair that is the film's main concern." — New York Times Posted Sep 6, 2012
3.5/5	90%	Keep the Lights On (2012)	" The look, mood and rhythm of the film are exquisitely, even thrillingly authentic." — New York Times Posted Sep 6, 2012
2.5/5	66%	For Ellen (2012)	" It teeters on the line that separates drama from anecdote." — New York Times Posted Sep 4, 2012
4/5	95%	Side by Side (2012)	" For a film geek this movie is absolute heaven, a dream symposium in which directors, cinematographers, editors and a few actors gather to opine on the details of their craft." — New York Times Posted Aug 30, 2012
2.5/5	53%	Little Birds (2012)	" It is hard not to be reminded of other movies - like Larry Clark's "Kids," Nick Cassavetes's "Alpha Dog," Andrea Arnold's "Fish Tank" - that explore similar territory with greater risk and originality." — New York Times Posted Aug 29, 2012
2.5/5	29%	The Oogieloves in The Big Balloon Adventure (2012)	" Nobody is mean in this movie. They talk very loud." — New York Times Posted Aug 29, 2012
3/5	78%	The Ambassador (2012)	" Mr. Brugger's portrait of shameless, routine collusion between exploitative foreigners and dysfunctional dictatorships is depressing and undeniable." — New York Times Posted Aug 29, 2012
2/5	67%	Lawless (2012)	" Mr. Hardy mostly grunts, growls and ribbits, occasionally interrupting his angry bullfrog impersonation to deliver down-home bromides that make him sound like Toby Keith choking on a Cheeto." — New York Times Posted Aug 28, 2012
3/5	77%	Samsara (2012)	" The world "Samsara" gives us is strange and beautiful, and in places disturbing, but it also seems manageable, even in its vastness, and perhaps too easily consumed through beautiful images." — New York Times Posted Aug 23, 2012
3/5	94%	Neighbouring Sounds (2012)	" With his sound designer, Pablo Lamar, Mr. Mendonça has created the aural landscape of a horror movie." — New York Times Posted Aug 23, 2012
4/5	55%	Beloved (2012)	" "Beloved" is at once whimsical and heartfelt, alive to the absurdity and perversity of amorous behavior and also to the gravity and intensity of human emotions." — New York Times Posted Aug 16, 2012
3/5	75%	Chicken with Plums (2012)	" This richly embroidered tale feels more anecdotal than epic, less like a fully imagined film than like a series of beguiling and beautiful pictures." — New York Times Posted Aug 16, 2012
2/5	34%	The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)	" The ghastliness of this damp and squishy comedy is the byproduct of a confused and earnest sentimentality, a willful devotion to wide-eyed wonder that confuses simplicity with simple-mindedness." — New York Times Posted Aug 15, 2012
4/5	——	Max and the Junkmen (2012)	" Has the matter-of-fact look and careful pace of a precinct-house procedural." — New York Times Posted Aug 9, 2012
3/5	65%	2 Days in New York (2012)	" The film, which is about a chaotic 48 hours in Marion's life, succumbs to the chaos it depicts, and so undermines its best intentions. It is, all in all, a likable mess." — New York Times Posted Aug 9, 2012
2.5/5	65%	The Campaign (2012)	" It's like a sober, centrist, irrelevant op-ed column, but with bad words and belly laughs." — New York Times Posted Aug 9, 2012
2/5	31%	Total Recall (2012)	" This premise contains the seeds of an interesting economic and political allegory, but the ambitions of the filmmakers - Len Wiseman directed a script by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback - lie in the direction of maximum noise and minimum sense." — New York Times Posted Aug 2, 2012
3.5/5	79%	Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2012)	" More moving than shocking, it proceeds slowly and gracefully, and the few scenes of bloodshed are emotionally intense rather than showily sensational." — New York Times Posted Jul 19, 2012
3.5/5	95%	The Queen of Versailles (2012)	" Captures the tone of the times with a clear, surprisingly compassionate eye." — New York Times Posted Jul 19, 2012
3/5	63%	Union Square (2012)	" "Union Square" has the busy, hemmed-in talkiness of a theater piece, with too much forced to happen in too short a time. But it also has a lively, nervous energy and an expansive sympathy for the mismatched women at its heart." — New York Times Posted Jul 12, 2012
3/5	75%	Alps (2012)	" Oblique connections are the threads that hold this film together, as Mr. Lanthimos moves from one somber, deliberate scene to the next." — New York Times Posted Jul 12, 2012
3/5	37%	Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)	" "Continental Drift," like its predecessors, is much too friendly to dislike, and its vision of interspecies multiculturalism is generous and appealing." — New York Times Posted Jul 12, 2012
3.5/5	51%	Savages (2012)	" "Savages" is a daylight noir, a western, a stoner buddy movie and a love story, which is to say that it is a bit of a mess. But also a lot of fun, especially as its pulp elements rub up against some gritty geopolitical and economic themes." — New York Times Posted Jul 5, 2012
3/5	77%	Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)	" "Part of Me" will never be mistaken for "The Red Shoes" (though Ms. Perry has some of those, as well as every other color), but her negotiation of the painfully competing demands of stardom and marriage is undeniably poignant." — New York Times Posted Jul 4, 2012
4/5	78%	Take This Waltz (2012)	" Ms. Polley, as a writer, a director of actors and a constructor of images, excels at managing the idiosyncrasies and contradictions of her characters so that our knowledge of them is both intimate and mined with potential surprise." — New York Times Posted Jun 28, 2012
2/5	69%	Ted (2012)	" The sin of "Ted" is not that it is offensive but that it is boring, lazy and wildly unoriginal. If Triumph the Insult Comic Dog ever got a hold of Ted, there would be nothing left but a pile of fluff and a few scraps of fur." — New York Times Posted Jun 28, 2012
4/5	86%	Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)	" This movie is a blast of sheer, improbable joy, a boisterous, thrilling action movie with a protagonist who can hold her own alongside Katniss Everdeen, Princess Merida and the other brave young heroines of 2012." — New York Times Posted Jun 26, 2012
2.5/5	55%	Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)	" It seems downright unfair that billions of people have to die so that a middle-aged sad sack can cop a cuddle with a cute, younger bohemian neighbor." — New York Times Posted Jun 21, 2012
3.5/5	100%	The Invisible War (2012)	" This is not a movie that can be ignored." — New York Times Posted Jun 21, 2012
3.5/5	43%	To Rome with Love (2012)	" One of the most delightful things about "To Rome With Love" is how casually it blends the plausible and the surreal, and how unabashedly it revels in pure silliness." — New York Times Posted Jun 21, 2012
3.5/5	50%	Americano (2012)	" It is wistful and nostalgic, and at the same time full of restless curiosity." — New York Times Posted Jun 14, 2012
3/5	83%	Your Sister's Sister (2012)	" The picture is, intermittently, delightful to contemplate." — New York Times Posted Jun 14, 2012
3/5	95%	Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (2012)	" Ms. Abramovic is an eloquent and passionate explicator of her art and the experiences that informed it." — New York Times Posted Jun 12, 2012
2/5	34%	Lola Versus (2012)	" In spite of its scruffy look and slack pacing, it often rings as false as any of the big, shiny and soft studio rom-coms (starring Kate Hudson or Katherine Heigl, say) of the last decade." — New York Times Posted Jun 7, 2012
3.5/5	73%	Dark Horse (2012)	" Its departures from realism have the effect of enlarging the narrow, unremarkable lives that are its focus, and by extension the audience's sense of what those lives might mean." — New York Times Posted Jun 7, 2012
3.5/5	74%	Prometheus (2012)	" Mr. Scott's sense of visual scale, which has often produced hectic, hectoring grandiosity (are you not entertained?), achieves, especially in the first hour, something like genuine grandeur." — New York Times Posted Jun 7, 2012
4/5	89%	Historias que so existem quando lembradas (Found Memories) (2012)	" The drama in "Found Memories" is subdued, sometimes almost invisible, but it moves with quiet assurance toward a startling conclusion." — New York Times Posted May 31, 2012
4/5	81%	A Cat in Paris (2012)	" A nifty little caper in which blustery gangsters, intrepid detectives, cat burglars (one of them literally feline) and a little girl named Zoé scamper across nighttime rooftops unraveling a pleasantly tangled plot. " — New York Times Posted May 31, 2012
3/5	48%	Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)	" There is something exciting about how seriously "Snow White and the Huntsman" takes its themes." — New York Times Posted May 31, 2012
4/5	95%	5 Broken Cameras (2012)	" "5 Broken Cameras" provides a grim reminder - just in case you needed one - of the bitter intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." — New York Times Posted May 30, 2012
3.5/5	98%	Oslo, August 31st (2012)	" "Oslo, August 31st" has the satisfying gravity of specific experience, and also, true to its title, a prickly sense of place." — New York Times Posted May 24, 2012
3.5/5	86%	Battle Royale 3D (2000)	" Awful deaths (and hysterical reactions to them) punctuate declarations of love and friendship, revelations of treachery and heavily armed expressions of angst." — New York Times Posted May 24, 2012
3/5	75%	The Intouchables (2012)	" It is possible to summarize the experience of watching "The Intouchables" in nine words: You will laugh; you will cry; you will cringe." — New York Times Posted May 24, 2012
3.5/5	70%	Men in Black III (2012)	" "Men in Black 3" arrives in the multiplexes of the world with no particular agenda. Which may be part of the reason that it turns out to be so much fun." — New York Times Posted May 24, 2012
4/5	88%	Polisse (2012)	" [A] long, unruly, gripping film." — New York Times Posted May 17, 2012
3/5	77%	The Color Wheel (2012)	" Sly, daring, genuinely original and at times perversely brilliant." — New York Times Posted May 17, 2012
3/5	22%	What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)	" The overall mood is of warm reassurance, and some of it is even pretty funny." — New York Times Posted May 17, 2012
2/5	58%	The Dictator (2012)	" Potential is mostly squandered in "The Dictator," which gestures halfheartedly toward topicality and, with equal lack of conviction, toward pure, anarchic silliness. " — New York Times Posted May 15, 2012
3/5	40%	Tonight You're Mine (2012)	" "Tonight You're Mine" is as ephemeral as its title - as thin as a jukebox dime but pretty catchy all the same." — New York Times Posted May 10, 2012
3/5	29%	Girl In Progress (2012)	" Does it pull out all the melodramatic stops toward the end? Does it resolve its many climactic crises too neatly and too sweetly? Yes on both counts. But, then again, what did you expect?" — New York Times Posted May 10, 2012
3.5/5	94%	Patience (After Sebald) (2012)	" Curious souls new to this writer will discover a useful introduction (including passages from "The Rings of Saturn," read by the actor Jonathan Pryce) and a handy map." — New York Times Posted May 8, 2012
3.5/5	86%	Last Call at the Oasis (2012)	" Ms. Yu, who has directed scripted television episodes as well as documentaries, wraps a lot of bad news into a slick, informative, fast-moving package." — New York Times Posted May 3, 2012
2/5	93%	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	" The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre." — New York Times Posted May 3, 2012
2.5/5	23%	The Raven (2012)	" Mr. Cusack works himself into a lather trying to reconcile the contradictory parts of an incoherent character. In, I am sorry to say, an incoherent movie." — New York Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
4/5	64%	The Five-Year Engagement (2012)	" "The Five-Year Engagement" dutifully hits the marks of its genre, but it is also about the unpredictability of life and the everyday challenges of love. The sensitivity and honesty with which it addresses those matters is a pleasant surprise." — New York Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
2.5/5	71%	Payback (2012)	" You can't help feeling that the movie owed its subject - and its audience - a bit more." — New York Times Posted Apr 24, 2012
1.5/5	22%	Darling Companion (2012)	" How much more fulfilling it would have been to spend those hundred-odd minutes chasing a squirrel, taking a nap or disemboweling a stuffed animal on the living room rug." — New York Times Posted Apr 19, 2012
4/5	80%	Goodbye First Love (2012)	" It examines, with compassion and clarity, a young woman's discovery of passion and also of the pain, disappointment and partial wisdom that follow." — New York Times Posted Apr 19, 2012
3/5	20%	The Lucky One (2012)	" The sun breaks through the clouds, you smile through your tears, and your cynicism - even the tiny voice in your head crying out, "Wait, none of this makes any sense!" - is silenced by sweet music and swelling sentiment." — New York Times Posted Apr 19, 2012
2/5	92%	The Cabin in the Woods (2012)	" There is a scholarly, nerdy, completist sensibility at work here that is impressive until it becomes exhausting." — New York Times Posted Apr 12, 2012
3/5	84%	Post Mortem (2012)	" [A] grim, intense, mordantly comic little film..." — New York Times Posted Apr 10, 2012
2/5	33%	The Lady (2012)	" Paralyzes history and human drama with relentless hagiography." — New York Times Posted Apr 10, 2012
3.5/5	70%	Keyhole (2012)	" To a die-hard Maddinite this may be a little disappointing, but for that reason "Keyhole" may also be a perfect gateway into the bizarre and fertile world of a unique film artist." — New York Times Posted Apr 5, 2012
2.5/5	44%	American Reunion (2012)	" It has some good moments, but it goes on too long, and not enough happens that is likely to create new memories." — New York Times Posted Apr 5, 2012

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