|
2.5/4
|
56%
|
Oblivion (2013) |
"
really no more derivative a science fiction thriller than most these days, it just has the unfortunate tendency of seeming to be more obvious about it"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted May 2, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
42%
|
To The Wonder (2013) |
"
an experiment in fragmented, impressionistic storytelling that keeps its characters just a bit too far out of reach, their symbolic qualities trumping their flesh-and-blood passions"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Apr 17, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
97%
|
Monsieur Verdoux (1947) |
"
a pitch-black, arguably bitter comedy that wasn't so much a departure for Chaplin (he had, after all, lampooned Hitler in his previous film) as it was an opportunity to fully engage with his darker comedic impulses"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Apr 10, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
92%
|
Jurassic Park: An IMAX 3D Experience (2013) |
"
confirms both Spielberg's mastery of cinematic thrills and the comparatively empty bombast of today's summer tentpole movies, even the better ones."
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Apr 9, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
62%
|
Evil Dead (2013) |
"
You're better off giving Raimi's original another spin. "
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Apr 5, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
94%
|
Room 237 (2013) |
"
a journey down a rabbit hole worth taking, as the film immerses us in alternately fascinating, compelling, absurd, and frightening theories about what, exactly, The Shining is (or might be) about"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Apr 3, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
66%
|
Spring Breakers (2013) |
"
The subject of the film is the perversion of youth, and its greatest achievement (if one can call it that) is how it somehow manages to pander to a youth audience while also cinematically chiding them."
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Mar 27, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
48%
|
Olympus Has Fallen (2013) |
"
plays so much like the original Die Hard, with so many plot points lifted and transcribed into the new setting, that one could play a potentially lethal drinking game putting away shots every time you spot one"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Mar 24, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
60%
|
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) |
"
That the female roles are the most memorable is intriguing since Oz the Great and Powerful is arguably at heart a broadside against male chauvinism"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
100%
|
Ministry of Fear (1944) |
"
The film as a whole doesn't really stick with you, but isolated moments and images do"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Mar 18, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
52%
|
Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) |
"
The tonal shifts from unironic romance, to self-conscious grotesquerie, to roaring action don't always flow smoothly, which suggests a film stewed by a few too many hands who weren't always on the same page."
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Mar 8, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
100%
|
Narayama bushiko (Ballad of Narayama) (1958) |
"
a striking experimental mixture of Japanese folklore, theatrical traditions, and stunning camerawork"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Mar 6, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
On the Waterfront (1954) |
"
a watershed moment in cinema history; it remains one of the greatest films of the 1950s"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Feb 26, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
15%
|
A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) |
"
Willis appears to be doing little more than going through the motions, and the character is so gutted and generic at this point that virtually any other action caricature could be inserted into the script with virtually no effect on the film"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Feb 24, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
85%
|
Side Effects (2013) |
"
a slick, entertaining piece of Hollywood genre work that includes just enough twists and tweaks to make it stand out from the parade of similar thrillers"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Feb 15, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
95%
|
Pina (2011) |
"
a stark, invigorating reminder that great art never dies with the artist"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Feb 11, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
80%
|
Warm Bodies (2013) |
"
thick with postmodern humor and knowing irony, but it never comes at the expense of R and his gradual shift from zombie to the possibility of being human again"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Feb 8, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
75%
|
Peter Pan (1953) |
"
plays as less of a child fantasy of soaring adventure than it does as a retrograde narcissistic adult male fantasy of being desired and pursued by every female in the room"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Feb 6, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
92%
|
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) |
"
tows the line of conventional, feel-good Hollywood rom-com, albeit dressed up in just enough art-house quirk to make it feel like something slightly radical"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 30, 2013
|
|
4/4
|
95%
|
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) |
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 22, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
59%
|
Friday the 13th (1980) |
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 22, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
93%
|
Zero Dark Thirty (2013) |
"
The fact that commentators, pundits, and politicians on both sides of the political spectrum are condemning Zero Dark Thirty is a sure sign that director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal have done something right."
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 16, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
88%
|
The Man Who Knew Too Much (2003) |
"
not a particularly great film, although it is filled with isolated moments of greatness and hints of masterpieces to come"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 15, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
19%
|
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013) |
"
math doesn't mean much in Texas Chainsaw, nor does logic, for that matter, or anything resembling originality or daring"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 9, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
88%
|
Django Unchained (2012) |
"
The film's triumph is the manner in which Tarantino re-envisions cinema's selective appropriation of history and makes it entirely his own"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 8, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
80%
|
Il fiore delle mille e una notte (Flower of the Arabian Nights) (Arabian Nights) (1998) |
"
while Arabian Nights has its share of impressive vistas and narrative trickery, its fundamental emotional disconnect renders it inert--a beautiful bit of exotic fantasy that quickly dissipates"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 4, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
63%
|
I Racconti di Canterbury (The Canterbury Tales) (1971) |
"
the brash, arguably campy manner in which Pasolini transcribes Chaucer's medieval bawdiness to the screen, coupled with the film's various technical faults (particularly the lousy dubbed dialogue), tends to make the film a chore to watch."
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 4, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
83%
|
Il Decameron (The Decameron) (1970) |
"
at times it achieves nearly sublime heights (or, more accurately, lows) of grubby humor and vitality, but at other times it feels strained and slapdash"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 4, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
52%
|
This is 40 (2012) |
"
Apatow can't relinquish his love of random animal comedy enough to let his dramatic sensibilities really take hold, and as a result the film is torn, trading laughs for winces and vice-versa in a way that feels conflicted, rather than organic"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Jan 4, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
70%
|
Les Misérables (2012) |
"
works emotionally even when it stumbles aesthetically"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Dec 26, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
66%
|
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) |
"
For what it's worth, the first installment of The Hobbit hits all the right notes and delivers what will be expected of it"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Dec 22, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
63%
|
Hitchcock (2012) |
"
remains frustratingly surface level in its aspirations, taking us through familiar Psycho-related trivia without ever making it truly come alive"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Dec 18, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
33%
|
Deadfall (2012) |
"
Oedipal crises abound in this sleek but empty slice of snow-driven neo-noir"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Dec 14, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
79%
|
Following (1999) |
"
a harbinger of things to come, an exercise in the kind of temporal gymnastics, sleight-of-hand shifts in perspective, and rigorous insights into the dark depths of human nature that have defined Nolan's later films"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Dec 12, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
94%
|
The Sessions (2012) |
"
The laughs are always gentle, which is descriptive of the film as a whole, as it strives to reconnect cinematic sex with shared humanity. "
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Dec 11, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
88%
|
Life of Pi (2012) |
"
The effect is constantly dazzling and even breathtaking, and had Lee managed to truly merge the spiritual and the visceral, it might very well have been his masterpiece. "
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Dec 7, 2012
|
|
4/4
|
95%
|
Weekend (Week End) (1967) |
"
an apocalyptic primal scream against the conformities and hypocrisies of the Americanized French bourgeoisie and one of the most lacerating and funny satires of car culture ever produced"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Nov 27, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
89%
|
Lincoln (2012) |
"
The weight of history is certainly present in every scene, but so are the undeniable correlations between past and present that make it feel so immediate and pertinent. "
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Nov 20, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
92%
|
Skyfall (2012) |
"
a crackerjack Bond film that cannily mixes the harder, more severe edges of the previous Craig films with a sly sense of humor"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Nov 15, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
87%
|
Arbitrage (2012) |
"
Whether there is even the possibility of redemption at the end is part of what makes the film so gripping. "
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Nov 15, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
79%
|
Flight (2012) |
"
a story about the question of redemption--not just whether the protagonist-in-crisis can be redeemed, but whether we want him to be redeemed, at least in the manner that is most likely to result in true justice"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Nov 13, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
68%
|
Cloud Atlas (2012) |
"
The very size of the film and its narrative ambitions have a way of keeping us just at arm's length, as if we are meant to appreciate its vastness without getting fully lost in it."
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Nov 12, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
92%
|
Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971) |
"
at its best plays as a powerful, deeply human reminder of how desperate we can be for connection, however compromised it may be"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Oct 25, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
63%
|
Sinister (2012) |
"
Derrickson is a sharp stylist who knows how to meld dreadful imagery with actual ideas that make his horror films more than just exercises in goose-the-audience manipulation"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Oct 19, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
96%
|
Argo (2012) |
"
a crackerjack based-on-a-true story thriller that finally allows actor/director Ben Affleck to demonstrate his behind-the-camera muscles in a location other than his native Boston"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Oct 18, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
87%
|
Frankenweenie (2012) |
"
An almost perfect balance of macabre humor, charming sincerity, and a love of all things cinematic, Frankenweenie is Tim Burton's best film in years"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Oct 17, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
84%
|
Eating Raoul (1982) |
"
Despite the consistency of the film's droll take on murder and mayhem, it still feels oddly uneven and skimpy, as if there just isn't quite enough meat on its narrative bones. "
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Oct 9, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
93%
|
Looper (2012) |
"
takes us far beyond the film's high-concept premise into the kind of emotional terrain that too often escapes even the best genre filmmakers"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Oct 9, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
43%
|
Hotel Transylvania (2012) |
"
so frenzied and hyped in its desire to please and entertain that it starts to feel exhausting, rather than exhilarating-a monster mash that goes on a little too long and invited too many to the party"
—
Q Network Film Desk
Posted Oct 8, 2012
|
43%
46%
95%
99%
65%
61%
