|
2.5/4
|
8%
|
Runner Runner (2013) |
"
The film will make a decent rental in a few months time. But to lay down good money now, to see it in a theater? That's a chump's move."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
80%
|
The Summit (2013) |
"
I'm afraid it will only leave some audience members with the same nagging question I had at the beginning. Why on earth do people do this?"
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
42%
|
All Is Bright (2013) |
"
"All Is Bright" isn't - and was never meant to be - a major cinematic gift to audiences. But as a little stocking stuffer, and nostalgic recollection of how movies used to be, it often has its own small and quite welcome delights."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
74%
|
Concussion (2013) |
"
For all that could be said of why this character chooses this path - of what this says, or she thinks it says, about control, or submission, or transgressiveness - the movie says nothing."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
46%
|
Parkland (2013) |
"
I can see this film being shown in high school, as a way to fill up two-or-three periods. But I can't see anyone wanting to see it on their own. Especially if they already lived through it once."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
98%
|
Gravity (2013) |
"
Right from the start, Cuaron aims for the moon - and hits it."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Oct 3, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
83%
|
Don Jon (2013) |
"
Really, "Don Jon" could have - should have - gone on another 20 minutes. Then again, when was the last time you felt that about a romantic comedy? Or any movie?"
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
93%
|
Muscle Shoals (2013) |
"
The documentary is a little slapdash, but then so is the very idea of what Muscle Shoals means. Is it the town itself? Or the celebrated rhythm section that started at one studio and then formed its own?"
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
16%
|
Baggage Claim (2013) |
"
A painfully predictable romance, and a terribly unfunny comedy."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
78%
|
Metallica Through the Never (2013) |
"
In the real world, concerts build to a climax, then return for two or three more; on the screen, alas, "Metallica: Through the Never" just kind of peters out."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
100%
|
The Wicker Man - Final Cut (2013) |
"
If not quite the holy grail of horror films, than a holy terror just as well, lying lovingly in wait."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
80%
|
Prisoners (2013) |
"
Is it the best Hollywood mystery we've seen in awhile? Oh yes. Is it one any parent would want to see? Only if they don't mind nightmares."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 20, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
51%
|
A Single Shot (2013) |
"
"A Single Shot" is a singular pleasure, and worth seeking out."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 20, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
88%
|
Rush (2013) |
"
Howard keeps his cameras small and all over the cars, to show us dazzling machinery in motion, the ground whizzing by in a blur underneath. Playing to his own strengths, though, he keeps this a movie about character."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 20, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
95%
|
Enough Said (2013) |
"
It's about something we didn't often see Gandolfini play - a self-deprecating, sensitive, funny and socially uncertain guy."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 18, 2013
|
|
3/5
|
78%
|
Good Ol' Freda (2013) |
"
For any hard-core Beatles fan, this is essential stuff - and for anyone who follows pop culture, it's rather bittersweet."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 13, 2013
|
|
4/5
|
98%
|
Wadjda (2013) |
"
Cleanly shot, concisely edited, "Wadjda" is a film that parents and smart children could enjoy together; its heroine is both immediately a type (yes, they roll their eyes in Saudi Arabia, too) and a very specific character."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 13, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
34%
|
Salinger (2013) |
"
One of those documentaries where a lot of fancy people who never met the guy use the word "must" a lot. Oh, well, he must have thought this, they say, waving their hands around. Oh, this must be why he did this. It's all kind of annoying, actually."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 6, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
100%
|
Best Kept Secret (2013) |
"
Apart from a few, briskly factual titles, there are no editorial intrusions here - no yammering experts, no pontificating activists, no sappy sentimental music."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 6, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
60%
|
Riddick (2013) |
"
The dark palette and extreme close-ups turn every fight into a muddy blur; the staging, which should feel claustrophobic, is too often set in vast (and unconvincing) landscapes."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Sep 6, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
13%
|
The Lifeguard (2013) |
"
The movie really depends on Bell, and her story, and neither is interesting or compelling enough to engage us."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 30, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
75%
|
You're Next (2013) |
"
Although there's a twist in this tale, most of it - the brutal home invasion, the anonymous creeps in spooky masks - is stuff we've seen before. And Wingard doesn't think of a new way to show it, either ..."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 23, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
62%
|
Scenic Route (2013) |
"
At the very least shows you how to make a smart, cheap little movie with only two actors, one main exterior set and no special effects."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 23, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
89%
|
The World's End (2013) |
"
Life's too short to waste your time on this, even if the end isn't near."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 23, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
30%
|
Kick-Ass 2 (2013) |
"
If it works at all, fitfully, it's because of the precociously talented and in-control Moretz, who basically carries the entire film on her own small shoulders."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 16, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
81%
|
Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) |
"
The places feel lived in. The story feels like life."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 16, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
26%
|
Jobs (2013) |
"
He was a charismatic leader, and the greatest salesman the industry ever saw."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 16, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
31%
|
Austenland (2013) |
"
A tribute to Miss Austen needs both sense and sensibility, sparkling wit and a variety of attractive suitors."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 16, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
73%
|
Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013) |
"
It's too obviously a careful tour through American history, and while some sequences work - particularly the various attacks on civil-rights workers - too much of it feels as flat and cheap as a film strip."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 16, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
83%
|
The Patience Stone (2013) |
"
The camera observes, quietly. There is a stillness, not only in the images, but in the air itself."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 14, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
91%
|
In a World... (2013) |
"
Mostly it's about family - about sisterly bonding, about domineering fathers, about long-lost, still-missed mothers. About any adult child's fight to establish herself as an independent entity."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 9, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
27%
|
Planes (2013) |
"
Strictly by the numbers, from the believe-in-yourself moral to the purely predictable ending."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 9, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
68%
|
Elysium (2013) |
"
It's like one of those bad "Star Trek" episodes, when Gene Roddenberry stopped everything on the bridge so he could lecture us about the Cold War."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 9, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
80%
|
The Good Son: The Life of Ray Boom Boom Mancini (2013) |
"
Mancini himself comes across as quiet, modest and painfully honest - even as the sport his family has devoted itself to reveals itself, once again, over and over again, to be brutal, to be corrupt ..."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 9, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
54%
|
Lovelace (2013) |
"
It has a pair of terrific performances at its center, and an intriguing story."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 9, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
47%
|
We're The Millers (2013) |
"
In the end, Sudeikis is a little too smarmy and Aniston a little too clean-cut to really sell these characters ..."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 7, 2013
|
|
2/4
|
38%
|
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) |
"
The movie feels like a watch-the-bottom-line effort that's determined to skimp on everything - guest stars, effects, spectacle - while bringing in new characters we don't care about."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 7, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
22%
|
The Canyons (2013) |
"
"The Canyons" isn't a movie, it's a small, sad, real-life object lesson: This is what happens when you don't hold on tight to all that you've earned. This is what happens when you throw away what you've been lucky enough to be given."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 2, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
63%
|
2 Guns (2013) |
"
For a movie with so many dead bodies, there's still something strangely lively about "2 Guns" - a film which is certainly too much, and often too confusing, but never, ever too dull."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Aug 1, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
14%
|
The Smurfs 2 (2013) |
"
Even movies aimed at very small children don't have to be painful for adults to sit through, and the good ones even have a few pleasures for them, as well."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 31, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
57%
|
When Comedy Went to School (2013) |
"
By no means a great documentary, but it's a very entertaining one, mostly because of the entertainers it spotlights - the generations who passed through the Catskills, learned their craft and went on to create modern American humor."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 30, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
52%
|
The To Do List (2013) |
"
Even when the film connects, I can't help feel that it's mostly because it's set the target too low."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 26, 2013
|
|
3/4
|
91%
|
Blue Jasmine (2013) |
"
It's a movie of quiet moments (and one startling revelation). But it is a dramatic slice of life, and it lives fully in a darkness Allen's only occasionally kept at bay."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 25, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
69%
|
The Wolverine (2013) |
"
"The Wolverine" is the best superhero film since "The Avengers" - maybe even since "The Dark Knight.""
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 25, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
88%
|
Springsteen And I (2013) |
"
"Springsteen & I" can be entertaining. But it never rises above the level of the sort of bonus DVD you sometimes get free with a new album. "
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 21, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
86%
|
The Conjuring (2013) |
"
[Wan's] entire film is possessed - by other films."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 19, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
40%
|
Only God Forgives (2013) |
"
I never had a doubt that director Nicolas Winding Refn was in absolute control."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 19, 2013
|
|
2.5/4
|
62%
|
Broken (2013) |
"
[It] drives its plot via an interesting and unusual character: the female victim who's actually a wholesale liar."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 19, 2013
|
|
1.5/4
|
42%
|
Red 2 (2013) |
"
Recycled, Expensive, Dull."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Jul 19, 2013
|
