Cynthia Fuchs Movie Reviews & Previews

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Cynthia Fuchs

Agrees with the Tomatometer 80% of the time.

Publications:: Common Sense Media , Nitrate Online , NPR.org , Philadelphia City Paper , PopMatters , PopPolitics.com , Time to Play Magazine
Critics' Group:: Online Film Critics Society, Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association

Total Reviews:: 2877
Total QuickRatings:: 1

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Showing 151 - 200 of 2877

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	24%	Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)	" Bella makes her way toward "the kingdom where nobody dies" by being rather ingeniously resilient, completely predictable and frustrating, punished and punishing. She's 18, again and still." — PopMatters Posted Dec 7, 2011
	82%	Incendiary: The Willingham Case (2011)	" Incendiary contends that even if it's too late to save Todd Willingham, it's also long past time for the officials who ignored this obligation, Rick Perry included, to own up." — PopMatters Posted Oct 17, 2011
8/10	100%	Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone (2011)	" Its vibrant, unusual form is a function of its multiple approaches. While it includes interviews, family photos, and footage of the band's electrifying performances, it also features animated sequences and competing accounts of particular events." — PopMatters Posted Oct 5, 2011
	79%	Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)	" Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) wants to go to war. It's 1942, and he's a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, too scrawny, according to army doctors, to join up. " — Time to Play Magazine Posted Sep 8, 2011
	98%	Project Nim (2011)	" Project Nim doesn't try to reconcile its different understandings of Nim -- as an experiment, a child, a projection of various selves, and a complex, independent being. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	96%	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)	" Deathly Hallows Part 2's most evocative moments generally have him thinking about death, not just his own, but also others'." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	90%	Winnie the Pooh (2011)	" As props and as emblems, as metaphors and things, the words are the basis of friendship, the means to understanding and communication and sharing." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	91%	Tabloid (2011)	" On first look, Errol Morris' documentary appears to tell McKinney's story, drawing from the story reported by British tabloids in 1977. But it's also about truth and storytelling more broadly, the ways stories escape their tellers." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	71%	Friends With Benefits (2011)	" Dylan and Jamie have best friends, sounding boards so you can know what they're thinking, because if they didn't say it out loud you wouldn't be able to tell they were thinking, at all. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	100%	Better This World (2011)	" As Better This World puts together the pieces of Brad Crowley and David McKay's stories, it appears they weren't always aware of what was going on around them." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	60%	El Bulli: Cooking In Progress (2011)	" In El Bulli: Cooking in Process, the chef Ferran Adrià hovers and nods, sits and tastes, or -- most often -- walks through the frame, head bent and phone to his ear." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	72%	The Future (2011)	" As they contemplate the difference between a couple of months and five years, Sophie and Jason begin to think more substantively about time." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	44%	Cowboys & Aliens (2011)	" As always, the men's transformations -- from selfish, ignorant individuals into something like a community -- are helped along by their union against a common enemy." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	69%	sleep furiously. (2011)	" Sleep Furiously returns again and again to this idea of transition: seasons change, cows go out to pasture and come in for milking, piglets are born, lambs follow their mothers as dogs herd them. Farming traditions are dynamic." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	73%	The Whistleblower (2011)	" As Kathy suffers, you suffer, but, The Whistleblower insists, you will never know the full extent of the trafficked victims' suffering." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	73%	Bellflower (2011)	" In Bellflower, Woodrow may have an ideal girl in mind, but he's unable to articulate his vision." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	23%	The Smurfs (2011)	" Everyone knows the Smurfs sing all day - and also that their song is repetitive and annoying. " — Time to Play Magazine Posted Sep 8, 2011
	79%	Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2011)	" Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow provides a series of evocative but also elusive compositions, as well as some contemplations." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	100%	Summer Pasture (2011)	" Yama doesn't need to seek work, as she reveals throughout the remarkable documentary, Summer Pasture." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	80%	Darwin ()	" As Darwin shows again and again, not talking can be its own form of storytelling. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	100%	Semper Fi: Always Faithful (2012)	" Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger is the kind of person, you come to see in Semper Fi: Always Faithful, who takes the Marine Corps' credo utterly seriously. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	——	The Carrier ()	" Mutinta gazes steadily into the camera, her face at once composed and stricken. Her story unfolds slowly in The Carrier." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	24%	Conan the Barbarian (2011)	" The film demonizes the witchy Marique (Rose McGowan), so she even worries her evil scum dad. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	60%	Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (2011)	" The kids from Glee take to the concert stage in Glee 3D Concert Movie, singing and dancing and smiling to beat the band. " — Time to Play Magazine Posted Sep 8, 2011
	92%	Senna (2011)	" Ayrton Senna was a phenomenon, and as such, he was filmed, interviewed, and photographed repeatedly throughout his career, images now assembled as the documentary Senna. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	72%	Fright Night (2011)	" As much as boys in Charley's position (fatherless, bullied, not as witty as he'd like to think) might want approval from older guys, Charley's rather surrounded by unsuitable role models." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	23%	Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D (2011)	" The stars of the old Spy Kids movies are no longer kids, of course. Spy Kids 3D: Game Over was released way back in 2003. " — Time to Play Magazine Posted Sep 8, 2011
	47%	Chasing Madoff (2011)	" Chasing Madoff argues that Bernie Madoff was more typical of systemic abuses than deviant. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	58%	Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (2011)	" The monsters show a definite affection for knives and razors and scissors, all the better to slash and penetrate their victims." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	26%	Colombiana (2011)	" In Colombiana, a basic formula is reduced to a few broad strokes: she's skinny, she's lethal, she's desperate." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	81%	Higher Ground (2011)	" Deftly presenting Corrine's dilemma, Higher Ground shows how alone she feels in the midst of community and family, and also, how earnest she is in her efforts not to feel that way. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	91%	The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)	" Earnest or naïve, insistent and wise, all voices in The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 speak to struggle and efforts to find and define community." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	82%	Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)	" The movie is most compelling when it thinks about the ape and the human's likeness (and so critiques racism and speciesism), when Cesar and Will face each other or respond to one another." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	76%	The Debt (2011)	" The Debt is increasingly unsubtle as it reveals the multiple truths about what happened back in East Berlin." — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	76%	The Help (2011)	" In The Help, lying is a way of life. If the maids lie as a function of their employment, their employers lie in ways at once subtler and more blatant. " — PopMatters Posted Sep 8, 2011
	65%	Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (2011)	" Resurrect Dead is a consideration of how the material world can intersect with imagined worlds." — PopPolitics.com Posted Sep 8, 2011
	33%	Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)	" An early sequence in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides showcases its best idea: two Captain Jack Sparrows." — PopMatters Posted Jun 5, 2011
	81%	Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)	" Lucky for everyone, Po is as determined to do kung fu as he is to eat dumplings and cakes." — PopMatters Posted Jun 5, 2011
	34%	The Hangover Part II (2011)	" As this is the boys' fate, it speaks also to assumptions about viewers, that they're satisfied with a wheel that takes them nowhere surprising, repeating a semblance of plot points and a series of gags." — PopMatters Posted Jun 5, 2011
	84%	The Tree of Life (2011)	" Winner of this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes, Terrence Malick's movie offers up moments that imagine beginnings, not as if they're new, but rather, familiar and cyclical, creations as repetitions." — PopMatters Posted Jun 5, 2011
	——	Love Shines ()	" The film is not, in fact, an examination of Sexsmith's psyche, his childhood or his "melancholy." It is instead an appreciation and observation of his process." — CelebrityWonder.com Posted Jun 2, 2011
7/10	91%	Source Code (2011)	" Colter, like Deckard before him, has to accept who and where he is, even as these definitions recede before him." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
	71%	Hanna (2011)	" Along with makeup and sisterly advice, the regular teenager Sophie provides the trained killer Hanna with a glimpse of what she's missed." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
	55%	The Conspirator (2011)	" In the film's story, which is Aiken's story, Mary and Anna embody both the problem and the possible solution." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
	72%	Rio (2011)	" If the birds aren't precisely "of a feather," as they suggest, they are bright and loud and alike enough to establish that this Rio is not real in any way." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
	71%	African Cats (2011)	" Like so many family-targeting animal documentaries since March of the Penguins, this one tells a story of parents and children." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
	86%	Meek's Cutoff (2011)	" Violence -- potential and inevitable -- shapes each moment in this extraordinary film. Rarely visible and never cathartic, this violence is instead like the land that offers possibility and lays down limits for the emigrants." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
	61%	Water for Elephants (2011)	" The elephant is impressive. Rosie stands up on her hind legs. She stands on her front legs. She flirts with Robert Pattinson and drinks lemonade." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
	34%	Prom (2011)	" Prom is pretty much precisely what you expect: kids fret and adults miss points, and eventually, prom is over." — PopMatters Posted May 1, 2011
9/10	100%	Waste Land (2010)	" The charismatic Valter seems an ideal subject for Lucy Walter's film, which is equally concerned with showing and seeing." — PopMatters Posted Dec 22, 2010
3/5	74%	War of the Worlds (2005)	" Alien invasion thriller too scary for young kids." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
1/5	48%	The Ruins (2008)	" Tourists vs. flesh-eating vines; guess who wins?" — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
2/5	22%	The Eye (2008)	" Jessica Alba sees dead people in blah horror film." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
4/5	76%	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005)	" Timeless classic faithfully rendered." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
1/5	16%	Superhero Movie (2008)	" Tiresome, generic spoof is all about crude humor." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
3/5	65%	Stop-Loss (2008)	" Mature, violent war drama tackles heavy issues." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
3/5	73%	Sky High (2005)	" Cartoony high school superhero drama; OK for tweens." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
3/5	39%	Scoop (2006)	" Another comic murder mystery from Woody Allen." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
3/5	87%	Saving Face (2005)	" Chinese-American mom and daughter reconnect." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 17, 2010
3/5	54%	Last Holiday (2006)	" Formulaic but sometimes winning comedy." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 16, 2010
3/5	23%	Home of the Brave (2006)	" Iraq war vets cope with big issues; not for kids." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 16, 2010
3/5	30%	Goya's Ghosts (2007)	" Intense historical epic is for adults only." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 16, 2010
3/5	38%	Flightplan (2005)	" Tense but riveting thriller, best for teens+." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 15, 2010
4/5	76%	Cidade dos Homens (City of Men) (2007)	" Powerful melodrama mixes violence, messages." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 15, 2010
3/5	70%	Amazing Grace (2007)	" Earnest drama about fervent English abolitionist." — Common Sense Media Posted Dec 15, 2010
	49%	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)	" We might all be grateful for the persnickety Eustace, who doubts the existence of Narnia even when he lands splat in it. " — Time to Play Magazine Posted Dec 12, 2010
	73%	Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie (2010)	" Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie is a celebration and something of a scrapbook too, a collection of memories without much in the way of questions." — PopMatters Posted Dec 10, 2010
	90%	The Fighter (2010)	" As The Fighter presents fight after fight, the tonal quirks and distances don't ask you to disinvest so much as they invite you to consider the many ways that audiences -- you included -- shape what you see." — PopMatters Posted Dec 10, 2010
	20%	The Tourist (2010)	" It's slow going, but not entirely unpleasant to watch Johnny Depp, even when he's mostly standing around and pondering the great beauty of Venice or Elise." — PopMatters Posted Dec 10, 2010
8/10	90%	Winnebago Man (2010)	" The film is less about Jack, his reputation and performance, than it is about itself. Real or not. " — PopMatters Posted Dec 7, 2010
	98%	Inside Job (2010)	" It may be that Inside Job's greatest effect is that, as the interviewees reveal themselves, they become less central to the story." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	59%	Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)	" PA2 actually isn't that frightening, but it complicates the questions of documentation, memory, and history in ways that make any possible answers at least a little unnerving." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	54%	The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2010)	" The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest falls back on the formula which has brought the series this far, that is, inflicting trauma and abuse on Lisbeth." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	79%	Fair Game (2010)	" When the Iraq war begins, Hammad and his family serve as briefly sketched emblems of its devastation." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	93%	127 Hours (2010)	" At the start of 127 Hours, Aron is headed out, a direction, he reveals in voiceover, he perceives as a moral and philosophical imperative." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	55%	Morning Glory (2010)	" Becky a remarkable Plucky Girl, determined but also charming, clueless but also deeply insightful, and of course, played by the dazzling Rachel McAdams. " — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	——	Candyman (2011)	" In Candyman, Jelly Belly creator David Klein is at once energetic, enthusiastic, and self-effacing." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	52%	The Next Three Days (2010)	" John's not Keyser Söze, but John does have a self-certainty and aptitude for rationalization and moral relativism that make him just a little creepy." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	39%	Due Date (2010)	" The ride in Due Date is not only the usual raucous escapade, with car crashes and run-ins with authorities, but also takes a turn toward what might be called Peter's dark side. " — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	94%	The King's Speech (2010)	" The prince is patrician and revered, but he's also public property, and suffers accordingly in this genteel film." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	36%	Burlesque (2010)	" Certainly, Cher doesn't need to sell herself: she's Cher, mesmerizingly fabricated, never finished. The movie doesn't seem to quite get that." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	90%	Tangled (2010)	" This Rapunzel's got sand." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	91%	Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (2010)	" Client 9 brilliantly situates Eliot Spitzer's bad behavior and questionable character in multiple broader contexts, all in flux by definition." — PopMatters Posted Nov 29, 2010
	79%	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010)	" Ever the girl in this threesome, that is, at least a step ahead of the boys in grappling with hormones and fears, Hermione is in this film, engaging, complex, and less mysterious than wonderful." — PopMatters Posted Nov 20, 2010
	85%	Two Escobars (2010)	" The film makes a persuasive broader indictment, tracing the social and political moving parts that connected soccer, gangsterism, and money." — PopMatters Posted Nov 2, 2010
	100%	Teenage Paparazzo (2011)	" Teenage Paparazzo establishes at least a couple of foci, namely, Adrian Grenier's relationship with the picture-snapping press and his relationship with that relationship, as he portrays it on TV." — PopMatters Posted Oct 4, 2010
	——	War Don Don (2010)	" Again and again, this remarkable documentary raises questions about recording per se, with shots of the courtroom camera and TV screens. Mediated and multiply framed, truth remains elusive." — PopMatters Posted Oct 4, 2010
10 of 10	98%	Marwencol (2010)	" Marwencol shows a process of self-imagining and storytelling that reflects the intricate ways that we all understand ourselves, the worlds inside and around us." — PopMatters Posted Oct 4, 2010
	45%	You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)	" Beware the film that opens with a quotation from Shakespeare." — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	56%	A Mother's Courage: Talking Back To Autism (Sólskinsdrengurinn) (2010)	" A Mother's Courage finds other ways to look at autism: as Temple Grandin puts it, "If I could snap my fingers and not be autistic, would I? No."" — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	89%	Waiting for Superman (2010)	" The young students' stories are surely Waiting for 'Superman''s most effective strategy, but it's hard not to wonder at how they are being used in such a slick enterprise." — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	17%	You Again (2010)	" The girl world here might be said to be an answer to the many, many iterations of the boy world in The Hangover or Hot Tub Time Machine, or any recent movie starring Paul Rudd or engineered by Judd Apatow." — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	55%	Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)	" This being Oliver Stone's long-gestating, self-important sequel to Wall Street, Jake will be learning some harsh life lessons." — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	65%	Freakonomics (2010)	" Freakonomics's four sections offer various takes on the source book's premise: what happens when you ask "a different kind of question entirely"?" — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	89%	Let Me In (2010)	" Let Me In both tweaks and fulfills right-wingy, quasi-religious views by making the most virulent embodiment of evil a little girl." — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	96%	The Social Network (2010)	" That is, the possible "openness" of Facebook here hinges on the definitive closed system embodied by this fictional Mark Zuckerberg." — PopMatters Posted Oct 1, 2010
	——	The Polo Kid (2012)	" Santi's contradictions -- as typical as they may be -- energize The Polo Kid: An American Prodigy." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	97%	GasLand (2010)	" Aside from exposing natural gas companies' corruption, Gasland makes another important point: individual experiences are made collective -- visible, galvanizing, political -- on TV." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	93%	The Tillman Story (2010)	" The Tillman Story is upfront about wanting to challenge that faith, to question political assumptions and seeming historical frameworks." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	75%	Nanny McPhee Returns (2010)	" Nanny McPhee Returns establishes standard class differences between the country cousins and the city cousins -- even as both sets of children are in need of retraining by the daunting Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson)." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	35%	Lottery Ticket (2010)	" It's remarkable how much 18-year-old Kevin has in common with Ice Cube's Craig (from Friday), as well as how few structural or political changes have occurred over the past 15 years." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	97%	A Film Unfinished (2010)	" The Nazis' infatuation with documentation is visible everywhere in A Film Unfinished, as German soldiers grab residents' arms or push them along in the street, as starving children sit on curbs and adults hurry along sidewalks." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	73%	The Last Exorcism (2010)	" Yet another Blair Witch wannabe, The Last Exorcism sets up a relationship between on-screen speakers and "you," addressed as such." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	66%	The American (2010)	" Women are necessary in The American, like the Italian landscapes and winding stone stairways." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	52%	Going the Distance (2010)	" Drew Barrymore and Christina Applegate are tremendously appealing: it's not long before you're wishing Going the Distance was about them." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
	28%	Takers (2010)	" Takers early on winds itself into a generic knot and never gets loose from it." — PopMatters Posted Sep 5, 2010
1/5	8%	10,000 B.C. (2008)	" Violent, poorly conceived prehistoric action." — Common Sense Media Posted Aug 24, 2010
	37%	Eat Pray Love (2010)	" Eat Pray Love presents Liz's road to enlightenment in ways that are too reverent, too episodic, and too self-absorbed." — PopMatters Posted Aug 13, 2010
	41%	The Expendables (2010)	" The Expendables delivers a series of macho encounters within the team of expert killers and pointedly named hard-asses." — PopMatters Posted Aug 13, 2010
	62%	Salt (2010)	" Amid all the hubbub, Salt emerges as a remarkably efficient character, unapologetically preposterous and unburdened by dialogue." — PopMatters Posted Aug 7, 2010
	28%	Charlie St. Cloud (2010)	" As much as Charlie St. Cloud dresses up its formula with ghosts and pretty footage of boats on water, that formula remains stubbornly visible." — PopMatters Posted Aug 7, 2010
	81%	Cairo Time (2010)	" In Cairo Time, Juliette means to care, but she seems rather unfit for it." — PopMatters Posted Aug 7, 2010
5/10	49%	The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)	" The Twilight saga depends on Bella not deciding, not resolving, and above all, not moving on." — PopMatters Posted Jun 30, 2010
	91%	Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work (2010)	" A Piece of Work is not about revelation or exposé. It is, instead, about Joan Rivers' business." — PopMatters Posted Jun 18, 2010
	12%	Jonah Hex (2010)	" Slight but sluggish, murky but not effectively dark, Jonah Hex is caught in a limbo rather like its hero's." — PopMatters Posted Jun 18, 2010
8/10	99%	Toy Story 3 (2010)	" In the cleverly entertaining Toy Story 3, Ken is confused and superficial, and also pretty fabulous. " — PopMatters Posted Jun 18, 2010
	57%	Shrek Forever After (Shrek 4) (2010)	" Though it's jumped on the 3D bandwagon, the fourth Shrek is almost surprisingly clunky and old." — PopMatters Posted Jun 11, 2010
	35%	Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)	" Prince of Persia revisits the formula whereby a black supporting player is willing to sacrifice himself for the righteous white-identified cause." — PopMatters Posted Jun 11, 2010
	74%	Splice (2010)	" This bit of metaphorical business keeps on giving, for the film presses hard on the well-worn connections between sex and birth, sensual desire and freakish ambition." — PopMatters Posted Jun 11, 2010
7/10	66%	The Karate Kid (2010)	" In The Karate Kid, Mr. Han and Dre deserve each other, in a good way." — PopMatters Posted Jun 11, 2010
	44%	Just Wright (2010)	" Some of us would rather watch Dwight Howard act like Common can lead the Nets to a title. At least that fantasy isn't insulting." — PopMatters Posted May 14, 2010
	43%	Robin Hood (2010)	" An early episode establishes Robin's change, from Crusader to champion of the beleaguered and besieged, a fighter for... Muslims' rights?" — PopMatters Posted May 14, 2010
	47%	Cartel (2010)	" In The Cartel, New Jersey public schools are an example of what's going wrong in U.S. school systems generally, despite a "spending explosion."" — PopMatters Posted May 12, 2010
	89%	Life 2.0 (2011)	" As Life 2.0 reveals layers of life and experience, you realize that they are not confined to Second Life. These interview subjects describe their experiences, in both Second Life and what they call First Life, that is, Real Life." — Nitrate Online Posted May 12, 2010
	86%	Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006)	" Scott Walker: 30 Century Man gestures toward Walker's own process, as he has been and continues to think through the possibilities of sound." — PopMatters Posted May 12, 2010
	83%	Casino Jack And The United States Of Money (2010)	" Unable to film Jack Abramoff in prison, Casino Jack finds a series of ingenious solutions -- elegant, funny, and preposterous ways to sort out the man's thinking and contexts." — PopMatters Posted May 12, 2010
	67%	Cleanflix (2009)	" Even as customers express their enthusiasm for sanitized movies, Cleanflix turns its attention to those making money off this "righteous" business." — PopMatters Posted May 12, 2010
	73%	Iron Man 2 (2010)	" Iron Man 2 careens between self-awareness and self-promotion, which is not to say these are opposite conditions." — PopMatters Posted May 12, 2010
	87%	Please Give (2010)	" If giving is always a relationship, giving also entails taking, whether in business, romance or family interactions." — PopMatters Posted Apr 30, 2010
	15%	A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)	" The not-very new Nightmare is indebted to the illogic of dreams, but determinedly dumb about using it." — PopMatters Posted Apr 30, 2010
	28%	Clash of the Titans (2010)	" Greek gods make lousy dads." — PopMatters Posted Apr 26, 2010
	69%	The Runaways (2010)	" Joan Jett stomps into a montage sequence under "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" -- a brief reminder for those of you who are not paying attention." — PopMatters Posted Apr 26, 2010
	96%	Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)	" Legendary British graffiti artist Banksy raises a compelling question in his new film: is there a difference between real and perceived power?" — PopMatters Posted Apr 26, 2010
	76%	Kick-Ass (2010)	" Serving as Kick-Ass' mentor, savior, and inspiration, Hit Girl is a perfect and perverse fantasy -- abused and abusive, tearfully vulnerable and ingeniously cruel." — PopMatters Posted Apr 26, 2010
	41%	Death at a Funeral (2010)	" This junk fest wastes no time getting down to business: LSD jokes, barren women jokes, sex jokes, naked in public jokes, midget jokes, and poop jokes." — PopMatters Posted Apr 26, 2010
	19%	The Back-up Plan (2010)	" Playground Dad is one of those best friends that rom-com leads tend to have, except that he doesn't have a name or even much of a friendship with this film's bland and beleaguered lead." — PopMatters Posted Apr 26, 2010
	49%	The Losers (2010)	" Aisha exists to make sure you know Clay is heterosexual -- useful in a leader of a pack of men on their own, men who've shared long, intimate hours in jungles and war zones." — PopMatters Posted Apr 26, 2010
	91%	Crazy Heart (2009)	" As he comes to face consequences of this recklessness, Bad sees that his badness - his success and also the limits on it - are also shaped by the business he's in." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	18%	Valentine's Day (2010)	" The film goes through frolicky motions" — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	84%	The Art Of The Steal (2010)	" Don Argott's documentary tracks the Barnes Foundation's complicated history, from its inception by Albert C. Barnes to the ugly legal battle over its relocation from Merion, PA to Philadelphia." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	83%	Avatar (2009)	" For all its powerful technologies, Avatar can't get out from under its essential cardboardness." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	71%	The Crazies (2010)	" The Crazies has it both ways, uglifying the punishers and the punishees, all marauding brutes." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	83%	The Ghost Writer (2010)	" As the ghostwriter makes his evaluation at the start of The Ghostwriter, you realize, unhappily, that this is the movie over-explaining itself." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	92%	Prodigal Sons (2010)	" The past in Prodigal Sons is pervasive and formidable, to be sure, but it is hardly fixed." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	42%	Brooklyn's Finest (2010)	" In Brooklyn's Finest, the cycle is familiar: no one deserves what he or she gets, but they've all got it anyway." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	——	My Enemy's Enemy ()	" The "line of character" considered by the film is less Klaus Barbie's than the ideology and politics that shape Western activities, both official and covert, postwar and after." — PopMatters Posted Mar 11, 2010
	35%	The Wolfman (2010)	" The Wolfman reframes the werewolf legend -- so weighty with communal perversity and collective guilt -- so that it's all about a very bad dad." — PopMatters Posted Feb 19, 2010
	100%	2010 Oscar Nominated Shorts ()	" The Oscar nominee "Logorama" seems the sort of cleverness conjured by a room full of avid, if cynical consumers, fast and perverse, sorta dark and delightful." — PopMatters Posted Feb 19, 2010
	49%	Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)	" It looks like the characters of color in Percy Jackson have been paired off, a remarkable choice in a movie that is, in essence, about the glories of half-breeds." — PopMatters Posted Feb 19, 2010
4/10	68%	Shutter Island (2010)	" Amid all the confusion, Shutter Island sort of invites you to see through Teddy's eyes: peering at uncooperative staff members, frustrated by the doctors' obfuscations and delays, his rising anger seems righteous." — PopMatters Posted Feb 19, 2010
8/10	100%	Which Way Home (2009)	" Even without illustration or allusive images, the children's own descriptions are harrowing." — PopMatters Posted Feb 2, 2010
5/10	75%	The Road (2009)	" For all the desperation and tragedy, then, the film offers a kind of heroism, set against a frankly grim but also frequently poetic backdrop." — PopMatters Posted Dec 8, 2009
	88%	Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)	" Thisbad lieutenant's pain is less punishment than righteous realignment, a reflection of the nutty, debased, and utterly chaotic world around him. He's not deviant. He's the new normal." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	81%	Broken Embraces (2009)	" Broken Embraces remains fixed on the ways that men seek control of the not-so-elusive Lena." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	22%	Planet 51 (2009)	" Glar and his friends are more or less all-purpose protestors, showing up on sidewalks with placards announcing, "We're really upset!" over nothing specific. And that makes them about as amiable and as bland as everyone else on Planet 51." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	26%	Ninja Assassin (2009)	" All the bloody splatting and fast editing mean that it doesn't matter what's real or not real in Ninja Assassin." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	66%	The Blind Side (2009)	" The pile-on of big emotional moments, accompanied by big music, is overwhelming. This is a movie demanding to be loved." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	27%	The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)	" As she ponders her future, Bella is less aware than you are that she has very similar effects on the monster boy rivals for her affection -- glowing eyes, rising tempers, pronounced teeth, ungodly strength, usually demonstrated on others of their ilk or f" — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	90%	Big River Man (2009)	" Whether you understand Borut's patchy storytelling to be artful or actually bewildered, the film goes along for the ride." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	50%	Kassim the Dream (2009)	" A former child soldier in Uganda, the boxer Kassim continues to wrestle with the effects of the violence he witnessed and committed." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	46%	Everybody's Fine (2009)	" Frank's essential irony -- his inability to communicate on top of his presumption that he communicates well -- is italicized repeatedly in Everybody's Fine." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	62%	Brothers (2009)	" All the men in Afghanistan -- native and invasive -- are struggling to survive, to make order of rocky chaos." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	91%	Up in the Air (2009)	" As these lessons all come together, the film's floaty, cool affect starts to come down to earth, the points and plot turning more conventional." — PopMatters Posted Dec 4, 2009
	38%	Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)	" Not a thing in this movie is subtle, from its cheesy special effects to its by-the-numbers storyline to its cardboard cutout characters." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	84%	Whip It (2009)	" What Whip It does make clear is that all girls are expected to perform, whether expectations are embodied by parents or audiences." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	90%	Zombieland (2009)	" Zombieland does well enough in its early minutes, then picks up a little unexpected speed when Columbus meets another "noncannibal survivor" (played by a perfect Woody Harrelson)." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	62%	Coco Before Chanel (2009)	" Coco Before Chanel cannot get out from under the romantic fabrications and excesses that ostensibly annoyed its subject." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	94%	An Education (2009)	" If the story of Jenny's inevitably hard lesson is standard, An Education comes up with a few moments that give pause." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	21%	Amelia (2009)	" Amelia provides only a cursory look at Earhart's commercialization, more a way to delineate her marriage troubles than investigate her self-image or her treatment as a pop star." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	73%	Where the Wild Things Are (2009)	" Feelings of loss and frustration, acted out so loudly, raucously, and repeatedly, are at the center of Where the Wild Things Are." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	60%	Pirate Radio (The Boat That Rocked) (2009)	" Pirate Radio leaves out any mention of the usual historical and cultural background, say, sex as a potential means of mixing races and classes." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	93%	Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)	" Intergenerational dilemmas -- how to be foxes, to be individuals and also parts of communities -- form the complicated heart of Fantastic Mr. Fox." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	60%	Loot (2009)	" A treasure hunter who has travelled far and wide looking for long-lost fortunes, Lance Larson's questing serves as point of departure for the beguiling documentary, Loot." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	94%	La Nana (The Maid) (2009)	" Full of tension, the first scene in The Maid (La Nana) sets up Raquel's grim and limited world." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	81%	Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009)	" As much as This Is It recalls Jackson's genius, it perpetuates the exploitation that shaped his life." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	83%	Paranormal Activity (2009)	" The titular and sometimes distressing activity in Paranormal Activity serves as a mostly banal metaphor for the couples relationship." — Nitrate Online Posted Nov 19, 2009
	25%	Law Abiding Citizen (2009)	" Jamie Foxx's Nick mostly repeats the part played by Denzel Washington in Ricochet, the superior first incarnation of Law Abiding Citizen." — Nitrate Online Posted Nov 19, 2009
	11%	Couples Retreat (2009)	" It's some kind of trick when a film can make Jason Bateman look unsubtle." — Nitrate Online Posted Nov 19, 2009
	88%	La Danse -- Le Ballet de l'Opera de Paris (2009)	" Work is at the center of Frederick Wiseman's absorbing documentary, La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet." — Nitrate Online Posted Nov 19, 2009
	19%	The Fourth Kind (2009)	" Where is Fox Mulder when you need him?" — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	52%	The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)	" Setting up easy targets, The Men Who Stare at Goats seems less clever than behind the times." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	91%	Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)	" Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is concerned with lasting effects of poverty -- on individuals and especially, on communities." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	39%	2012 (2009)	" As the action becomes less fabulous and more repetitive over 2012's 150 minutes, the philosophical debate ratchets up." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
	73%	The Good Soldier (2009)	" The familiar format helps to underscore what's extraordinary about these stories, the fear and indignity felt by the soldiers." — PopMatters Posted Nov 19, 2009
9/10	86%	Lorna's Silence (2008)	" Even as the camera follows Lorna, it never quite keeps up, though it's unclear whether she's eluding your interpretation or her own." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
4/10	57%	Paper Heart (2009)	" Paper Heart is increasingly focused on the tension between Cera and Yi's supposedly real romance and the camera's imposition of structure and self-consciousness." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
6/10	60%	A Perfect Getaway (2009)	" The home video sets up A Perfect Getaway's frank understanding of itself as formula." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
5/10	75%	Julie & Julia (2009)	" Julia Child's letters home are vivacious, illustrating her generosity and wit, her resolve and sense of humor." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
1/10	26%	The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009)	" The Goods' vulgarity is not new or clever or even comically shocking. It is, instead, prosaic and repetitive." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
3/10	37%	The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)	" The question of her own "free will" niggles at the edges of Clare's experience throughout the movie named for her." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
6/10	80%	Bandslam (2009)	" Knowing that you know the drill, Bandslam leaves out most too-explanatory details, and lets the kids be kidlike rather than movie-kidlike." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
5/10	91%	District 9 (2009)	" In District 9, racism provides the white guy with a very special growth experience." — PopMatters Posted Aug 14, 2009
4/10	29%	Shrink (2009)	" As all of Shrink's seemingly disparate stories begin to fall too cleverly into each other, it's easy to be distracted by some fine performances." — PopMatters Posted Aug 6, 2009
	13%	The Ugly Truth (2009)	" Concerns about truth and untruth can't mean much in a movie called The Ugly Truth." — PopMatters Posted Aug 6, 2009
	21%	G-Force (2009)	" G-Force's dedication to egregious stereotypes is hackneyed and indefensible: this is how racism lives on." — PopMatters Posted Aug 6, 2009
5/10	55%	Orphan (2009)	" It's not a bad idea for a horror movie, that the seeming victims are not innocent and their complicated past weighs on their present." — PopMatters Posted Aug 6, 2009
4/10	45%	Fragments (2008)	" Even as it makes a show of complexity Fragments seems determined to pull together its various story strands." — PopMatters Posted Aug 6, 2009
7/10	94%	Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)	" Russell Mulcahy and other artists look back fondly on Australian exploitation films for Not Quite Hollywood, sometimes wondering just how they were able to get away with it." — PopMatters Posted Aug 6, 2009
8/10	94%	The Cove (2009)	" In between the exciting sequences of the team setting up equipment and being nearly captured, The Cove includes interviews with persuasive sea life experts and not-so-convincing local Japanese authorities." — PopMatters Posted Aug 6, 2009

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