Manohla Dargis Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Manohla Dargis

Manohla Dargis

Agrees with the Tomatometer 76% of the time.

Publications:: Journal News (Westchester, NY) , L.A. Weekly , Los Angeles Times , New York Times , San Francisco Chronicle
Critics' Group:: Los Angeles Film Critics Association

Total Reviews:: 1245

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Showing 51 - 100 of 1245

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
3/5	94%	The Central Park Five (2012)	" Measured in tone and outraged in its argument, it is an emotionally stirring, at times crushingly depressing cinematic call to witness." — New York Times Posted Nov 22, 2012
2.5/5	13%	Red Dawn (2012)	" Bradley ... handles the low-fi action well, which helps divert attention from the bargain-bin special effects, bad acting and politics." — New York Times Posted Nov 20, 2012
3/5	48%	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)	" Despite the slow start Mr. Condon closes the series in fine, smooth style. He gives fans all the lovely flowers, conditioned hair and lightly erotic, dreamy kisses they deserve." — New York Times Posted Nov 15, 2012
5/5	92%	Silver Linings Playbook (2012)	" "Silver Linings Playbook," the exuberant new movie from David O. Russell, does almost everything right." — New York Times Posted Nov 15, 2012
4/5	67%	Barrymore (2012)	" Mr. Plummer stumbles beautifully, poignantly and often, leering and searching through a haze of memory or, with concern edged with panic, calling for "a line, a line" much as Richard III calls for a horse." — New York Times Posted Nov 14, 2012
4/5	100%	Ningen Johatsu (A Man Vanishes) (1967)	" Seemingly banal in its conceit, wildly startling in its execution, it tracks a film crew that, like a detective squad, investigates what became of an ordinary man." — New York Times Posted Nov 14, 2012
3.5/5	67%	Dangerous Liaisons (2012)	" Schadenfreude carries a delectable tang no matter the language, and as the history of Hollywood shows, stories about pretty people behaving badly remain reliably alluring." — New York Times Posted Nov 8, 2012
3/5	47%	A Liar's Autobiography - The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman (2012)	" It's a colorful patchwork of family high and low points, schoolboy days, professional triumphs and assorted epiphanies (including sex with women followed by sex with men). " — New York Times Posted Nov 8, 2012
4/5	88%	Starlet (2012)	" A thrillingly, unexpectedly good American movie about love and a moral awakening ..." — New York Times Posted Nov 8, 2012
3.5/5	92%	Skyfall (2012)	" Whether Mr. Mendes is deploying an explosion or a delectable detail, he retains a crucially human scale and intimacy, largely by foregrounding the performers." — New York Times Posted Nov 7, 2012
3/5	49%	The Man With the Iron Fists (2012)	" As erratically enjoyable as it is consistently ridiculous, the martial arts pastiche "The Man With the Iron Fists" is the latest evidence that the vogue for neo-exploitation cinema shows no sign of flagging." — New York Times Posted Nov 1, 2012
5/5	78%	Flight (2012)	" To watch Mr. Zemeckis working fluidly in consort with Mr. Washington's ferocious performance is to regret this director's last, technologically determined decade. " — New York Times Posted Nov 1, 2012
3.5/5	51%	Pusher (2012)	" There's an ugly, jittery beauty to "Pusher," a very fine British redo of a 1996 Danish movie of the same title." — New York Times Posted Oct 25, 2012
3/5	33%	Chasing Mavericks (2012)	" The surfers and the surfing, along with the natural beauty of the California coastline, help balance the movie's weak areas, including its lamentably one-dimensional protagonist." — New York Times Posted Oct 25, 2012
2.5/5	93%	Sleep Tight (2012)	" Mr. Balagueró is so overtaken by his villain that he becomes like César, displaying an eagerness to play the role of tormentor, which kills both the movie's pleasure and its flickering political subtext." — New York Times Posted Oct 25, 2012
4/5	85%	Bestiaire (2012)	" Mr. Côté ... forces you to look at the often unseen. It may not be pretty, but it is essential viewing." — New York Times Posted Oct 18, 2012
4/5	100%	The Great Love (2012)	" A movie that wittily points to and sometimes upends its narrative." — New York Times Posted Oct 18, 2012
3.5/5	98%	Brooklyn Castle (2012)	" It's deeply satisfying watching these public school, hard-knock kids win, and Ms. Dellamaggiore knows it." — New York Times Posted Oct 18, 2012
1/5	12%	Alex Cross (2012)	" A grim, dispiritingly stupid waste of time, energy, money and talent ..." — New York Times Posted Oct 18, 2012
5/5	90%	Holy Motors (2012)	" A dream of the movies that looks like a movie of dreams." — New York Times Posted Oct 16, 2012
1/5	5%	Atlas Shrugged: Part II (2012)	" The producers are going to have to hire a better director if they want moviegoers to be curious enough about this Galt guy to buy a ticket for the presumptive third and final chapter." — New York Times Posted Oct 15, 2012
5/5	87%	Middle of Nowhere (2012)	" "Middle of Nowhere" carries the imprimatur of Sundance, but without the dreary stereotypes or self-satisfied politics that can (at times unfairly) characterize its offerings." — New York Times Posted Oct 11, 2012
3.5/5	82%	Seven Psychopaths (2012)	" Meta to the max, filled with clever jokes and observations that stick like barbs and deflated ones that land with a thud, "Seven Psychopaths" is a leisurely riff about movies, violence, storytelling and the art of the steal." — New York Times Posted Oct 11, 2012
5/5	96%	Argo (2012)	" In the end, this is a story about outwitting rather than killing the enemy, making it a homage to actual intelligence and an example of the same." — New York Times Posted Oct 11, 2012
4/5	95%	Sister (2012)	" A cool yet compassionate look at two people bound by love and shared struggles in a world of haves and have-nots." — New York Times Posted Oct 4, 2012
5/5	93%	The House I Live In (2012)	" A model of the ambitious, vitalizing activist work that exists to stir the sleeping to wake." — New York Times Posted Oct 4, 2012
2/5	——	The Double Steps (2012)	" [Mr. Lacuesta is] so committed to non-transparency as a principle that he locks you out." — New York Times Posted Oct 1, 2012
3/5	64%	Headshot (2012)	" A dreamy, elliptical neo-noir about a cop turned killer turned something else altogether." — New York Times Posted Sep 27, 2012
3.5/5	93%	Looper (2012)	" Mr. Johnson throws a lot at the screen, blasted corpses included, yet little here is as initially transfixing as Mr. Gordon-Levitt's mug." — New York Times Posted Sep 27, 2012
3/5	65%	Solomon Kane (2012)	" Mr. Basset is too enamored of the usual action film clichés ... But he has a graphic visual style that suits the simplistic material and he keeps you watching even as the wet, sucking sounds of skewered flesh grows tedious." — New York Times Posted Sep 27, 2012
3/5	85%	The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)	" Likable, unsurprising and principally a showcase for the pretty young cast, notably Mr. Miller, who brings texture to his witty if sensitive gay quipster." — New York Times Posted Sep 20, 2012
3.5/5	94%	Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel (2012)	" Dizzily enjoyable ..." — New York Times Posted Sep 20, 2012
2/5	78%	Dredd (2012)	" Every so often there's a suggestion that a police state may actually be a lousy idea, but this thought dies even faster than the disposable characters. " — New York Times Posted Sep 20, 2012
3.5/5	85%	End of Watch (2012)	" A muscular, maddening exploitation movie embellished with art-house style and anchored by solid performances. " — New York Times Posted Sep 20, 2012
3/5	87%	Arbitrage (2012)	" Mr. Gere is one of cinema's great walkers, graced with a suggestively predatory physical suppleness, and he slips through the movie like a panther. He's the film's most deluxe item." — New York Times Posted Sep 13, 2012
1/5	54%	The Inbetweeners (2012)	" The movie is apparently the most popular British comedy in history. I guarantee that its success has nothing to do with the quality of the actual movie ..." — New York Times Posted Sep 6, 2012
3.5/5	73%	Toys In The Attic (Na Pude) (2012)	" There may be a metaphor afloat here - something about the folly of those who devour their own - in between some glorious imagery and what is finally a sweet little story." — New York Times Posted Sep 6, 2012
3/5	58%	The Eye of the Storm (2012)	" [A] dramatically unsteady, blustery if likable film, which was adapted by Judy Morris from the Patrick White novel." — New York Times Posted Sep 6, 2012
4/5	76%	Premium Rush (2012)	" Stuffed with zingers and zippy stunts, it comes with pretty young things of all hues and hair types - few prettier than its lead, Joseph Gordon-Levitt - and start-to-finish clever special effects, none more clever or special than Michael Shannon." — New York Times Posted Aug 23, 2012
3.5/5	93%	Teddy Bear (2012)	" A largely likable tale about a 38-year-old man-child trying finally to grow up." — New York Times Posted Aug 21, 2012
3/5	87%	Robot & Frank (2012)	" Frank Langella plays so many variations on cute and crotchety and with such suppleness - he's by turns a charming codger, a silver fox and a wise graybeard - that his performance comes close to a saving grace." — New York Times Posted Aug 16, 2012
4/5	87%	ParaNorman (2012)	" The story, an amusing if not especially fresh tale involving a witch and some Puritans, is principally a vehicle for the movie's meticulously detailed pictorial beauty, which turns each scene into an occasion for discovery and sometimes delight." — New York Times Posted Aug 16, 2012
3.5/5	64%	Cosmopolis (2012)	" Mr. Cronenberg's direction throughout "Cosmopolis" is impeccable, both inside the limo and out." — New York Times Posted Aug 16, 2012
3/5	56%	The Bourne Legacy (2012)	" By the time Rachel Weisz, as a scientist called Dr. Marta Shearing, showed up in a lab coat, I stopped trying to parse every plot twist and just went with the action flow." — New York Times Posted Aug 9, 2012
2.5/5	74%	Hope Springs (2012)	" An awkward cross between a domestic comedy and a marital tragedy that's laced with laughs, soggy with tears and burdened by a booming, blunt soundtrack that amplifies every narrative beat" — New York Times Posted Aug 8, 2012
3/5	93%	Meet the Fokkens (2012)	" "Meet the Fokkens" holds your interest, mostly because the sisters (who turned 70 in May) are good company, no matter who they are." — New York Times Posted Aug 7, 2012
2/5	21%	360 (2012)	" Mr. Morgan has written some good movies, notably "The Queen," and Mr. Meirelles has won fans for neo-exploitation titles like "City of God." There's no way to know what went wrong with "360" and whether it was this uninvolving and shallow from the start." — New York Times Posted Aug 2, 2012
3.5/5	70%	Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012)	" While "Celeste and Jesse" is decidedly conventional in most respects, it's pretty swell as an exploration of a relationship between a man and a woman that's no longer predicated by mutual desire." — New York Times Posted Aug 2, 2012
3.5/5	97%	Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012)	" The fluidity and convenience of digital moviemaking tools explain some of its freshness, as does Ms. Klayman's history as a budding documentarian." — New York Times Posted Jul 26, 2012
3.5/5	——	Abendland (2012)	" The overall impression is a vision of Europe as a mosaic, as an artful amalgam of perfectly framed, seemingly disconnected moments during a long shared night, give or take a time zone change or two." — New York Times Posted Jul 26, 2012
4/5	96%	Searching for Sugar Man (2012)	" A hugely appealing documentary about fans, faith and an enigmatic Age of Aquarius musician who burned bright and hopeful before disappearing." — New York Times Posted Jul 26, 2012
2.5/5	77%	Killer Joe (2012)	" Lurches from realism to corn-pone absurdism and exploitation-cinema surrealism." — New York Times Posted Jul 26, 2012
2.5/5	90%	The Well Digger's Daughter (2012)	" A pastoral wrapped in gauze, sunlight and sentimentality." — New York Times Posted Jul 19, 2012
3.5/5	87%	The Dark Knight Rises (2012)	" The grave and satisfying finish to Mr. Nolan's operatic bat-trilogy." — New York Times Posted Jul 18, 2012
2/5	67%	Trishna (2012)	" Life is suffering, as the Buddha said (including in Hardy's emotionally grinding novels), but it's more complex and contradictory than the ginned-up realism Mr. Winterbottom delivers here." — New York Times Posted Jul 12, 2012
3.5/5	92%	Farewell, My Queen (2012)	" Benoît Jacquot's tense, absorbing, pleasurably original look at three days in the life and lies of a doomed monarch ..." — New York Times Posted Jul 12, 2012
3/5	67%	The Pact (2012)	" In the end, like a lot of genre movies, this one pulls from different inspirations, and so weighs in, by turns, as overly predictable and satisfyingly recognizable (part of genre cinema's one-two punch)." — New York Times Posted Jul 5, 2012
3/5	93%	Last Ride (2012)	" Mr. Ivin doesn't have a strong narrative line to play with or become distracted by, but he takes off on some lovely detours, whether he's narrowing in on Chook or going wide to take in the world that waits beyond." — New York Times Posted Jul 5, 2012
3/5	73%	The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)	" Mr. Webb's Spider-Man movie works only because he keeps the whole package, at least until the requisite final blowout, tethered to his two appealing leads. " — New York Times Posted Jul 2, 2012
3/5	50%	A Burning Hot Summer (2012)	" Here and elsewhere you linger in moments that, like memories and dreams, can feel severed from storybook time." — New York Times Posted Jun 28, 2012
3/5	76%	Unforgivable (2012)	" "Unforgivable" isn't one of Mr. Téchiné's greatest achievements, but it's engrossing even when its increasingly populated story falters, tripped up by unpersuasive actions, connections and details." — New York Times Posted Jun 28, 2012
3.5/5	80%	Magic Mike (2012)	" A smoothly distilled collaboration that balances Mr. Tatum's heat and charm - and ambitions that are as transparent as Mike's - with Mr. Soderbergh's cool, cinematic intelligence and ongoing preoccupations." — New York Times Posted Jun 28, 2012
3/5	83%	Ordinary Miracles: The Photo League's New York (2012)	" It's a great, often inspiring story - even if it's not as thrilling as it might have been in a different, more developed and longer feature." — New York Times Posted Jun 21, 2012
2/5	35%	Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)	" "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is such a smashing title it's too bad someone had to spoil things by making a movie to go with it." — New York Times Posted Jun 21, 2012
2.5/5	78%	Brave (2012)	" While the mother-daughter clashes may make the story "relatable," they drain it of its mythopoetic potential, turning what could have been a cool postmodern fairy tale into another family melodrama." — New York Times Posted Jun 21, 2012
3/5	63%	The Woman in the Fifth (2012)	" Although Mr. Pawlikowski often shows Mr. Hawke in medium and long shots, the actor draws you close." — New York Times Posted Jun 14, 2012
2.5/5	41%	Rock of Ages (2012)	" It looks like Disneyland and sounds, well, like a bad Broadway musical, with all the power belting and jazz-hand choreography that implies." — New York Times Posted Jun 14, 2012
	92%	No (2013)	" "No" is an ugly looking movie - literally - for an ugly time. It's smeary, with little pictorial beauty or detail, but its anti-aesthetic is purposeful and, after your eyes stop hurting, watchable and persuasive." — New York Times Posted May 25, 2012
3.5/5	94%	Moonrise Kingdom (2012)	" "Moonrise Kingdom" breezes along with a beautifully coordinated admixture of droll humor, deadpan and slapstick." — New York Times Posted May 24, 2012
	45%	On the Road (2012)	" Salles, an intelligent director whose films include "The Motorcycle Diaries," doesn't invest "On the Road" with the wildness it needs for its visual style, narrative approach and leads." — New York Times Posted May 23, 2012
	93%	Amour (2012)	" A tender, wrenching, impeccably directed story of love and death." — New York Times Posted May 22, 2012
	90%	Beyond The Hills (2013)	" Running two-and-a-half engrossing hours, "Beyond the Hills" explores the push and pull between the collective and the individual, between faith and free will. " — New York Times Posted May 22, 2012
3.5/5	95%	Bonsái (2012)	" In clumsier hands it would be easy to get lost amid the expanding thicket of narrative twists." — New York Times Posted May 10, 2012
3/5	94%	I Wish (2012)	" Whenever its children are on screen, lighted up with joy or dimmed by hard adult truths, the film burns bright." — New York Times Posted May 10, 2012
4/5	38%	Dark Shadows (2012)	" "Dark Shadows" isn't among Mr. Burton's most richly realized works, but it's very enjoyable, visually sumptuous and, despite its lugubrious source material and a sporadic tremor of violence, surprisingly effervescent." — New York Times Posted May 10, 2012
1/5	4%	A Little Bit Of Heaven (2012)	" A cringe-inducing romantic comedy turned cancer tragedy turned inspirational hosanna about living in the moment, embracing your bliss and other clichés." — New York Times Posted May 3, 2012
3.5/5	94%	First Position (2012)	" An appealing, largely upbeat documentary about young ballet dancers duking it out, sometimes on point and in tulle, for top honors at the Youth America Grand Prix." — New York Times Posted May 3, 2012
4/5	75%	Sound of My Voice (2012)	" A smart, effectively unsettling movie about the need to believe and the hard, cruel arts of persuasion." — New York Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
4/5	90%	Bernie (2012)	" A sordid, bleak tale about two lonely people drawn to each other like colliding planets." — New York Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
4/5	86%	The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)	" A curiosity cabinet of visual pleasures but so breezy and lightly funny that you may not realize at first how good it is. (You're too busy grinning.)" — New York Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
4/5	94%	The Day He Arrives (2012)	" The movie becomes an exploration, both playful and rueful, of desire, narrative and the idea beautifully expressed by Faulkner in "Absalom, Absalom!" that "maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished."" — New York Times Posted Apr 19, 2012
2.5/5	59%	Fightville (2012)	" Ms. Epperlein and Mr. Tucker have talent and resolve - they spent months shooting "Fightville," a commitment that's scarcely evident - which makes the movie's superficiality all the more frustrating." — New York Times Posted Apr 19, 2012
3.5/5	64%	Hit So Hard (2012)	" "Hit So Hard" is the touching story of how and why Ms. Schemel ended up in her own private hell and how and why she made her way out again into the world of sunshine, sobriety and puppy dogs." — New York Times Posted Apr 12, 2012
3/5	38%	Lockout (Unrated) (2012)	" "Lockout"...is...as dopey an entertainment as imaginable, but it's also a reminder that the film's star, Guy Pearce, has always had great screen magnetism, to which he has now added a bedrock of muscle. Also: he can act." — New York Times Posted Apr 12, 2012
4/5	51%	The Three Stooges (2012)	" Peter and Bobby Farrelly's thoroughly enjoyable paean to Moe, Larry and Curly and the art of the eye poke." — New York Times Posted Apr 12, 2012
3.5/5	62%	We Have a Pope (2012)	" Mr. Moretti finds broad comedy in the antics of some clerics, who can seem as sweet as children, but in Melville there is pathos and there is tragedy, and not his alone." — New York Times Posted Apr 5, 2012
2.5/5	75%	Surviving Progress (2012)	" Zippily edited and nicely photographed, "Surviving Progress" is a fine summary of a hot ugly mess. But like too many short documentaries, it can't do justice to its complex topic or finally to those of us watching." — New York Times Posted Apr 5, 2012
3.5/5	32%	Intruders (2012)	" It's a pleasure to find that Mr. Fresnadillo has assumed the mantle of horror classicist to make "Intruders," using shadows and directorial sleights of hand to coax forth its slow-building scares rather than just pouring on the usual guts and gore." — New York Times Posted Mar 29, 2012
2.5/5	84%	The Raid: Redemption (2012)	" Grindingly monotonous, a blur of thudding body blows." — New York Times Posted Mar 22, 2012
3/5	85%	The Hunger Games (2012)	" Again and again Katniss rescues herself with resourcefulness, guts and true aim, a combination that makes her insistently watchable, despite Mr. Ross's soft touch and Ms. Lawrence's bland performance." — New York Times Posted Mar 22, 2012
4/5	96%	The Kid with a Bike (2012)	" A quietly rapturous film about love and redemption from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne..." — New York Times Posted Mar 15, 2012
3/5	44%	Casa de mi padre (2012)	" "Casa de Mi Padre" demands that you not take it seriously, and for the most part that's easy to do." — New York Times Posted Mar 15, 2012
2/5	59%	Wanderlust (2012)	" For every few jokes that hit in this story about a recession-battered New York couple finding themselves on a Georgia commune, one sputters and dies." — New York Times Posted Feb 23, 2012
3/5	86%	The Forgiveness of Blood (2012)	" The Albanian tradition of blood feuds partly inspired Mr. Marston to make this story, yet what gives it shape are the more familiar conventions of the classic art film, including narrative ambiguity, ellipses and silence." — New York Times Posted Feb 23, 2012
3/5	92%	The Fairy (2012)	" Although less technically polished than "The Artist" and splashed with bright color, "The Fairy" shares some of that film's qualities, for good (funny and sweet) and bad (sentimental and ingratiating)." — New York Times Posted Feb 23, 2012
4/5	96%	Undefeated (2012)	" While "Undefeated" travels well-tilled inspirational ground, it's also an irresistible story of football, faith and the lust for happily-ever-after black-and-white endings." — New York Times Posted Feb 16, 2012
2.5/5	26%	This Means War (2012)	" Would be perfectly acceptable watched on the back of an airline seat or at home while you're doing housework." — New York Times Posted Feb 16, 2012
4/5	94%	The Secret World of Arrietty (2012)	" Studio Ghibli and Arrietty have a way of taking you where you may not expect, whether you're scrambling through rooms as large as canyons or clambering into the safety of an outstretched hand, a simple gesture that says it all." — New York Times Posted Feb 16, 2012
3.5/5	53%	Safe House (2012)	" "Safe House" is essentially and very effectively a rollicking smash-and-crash chase movie that happens to be surprisingly well acted." — New York Times Posted Feb 9, 2012

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