|
3/5
|
55%
|
Man of Steel (2013) |
"
Snyder has cast Man of Steel with dramatic actors, not action stars, and it pays off."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jun 13, 2013
|
|
|
93%
|
Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton As Himself (2013) |
"
The film offers a front-row seat to the marvelous, fifty-year-long piece of performance art that was Plimpton's public persona."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jun 11, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
34%
|
The Internship (2013) |
"
If you've ever thought to yourself, "Yeah, I use Google -- as a search engine, a map, a translator, a verb -- but I wish there was a way to get more Google in my life," then you're in luck."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jun 6, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
91%
|
Frances Ha (2013) |
"
Funny and touching, Frances Ha may very well be the most eloquent take yet on a generation in flux."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 31, 2013
|
|
1/5
|
7%
|
All About Steve (2009) |
"
Kooky? Hardly. Cringing? Most assuredly."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 28, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
20%
|
The Hangover Part III (2013) |
"
It is what is. We've had some good laughs. Let's part amicably."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 24, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
71%
|
Fast & Furious 6 (2013) |
"
We've heard this song before -- catchy but banal, monotonous -- and it hasn't gotten any better with time."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 23, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
88%
|
In the House (2013) |
"
An almost perverse delight, an egghead thriller that slyly shell-games its truer purpose as an inquiry into the construction -- and deconstruction -- of fiction. Scratch deconstruction: Make that tear-the-house-down demolition."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 17, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
36%
|
Peeples (2013) |
"
[Writer/director Tina Gordon Chism is ] good at low-key, observational humor, and the all-around excellent cast swings with aplomb from silly to sweet."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 17, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
87%
|
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) |
"
Abrams' space isn't the final frontier: The landscape reads more like, "Haven't we been here before?" Well, yes, but a whirligig doesn't go anywhere, either, and it's still fun to watch it spin."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 16, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
50%
|
The Great Gatsby (2013) |
"
Luhrmann works double-time to make the material fresh, and the strain shows."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 9, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
94%
|
Blancanieves (2013) |
"
Blancanieves holds to the structure, but not strictures, of the source fairy tale."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 3, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
7%
|
The Big Wedding (2013) |
"
"Big" is an awfully ambitious modifier to affix to this pale wisp of a film."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted May 3, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
99%
|
Mud (2013) |
"
Mud, from the Austin-based writer/director Jeff Nichols, is many things at once, and all enriched by David Wingo's double-stop, aching, stringed score."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Apr 26, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
81%
|
From Up On Poppy Hill (2013) |
"
From Up on Poppy Hill, Studio Ghibli's latest, is decidedly earthbound in comparison to those transportive earlier films, though it's not without its charms."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Apr 19, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
77%
|
It's a Disaster (2013) |
"
Berger's one to watch."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Apr 19, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
80%
|
Ginger & Rosa (2013) |
"
Fanning -- a startlingly alert and microemotive young actress -- breathes real feeling into the part, while the jazz soundtrack (John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Sidney Bechet) rouses this sensitive film from its drowsier inclinations."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Apr 12, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
68%
|
Trance (2013) |
"
By trying to be all things at once, Trance diffuses the potency of each of its disparate ambitions."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Apr 12, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
9%
|
The Host (2013) |
"
Three bodies plus four minds is some fertile arithmetic, but The Host can't be bothered with the intellectual or kinky ramifications of its setup."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Apr 5, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
94%
|
Room 237 (2013) |
"
I suspect that Ascher's intention was to dynamize an academic exercise, but these constant, sundry inserts render the tone as corny and glib as a VH1 special."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Apr 5, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
31%
|
Language of a Broken Heart (2013) |
"
Language of a Broken Heart might have made a passable Hallmark or Lifetime TV movie, cushioned by the TV-movie context. But as a theatrical prospect, it's a fail."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Mar 29, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
92%
|
The Gatekeepers (2013) |
"
The rule of surveillance is to keep quiet and let others do the talking. The Oscar-nominated documentary The Gatekeepers flips the script, to astonishing effect, giving voice to the retired directors of Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
67%
|
Stoker (2013) |
"
Stoker, rather improbably, manages to find the handshake place between predictable and confounding. And that's... an achievement?"
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Mar 22, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
69%
|
The Croods (2013) |
"
Stoopid title. Sweet movie. And not the crack-your-teeth, cloying kind of sweet: DreamWorks Animation's The Croods is a spirited and eye-popping stealth charmer."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Mar 21, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
37%
|
Dead Man Down (2013) |
"
When an early shootout erupts with a reggae-beat score, it's clear this director sees carnage as nothing more than an opportunity for music-video production values."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Mar 15, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
26%
|
21 And Over (2013) |
"
Chon is a vibrant enough presence in the early scenes to invite our sympathy. But the filmmakers sweep all that aside for one more crazy-night escapade with white guys front and center and Chon practically comatose at the edge of the frame."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Mar 8, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
89%
|
Koch (2013) |
"
The former mayor is an alert onscreen presence, but the film surrounding him is not always so lively."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Feb 28, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
80%
|
Only The Young (2012) |
"
In a slim 72 minutes, it heart-tethers us to these teenagers, paying tribute to their unique and private selves while allowing the audience to see its own reflection in them."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Feb 22, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
13%
|
Safe Haven (2013) |
"
Sure, Sparks is a known for recycling material, but Hallström and scripters Leslie Bohem and Dana Stevens really push the limit by poaching the iconic canoe-in-a-rainstorm scene from The Notebook."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Feb 14, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
95%
|
The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animation (2013) |
"
The five films the Academy anointed as nominees for this year's Best Animated Short category take to heart the old saw that a picture is worth a thousand words ..."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Feb 7, 2013
|
|
0.5/5
|
14%
|
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) |
"
In his English-language debut, Wirkola dabbles in everything but commits to nothing, making for an unmemorable brew best left untasted."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Feb 4, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
4%
|
Movie 43 (2013) |
"
It rather boggles the mind how so many micromanaging handlers allowed their A-list talent to participate in a production that looks funded from a frat-house's loose-couch-change collection."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Feb 4, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
80%
|
Warm Bodies (2013) |
"
That rare thing in modern studio moviemaking - a consequential universe. Hits hurt. People die. Small gestures of kindness somersault into bigger things."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jan 31, 2013
|
|
2.5/5
|
32%
|
Fanboys (2008) |
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jan 22, 2013
|
|
0/5
|
12%
|
A Haunted House (2013) |
"
It's like watching a snuff film, only it's the audience who's dying inside."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jan 18, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
93%
|
Zero Dark Thirty (2013) |
"
There is admirably little fat on its bones. No love interests, no backstories, no B-plot about Maya's childhood: Zero Dark Thirty is as ruthlessly, relentlessly single-minded as she is about the hunt for bin Laden."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jan 11, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
47%
|
Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away (2012) |
"
Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away is fine to look at, but good luck feeling anything."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jan 4, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
69%
|
Les Misérables (2012) |
"
When Les Misérables is good, it is very, very good, and when it is bad, it's usually because Russell Crowe has opened his mouth."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jan 4, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
81%
|
The Impossible (2012) |
"
To dispel the two talking points attending The Impossible, Juan Antonio Bayona's dramatization of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: No, it's not racist, and no, you don't have to be a parent to feel the film in your bones."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Jan 4, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
52%
|
This is 40 (2012) |
"
Swings between ambitious and facile, enormously likable and sour to taste."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Dec 20, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
89%
|
A Royal Affair (2012) |
"
It is certainly competent, lovely to look at, but leaves little lasting impression."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Dec 7, 2012
|
|
2.5/5
|
63%
|
Anna Karenina (2012) |
"
Parse too closely the space between "neat" and "conceptual" and "trick," and there's little emotional truck to all the elaborate conceit."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Nov 30, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
89%
|
Lincoln (2012) |
"
Master shape-shifter Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a monumental portrayal of a man so firmly monumented in our nation's history."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Nov 16, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
92%
|
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) |
"
Consistently funny and, as it builds to its conclusion, also very sweet fun."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Nov 16, 2012
|
|
2.5/5
|
53%
|
Simon and the Oaks (2012) |
"
Significant enough to be name-checked in the title, the trees hang over the film, threatening to impose heavy metaphor on what is otherwise a straightforward family saga."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Nov 9, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
92%
|
Skyfall (2012) |
"
Noted killjoy Sam Mendes might seem like a counterintuitive addition to the series, but it turns out he's aces with action staging and set-pieces soaked in local flavor."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Nov 8, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
90%
|
Keep the Lights On (2012) |
"
There's a lot to like here, and if you're a traditionalist who hungers for a happy ending, you'll find it embedded in the opening credits."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Nov 2, 2012
|
|
3/5
|
94%
|
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel (2012) |
"
The filmmakers have done a fine job corralling so many fantastic tales from Vreeland's life."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Oct 26, 2012
|
|
2.5/5
|
26%
|
Fun Size (2012) |
"
Sometimes funny, often broad-stroked, ever sweet, and landing shy of its potential."
—
Austin Chronicle
Posted Oct 25, 2012
|
73%
78%
61%
52%
26%
4%
