|
|
61%
|
Greetings From Tim Buckley (2013) |
"
Badgley delivers a nuanced performance of such ferocity he almost singlehandedly makes a conventional film seem loose and improvisatory."
—
Village Voice
Posted May 3, 2013
|
|
|
8%
|
The Big Wedding (2013) |
"
Many Hollywood films are founded on privilege, but few are as open and nasty about their racism, misogyny, and homophobia. It's a feel-good movie for people who only comfortable around people who look and act just like them."
—
Village Voice
Posted Apr 26, 2013
|
|
.5/4
|
55%
|
Oblivion (2013) |
"
Absent of any sense of self-awareness, Oblivion seems only self-serious, a ponderous mess both misguided and unaware."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Apr 18, 2013
|
|
|
88%
|
The Angels' Share (2013) |
"
[Its] fleeting slapstick tendency wins out, regrettably diminishing the film's social consciousness in the process."
—
Village Voice
Posted Apr 9, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
16%
|
Temptation (2013) |
"
When its third act erupts into full-blown theatrical maximalism, Tyler Perry's Temptation practically turns into Brian De Palma's Temptation."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 30, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
88%
|
Upstream Color (2013) |
"
Upstream Color is lush, rhythmic, and deeply sensual, a film of exceptional beauty."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 19, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
80%
|
Tower () |
"
Intimate and deeply observational, Tower is one of the most effective character studies in recent memory."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 18, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
47%
|
Olympus Has Fallen (2013) |
"
The film spends its first act establishing a flimsy emotional groundwork before gleefully taking a sledgehammer to it just seconds into act two."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 16, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
41%
|
The Call (2013) |
"
Brad Anderson's film is defined by an often frustrating combination of cleverness and stupidity."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 14, 2013
|
|
1/4
|
37%
|
Dead Man Down (2013) |
"
The action merely meanders when it should be hurtling forward, running in circles when one expects it to head toward a conclusion or some sense of resolution."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 7, 2013
|
|
.5/4
|
59%
|
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) |
"
An amorphous melange of ill-fitting reference points and misappropriated aesthetics, a lumbering family blockbuster both tiresome and wholly indistinct."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 5, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
96%
|
War Witch (2013) |
"
Though ostensibly a character study, it's nevertheless characterized by the vaguely moralizing tone of an issue film, one whose candor in face of brutality seems calculated for maximum liberal appeal."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Feb 28, 2013
|
|
|
——
|
Motorway (Che sau) () |
"
Cheang Pou-soi, touted in many parts as the protégé of beloved auteur Johnny To (who produced the film), still has yet to find a notable voice of his own"
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 22, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
34%
|
Dark Skies (2013) |
"
It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to detect Dark Skies's thinly veiled conservatism, and it doesn't take an undue alarmist to be disturbed by the implications of this sort of fear-mongering."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Feb 22, 2013
|
|
1/4
|
58%
|
Snitch (2013) |
"
Snitch is the latest in a long line of films whose sole purpose is to flatten a major social problem into a pulp ideal for self-serious spectacle."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Feb 20, 2013
|
|
0/4
|
46%
|
Beautiful Creatures (2013) |
"
Beautiful Creatures basically spits in the face of a legacy of literature founded on feelings of exclusion and social alienation."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Feb 10, 2013
|
|
0/4
|
14%
|
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) |
"
Tommy Wirkola's film suggests A Knight's Tale as penned by Seth MacFarlane."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Jan 25, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
85%
|
The Pirogue (2013) |
"
Moussa Touré's worldview, like Ousmane Sembene's, is characterized by the feeling that, at the end of the day, some degree of loss or defeat is inevitable."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Jan 19, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
59%
|
The Last Stand (2013) |
"
One of its most refreshing aspects is its acceptance of both western and action-film conventions on their own terms, refusing to regard itself as operating outside of or superior to the genre."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Jan 15, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
78%
|
Dredd (2012) |
"
Whether by design or otherwise, Dredd seems better-suited to a 2D home video presentation than to the 3D silver screen. "
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Dec 30, 2012
|
|
1/4
|
69%
|
Les Misérables (2012) |
"
One would be hard-pressed to describe this, despite the wealth of beauty on display, as anything but an ugly film, shot and cut ineptly."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Dec 7, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
33%
|
Off White Lies (2012) |
"
Elya Inbar is a surprisingly commanding screen presence, but she's contending with a screenplay plagued by contrivance--a battle few could win. "
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Dec 4, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
75%
|
Killing Them Softly (2012) |
"
The film's cynicism, like everything else, is nothing more than empty posturing, a fashionable pose adopted to ingratiate itself with a disenfranchised public."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Nov 11, 2012
|
|
1/4
|
92%
|
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) |
"
When one stops to consider how irksomely on the nose so much of this is, the qualities which intend to most readily ingratiate the film with us begin to appear perceptibly disingenuous and false."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Nov 10, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
67%
|
Dangerous Liaisons (2012) |
"
Shanghai in the 1930s seems an ideal context from which to offer social criticism, but Dangerous Liaisons forgoes engaging with the political dimension of its story altogether. "
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Nov 7, 2012
|
|
0/4
|
47%
|
A Liar's Autobiography - The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman (2012) |
"
Graham Chapman's story, frankly, is better served by his Wikipedia page."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 28, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
6%
|
Silent Hill: Revelation (2012) |
"
Silent Hill: Revelation fundamentally misunderstands the appeal its source material."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 26, 2012
|
|
1/4
|
25%
|
The Black Tulip (2012) |
"
It fails despite real stakes to distinguish itself in any way from the action-movie fantasies to which we're greatly accustomed."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 25, 2012
|
|
.5/4
|
11%
|
Just 45 Minutes From Broadway (2012) |
"
Henry Jaglom applies what must by now qualify as a tradition of pointless agitation to the disruption of theater. Unsurprisingly, the results are disastrous."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 17, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
85%
|
Bestiaire (2012) |
"
Bestiaire argues persuasively without words, making a case without explicating one at all."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 16, 2012
|
|
.5/4
|
26%
|
War of the Buttons (2012) |
"
Steeped in bromidic period detail and weepy strings, this is a quintessential Weinstein-brand prestige picture, an offense-free portrait of the final days of World War II as a locus of poignantly lost innocence."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 10, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
88%
|
The Big Picture (2012) |
"
Like its protagonist, the film sells out for the security of convention and complacency."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 9, 2012
|
|
4/4
|
74%
|
Leviathan (2013) |
"
Leviathan is a titanic achievement, a visceral overload whose impact registers immediately and with great force."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 5, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
93%
|
Amour (2012) |
"
This isn't the work of a newly moral or humanistic filmmaker, but another ruse by the same unscrupulous showman whose funny games have been beguiling us for years."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 2, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
44%
|
Decoding Deepak (2012) |
"
Unlike his father, Gotham Chopra is more interested in his own latent daddy issues than with questions of cosmic import."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Sep 29, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
65%
|
Solomon Kane (2012) |
"
The fight choreography has a gracefulness bordering on elegance, and so it's a shame that these standalone thrills aren't better integrated into the film as a fully formed narrative whole."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Sep 27, 2012
|
|
.5/4
|
57%
|
Doctored (2012) |
"
Bobby Sheehan doesn't just squander his objectivity, he drowns it out with bleating strings."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Sep 19, 2012
|
|
|
74%
|
Laurence Anyways (2013) |
"
Dolan is smart enough to perceive in bad words and actions the deeper import they betray."
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2012
|
|
|
66%
|
Spring Breakers (2013) |
"
This is a film that should, in theory, offer principally superficial pleasures, and yet somehow its glossy, appealing aesthetics form only one part of a considerably richer work."
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2012
|
|
|
67%
|
Cloud Atlas (2012) |
"
Cloud Atlas is a unique and totally unparalleled disaster."
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2012
|
|
|
82%
|
Sightseers (2013) |
"
Sightseers is probably the straight-up funniest film I've seen this year"
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Last Time I Saw Macao () |
"
Eisenstein once said that if images divide, sound unites, and that's an aphorism I suspect Rodrigues had in mind while crafting this film."
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Girl Most Likely (2013) |
"
A dismal, D-grade sitcom stretched out to wafer-thin feature length."
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2012
|
|
|
50%
|
Post Tenebras Lux (2013) |
"
Giving yourself over to Reygadas and trusting him to deliver in the end is rewarding even without a clear-cut roadmap."
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
33%
|
Snowman's Land (2012) |
"
A tonal hodgepodge ever at odds with itself, Tomasz Thomson's unctuous, tongue-in-cheek debut is far too self-satisfied with its jokes for any to really be funny."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Sep 16, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
86%
|
The Master (2012) |
"
The Master is Paul Thomas Anderson with the edges sanded off, the best bits shorn down to nubs."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Sep 10, 2012
|
|
|
67%
|
Cloud Atlas (2012) |
"
Tom Tykwer and Andy and Lana Wachowski wanted to make a movie unlike any other, and they certainly did: Cloud Atlas is a unique and totally unparalleled disaster."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Sep 9, 2012
|
|
0.5/4
|
5%
|
The Cold Light of Day (2012) |
"
Relates more or less the same story as Spy Kids, though in this case the kid is in his late 20s and the spy stuff is much less believable or robust."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Sep 4, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
93%
|
Wild Horse, Wild Ride (2012) |
"
If this sounds like the premise of one of those tiresome Discovery Channel docu-tainments, it's because it essentially is, only heavily abbreviated to fit the feature-film format."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Aug 23, 2012
|
|
.5/4
|
83%
|
Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012) |
"
A vaporous, watered-down frappe of a fantasy epic."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Aug 16, 2012
|
73%
21%
63%
85%
46%
40%
