|
47%
|
The Great Gatsby (2013)
|
"If you're able to make it through the first party scene at Gatsby's mansion, you'll come out on the other side to find a film of surprising restraint and patience."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
78%
|
Iron Man 3 (2013)
|
"A shrug of a film ... that has the diminutive stature of a DVD extra."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
98%
|
Mud (2013)
|
"I liked Mud. What's frustrating is feeling as if I could have loved it."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
46%
|
Pain & Gain (2013)
|
"I can't help but wonder if Pain & Gain is the reason Michael Bay was put on this earth."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
87%
|
Upstream Color (2013)
|
"...works on its own idiosyncratic wavelength, one that isn't alienating, but isn't quite approachable either."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
73%
|
Primer (2004)
|
"Where's Doc Brown when you need him?"
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
95%
|
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
|
"In Spielberg, the cosmic has dinner-table consequences."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
90%
|
The Shining (1980)
|
"...above all a movie about spaces, and how few things are more frightening than not knowing which way to go."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
87%
|
Lola Montès (The Fall of Lola Montes) (The Sins of Lola Montes) (1955)
|
""...lingers as a sensational fever dream.""
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
68%
|
Trance (2013)
|
"...most enjoyable for the way each of the three leads offers a twist on classic noir archetypes."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
42%
|
To The Wonder (2013)
|
"If To the Wonder is Malick's most personal film, it's also his most tragic."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
62%
|
Evil Dead (2013)
|
"...a blatant allegory in which drug addiction stands in for demonic possession (and vice versa)."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
98%
|
The Evil Dead (1981)
|
"...certainly notable as the announcement of an eager talent, but I'd have a difficult time praising the picture as much more than that."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
100%
|
The Earrings of Madame De... (Diamond Earrings) (1954)
|
"...exquisite, both in its lavish craftsmanship and in the way it captures the acute joy (and pain) of romantic love."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
66%
|
Spring Breakers (2013)
|
"...a fantasy version of Steubenville that does nothing to help us understand the sort of aggression that has become such a dominant part of youth culture."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
100%
|
La Ronde (1950)
|
"In what it means to do - capture the first rush of attraction - La Ronde has few screen equals."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
43%
|
Admission (2013)
|
"Make up your mind, Admission. Do you want to go to Princeton or not?"
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
90%
|
Beyond The Hills (2013)
|
"...if Beyond the Hills is an exorcism movie, the scariest thing about it is that there isn't a demon to be found."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
60%
|
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
|
"In one picture we have everything that's right and wrong about the contemporary blockbuster experience."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
100%
|
Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)
|
"...a women's picture that nonetheless turns on male chauvinism."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
67%
|
Stoker (2013)
|
"...captures the way adolescence blurs far more lines than the one between youth and adulthood."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
82%
|
Like Someone in Love (2013)
|
"If there is a visual equivalent to that title song - the Billie Holiday version is favored here - Kiarostami seems to have found it."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
92%
|
The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
|
"...turns a psychological condition into a parlor trick."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
97%
|
A Night at the Opera (1935)
|
"...Groucho's flirtation with respectability and devilish realization that it's much more rewarding to play the clown."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
92%
|
Duck Soup (1933)
|
"...a glaring example of the element of the Marx Brothers' comedy that's always bothered me: the reliance on insults and cruelty."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
15%
|
A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)
|
"...true to the series in one crucial way: its zen-like commitment to wanton chaos."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
85%
|
Side Effects (2013)
|
"As the twists piled on, I found them increasingly strained and eventually alienating."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
16%
|
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2013)
|
"If Sheen brings any presence to the screen, it's geriatric."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
66%
|
CQ (2002)
|
"Coppola gives CQ a sense of style and humor that makes the navel-gazing bearable. "
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
89%
|
Grey Gardens (1975)
|
"There is something unseemly in the choice to document the Beales at all. "
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
93%
|
Monkey Business (1931)
|
"...allows for a welcome bit of personal space between the audience and the comedians' antics. "
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
79%
|
Flight (2012)
|
"...isn't true to the hard work of confession."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
96%
|
Animal Crackers (1930)
|
"What's most evident, however, is the raging egomania at the center of the brothers' comedy - Groucho in particular."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
63%
|
Hitchcock (2012)
|
"...the movie's on-the-nose vision of the man makes for an unsurprising narrative."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
81%
|
The Impossible (2012)
|
"...always aware of how this traumatic experience would be filtered through this particular family."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
88%
|
Django Unchained (2012)
|
"Despite the way it functions as flashy entertainment, the weight of slavery can still be felt in Django Unchained."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
83%
|
Ganja & Hess (Black Vampire) (1973)
|
"...an experimental overlapping of dialogue, image, voiceover and music that makes you feel as if you're suffering from an awful fever dream."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
70%
|
Les Misérables (2012)
|
"...a Les Miserables inspired by Christina Aguilera's "Voice," for better and for worse."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
52%
|
This is 40 (2012)
|
"...an irate rant masquerading as a cute family project."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
93%
|
Amour (2012)
|
"...true to the awfulness of aging, yet Haneke also unveils a trait I didn't previously associate with him: mercy."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
95%
|
The Queen of Versailles (2012)
|
"...their plight plays like the financial crisis in miniature. Or perhaps it's in macro. "
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
66%
|
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
|
""...after seeing The Hobbit I couldn't wait to see it again - projected at 24 frames per second and without 3-D.""
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
38%
|
Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)
|
"(Murray) erases any trace of his own comically morose persona and gives us a kind old uncle figure. Hardly a fair trade in my opinion."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
93%
|
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
|
"...much of Zero Dark Thirty works to subvert the gender expectations we might have as an audience."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
68%
|
Wuthering Heights (2012)
|
"...almost unbearably sensual - and not only in a sexual way."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
80%
|
Cooley High (1975)
|
"...emphasizes the thin line that exists between a life of promise and a life of prison (or worse, death) for kids growing up in a neighborhood like this."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
76%
|
Killing Them Softly (2012)
|
"...a clever-enough idea - ratty criminal enterprise as the American economy in miniature - but the movie hammers its theme home, repeatedly."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
55%
|
Black Caesar (1973)
|
""Paid the cost to be the boss," declares James Brown on the soundtrack, and Black Caesar functions as an itemized bill."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
92%
|
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
|
"...recalls the screwball psychiatry of Russell's earlier efforts, only this time the farce has heart."
|
Josh Larsen
|
|
64%
|
Anna Karenina (2012)
|
"There's no getting around the fact that Johnson is disastrous."
|
Josh Larsen
|
47%
45%
95%
99%
65%
61%
