|
4/5
|
46%
|
Pain & Gain (2013) |
"
Behind the lunatic corruption of Pain And Gain there's a kind of monstrous clarity. Do with it what you will."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Apr 25, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
28%
|
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) |
"
When it comes to big and loud, this is the movie to beat for at least this week; what makes it entertaining is its unabashed wallow in these qualities ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Mar 29, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
91%
|
Gimme The Loot (2013) |
"
... 'Gimme the Loot' isn't the kind of film where a lot happens, but that's it's small-scale magic ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
66%
|
Spring Breakers (2013) |
"
... 'Spring Breakers' is a gas to look at and to hear, and it's easily Korine's most successfully sustained work.""
—
MSN Movies
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
48%
|
Olympus Has Fallen (2013) |
"
... the action is often not unengaging, and Butler's better at swinging for faux Bruce Willis ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
43%
|
Admission (2013) |
"
If Fey ends up making movies as good as this one over the next few years, television's loss will have been cinema's gain, for real."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
3.5
|
79%
|
Ginger & Rosa (2013) |
"
... it's the way that Fanning and Englert animate their characters that makes the movie special."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Mar 15, 2013
|
|
2.5
|
38%
|
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) |
"
... has its share of engaging-to-great bits, including, truth to tell, one gag performed by Carrey that made me laugh louder and longer ... but it falls kind of flat as a complete moviegoing experience."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Mar 15, 2013
|
|
4.5/5
|
82%
|
Like Someone in Love (2013) |
"
... it ratchets up to one of the most galvanic and disturbing visions Kiarostami has ever concocted"
—
MSN Movies
Posted Feb 14, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
92%
|
No (2013) |
"
'No' is never a drag to watch, but paradoxically enough, its self-imposed cinematic restraints inhibit it from selling itself as effectively as it might have. "
—
MSN Movies
Posted Feb 14, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
45%
|
Beautiful Creatures (2013) |
"
...a new vision of witchery that is more playful, coherent and intelligent. If you're thinking a deep-fried, more hormonally charged Harry Potter, that's not it, but it's close to the intention at least."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Feb 14, 2013
|
|
1/5
|
32%
|
Gangster Squad (2013) |
"
'So it's a shame that "Gangster Squad" is nothing like a good old-fashioned gangster picture. While it's a period piece that clearly relishes its evocation of neon-bright Los Angeles in 1949, it's hardly old-fashioned. And it's no good at all ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Jan 9, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
79%
|
Quartet (2013) |
"
As for Hoffman's direction, the aforementioned montage notwithstanding, it's unobtrusive but not invisible ... and the ending is pretty much perfect."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Jan 8, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
51%
|
Promised Land (2013) |
"
One of several ways this ... picture falls short is in trying to sell a personal-salvation story as a salve to the conundrum it presents."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Jan 2, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
88%
|
Django Unchained (2012) |
"
Genre-movie-mad writer-director Quentin Tarantino's foray into Western World is a pretty grave disappointment."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Jan 2, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
70%
|
Les Misérables (2012) |
"
... Jackman, who should get a Nobel Prize for the way he carries pretty much the whole undertaking on his shoulders, so protean and virile is his singing and acting throughout."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Jan 2, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
45%
|
On the Road (2012) |
"
This, and a certain lack of what one could call narrative thrust, makes 'On the Road' a strange, diffuse experience, offering occasional glimpses of genuine beauty ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 19, 2012
|
|
4/5
|
69%
|
Not Fade Away (2012) |
"
This may color my enthusiasm somewhat. Still, I like to think I was mostly taken in by the wonderful cast and Chase's fond and generous evocation of another time, another place. "
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 19, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
52%
|
This is 40 (2012) |
"
'This Is 40' isn't without flaws, it moves along nicely, and while it doesn't boast ... it does manage to be very consistently funny in a way that makes dramatic sense."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 19, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
38%
|
The Guilt Trip (2012) |
"
Streisand and Rogen have expert instincts, and their interplay is a pleasure to watch. And the movie is surprisingly gentle in its application of conventional movie wisdom and avoidance of easy gross-out humor."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 19, 2012
|
|
5/5
|
93%
|
Zero Dark Thirty (2013) |
"
As disturbing as it often is to watch, it's so rife with sheer cinematic material that it's likely to reward multiple viewings."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 17, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
66%
|
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) |
"
I found that it provided a pretty convincingly immersive experience, and I look forward to the technology's evolution/refinement. Which I guess also means I look forward to the next two installments of the trilogy."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 12, 2012
|
|
1/5
|
38%
|
Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) |
"
'Hyde Park on Hudson' is one of the most bizarrely muddled prestige pictures in recent memory."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 6, 2012
|
|
2/5
|
4%
|
Playing for Keeps (2012) |
"
'Playing for Keeps' wants to run and kick feel-good moments through the goalposts, but it limps and wheezes from the opening faceoff until its final whistle, with a lot of effort expended to earn, and make, very few points."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Dec 6, 2012
|
|
4/5
|
76%
|
Killing Them Softly (2012) |
"
And at the end, when that character collides head on with the election theme Dominik tends to overstate throughout, it all leads up to a punch line so thoroughly anti-inspirational and mordantly funny and just about perfect ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 28, 2012
|
|
1.5/5
|
63%
|
Hitchcock (2012) |
"
'Hitchcock' is the 'JFK' of movies about moviemaking, but at least Oliver Stone had the excuse of Jim Garrison's "findings" to hang his loony fiction on. "
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 19, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
88%
|
Life of Pi (2012) |
"
... the movie handles an alternate version of the story, and its ramifications, in an almost shockingly perfunctory manner. Which I think, in the end, compromises what the story wants to convey."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 19, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
74%
|
Rise of the Guardians (2012) |
"
Mostly, the movie keeps things on the near side of fun, and pushes a not-entirely-insipid life perspective. The ratio of staggering craft to innocuous content brings this to a level of better-than-average-contemporary children's fare."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 19, 2012
|
|
5/5
|
89%
|
Lincoln (2012) |
"
It's the most remarkable movie Steven Spielberg has made in quite a spell, and one of the things that makes it remarkable is how it fulfills those expectations by simultaneously ignoring and transcending them."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 19, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
92%
|
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) |
"
'Silver Linings Playbook' is fun, sharp and sometimes moving, but it's not reinventing any kind of wheel."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 16, 2012
|
|
2/5
|
48%
|
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012) |
"
The 'Twilight Saga' has no upmarket aspirations. Seeking neither critical applause or peer-review awards, these movies, like those of Tyler Perry, seek only to provide unabashed satisfaction to those who believe in their characters."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 16, 2012
|
|
1/5
|
64%
|
Anna Karenina (2012) |
"
... the signal achievement of this version of 'Anna Karenina' is that it manages to use a world literary classic as the platform for nothing less than the longest Chanel ad ever. "
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 14, 2012
|
|
4.5/5
|
92%
|
Skyfall (2012) |
"
'Quantum of Solace,' was a dour, dire letdown. This picture's a substantial bounce back, and easily the best Craig Bond picture. Emotional depth and all."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 13, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
9%
|
Jack and Diane (2012) |
"
"The Man With the Iron Fists" being a fairly satisfying slab of cinematic mayhem, particularly if seen in under conditions like the ones I describe from my younger days."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 2, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
79%
|
A Late Quartet (2012) |
"
The movie doesn't resolve on a sour note, but it takes the viewer along a too-familiar set of tones."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Nov 2, 2012
|
|
4/5
|
79%
|
Flight (2012) |
"
It is probably more than a little reductive to say that this movie is The Lost Weekend with highly superior special effects. But there's something to that, honestly."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 31, 2012
|
|
2.5/5
|
68%
|
Cloud Atlas (2012) |
"
It's kind of astonishing that for all its ambition and accomplishment, and for the ostensibly subversive philosophy it pushes, "Cloud Atlas" ends up being just another platitudinous overblown pummel-you-into-submission movie-machine."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 25, 2012
|
|
1/5
|
12%
|
Alex Cross (2012) |
"
Somebody got it wrong. A lot of people got it wrong. And the result is one of the most ridiculous, laughable ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 18, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
94%
|
The Sessions (2012) |
"
"The movie is neither short of, nor in the least bit coy about, sex and sex talk. It treats and presents both in a way that is entirely candid, frank ...""
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 18, 2012
|
|
4/5
|
82%
|
Seven Psychopaths (2012) |
"
... delights in pulling the rug out from under the audience ... in such cerebrally and cinematically exciting ways ..."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 10, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
96%
|
Argo (2012) |
"
"'Argo' is quite a satisfactory impossible mission indeed.""
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 10, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
68%
|
Wuthering Heights (2012) |
"
...a film that is always interesting but never entirely compelling. "
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 4, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
44%
|
The Paperboy (2012) |
"
I'll give this to The Paperboy: It's never boring."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 4, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
87%
|
Frankenweenie (2012) |
"
I was nagged by the feeling that the main motivating force behind the film is to convey that its makers really, really, really love old-school horror movies. "
—
MSN Movies
Posted Oct 4, 2012
|
|
2/5
|
81%
|
Pitch Perfect (2012) |
"
...it never ends up being anything like a fully realized version of any of the movies it's lifting its jokes and/or tones from."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Sep 26, 2012
|
|
2/5
|
43%
|
Hotel Transylvania (2012) |
"
The main reason I'm giving this a more favorable rating than my actual opinion of the movie would seem to call for is because the screening I attended also had a lot of kids in the audience, and most of them were relatively delighted."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Sep 26, 2012
|
|
4.5/5
|
93%
|
Looper (2012) |
"
Good news: Not only is the smart, sexy, sophisticated but still slam-bang sci-fi action-thriller not dead, it's just gotten itself a potent shot in the arm by way of writer-director Rian Johnson."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Sep 26, 2012
|
|
2/5
|
11%
|
House at the End of the Street (2012) |
"
Originality, or lack thereof, isn't really the movie's problem. Execution is. "
—
MSN Movies
Posted Sep 21, 2012
|
|
4/5
|
51%
|
Trouble with the Curve (2012) |
"
The Eastwood/Adams interplay is absolutely great, laugh-out-loud funny a lot of the time and quietly moving when it needs to be."
—
MSN Movies
Posted Sep 18, 2012
|