|
100%
|
This Ain't California (2013)
|
"Even knowing the artifice, it's an excellent and extremely enjoyable film. Indeed, knowing the artifice, it's way more impressive ... However true it isn't, it's a lovely evocation of what might have been."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
78%
|
Iron Man 3 (2013)
|
"Paltrow, who plays love interest Pepper Potts (and in a much bigger showing here) said in an interview I heard recently ... that Downey improvised hugely in the first two films but stuck more to the script here. They should have let him flow. "
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
90%
|
The Hunt (2013)
|
"To call The Hunt gripping would be like calling Annie Hall funny. It is, but it's also so much more than that."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
35%
|
Cheerful Weather For The Wedding (2012)
|
"If you're seriously white-knuckling for a dose of English Period Countryside Romanticism while waiting for Downton's next season to roll, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding will be like methadone: it's not going to satisfy you, but it may relieve your itch."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
76%
|
Kon Tiki (2013)
|
"If you're in need of a couple of bursts of all-over goosebumps, Kon-Tiki is your surest bet at the moment."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
92%
|
No (2013)
|
"It's not easy material but it's truly fascinating, and expertly done."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
48%
|
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
|
"Having stayed up much of the night to watch the hunt for, and ultimate take down, of Suspect 2 in the Marathon Bombings, it was particularly distressing to watch this vile abomination of a movie whose "relevance" only adds to its dishonor."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
68%
|
Trance (2013)
|
"If you were to tell me that Danny Boyle had told his long-standing First Assistant Director to go make a movie "in the style of Danny Boyle", and he had done so, and that the result had been TRANCE, I would've believed you. This is him slumming, badly."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
85%
|
Sleepwalk With Me (2012)
|
"Really, this film lives or dies on the charm of its protagonist. Luckily, Birbiglia is very charming indeed."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
82%
|
Rust and Bone (2012)
|
"The film achieves what all dramatic films should strive for: complete audience empathy for the main characters. I cared for these two so deeply, and the many, many moments of quiet triumph gave me rushes of joy. A beautiful triumph of precision."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
38%
|
Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)
|
"A delightful piece of historical speculation grounded in historical details and personal recollections that have continually been coming to light over the last seventy years ... Murray is terrific in the part - charming, at ease and cunning as a fox."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
98%
|
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God (2012)
|
"Before you say you can't take another feature length documentary about sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests, know that Alex Gibney's examination of the subject is both fresh and revelatory."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
79%
|
A Late Quartet (2012)
|
"Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Imogen Poots and Ukrainian actor Mark Ivanir all give pitch-perfect performances, grounding the heavy emotion in realism and understatement."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
15%
|
A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)
|
"You know you're in trouble when an action film opens in Moscow showing a Russian criminal being held prisoner in a cell playing chess by himself. This is the kind of obvious cheesy badly scripted trope A Good Day to Die Hard is rampantly infected with."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
85%
|
Side Effects (2013)
|
"At its best, it's chilling, creepy, strange and intriguing; at its worst, it's gorgeous to look at."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
60%
|
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
|
"Sam Raimi made his first feature film, The Evil Dead, for $90,000. Now he has made Oz The Great and Powerful - a prequel to The Wizard of Oz - for 2,222 times that. The result is a thousand times less entertaining."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
48%
|
Hit & Run (2012)
|
"Hit and Run has a bouncy, goofy charm."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
77%
|
Killer Joe (2012)
|
"It's like a cheap, nasty dessert: completely devoid of nutrition, probably very bad for you, but kind of delicious while it briefly lasts."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
67%
|
Dangerous Liaisons (2012)
|
"The cinematography is gorgeous, the costumes are gorgeous, the sets are gorgeous, and the people are so gorgeous it beggars belief. What can I say? Gorgeous."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
48%
|
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)
|
"if you haven't seen any of them - why not see this one? It's crazy fun for less than two hours ... It's all very tonally specific, and the tone is bonkers. But it's so intriguing, and everyone looks so good ... the guiltiest pleasure of the year."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
55%
|
Bachelorette (2012)
|
"Bachelorette is all about these very fine actresses playing some pretty sad, desperate women who have some pretty funny lines to say."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
85%
|
End of Watch (2012)
|
"The street characters are played by a remarkable panoply of real-life types who speak in a thrilling, totally believable patois."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
78%
|
Dredd (2012)
|
"Tonally one-note, and that note is grim, nihilistic, super-stylized, violent and humorless. But it's a spectacular technical feat, hugely loyal to its source ... an extremely expensive arthouse action flick for the die-hard crowd."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
51%
|
Savages (2012)
|
"Veers way off course in its second act, becoming confusing and vague - indeed, stoned. But it all comes good in the end."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
96%
|
Argo (2012)
|
"The whole thing is paced like a whip, and the third act may literally be the most suspenseful piece of film I've ever seen - and yes, I have seen Rear Window. Recommended without any reservation for every and any cinemagoer."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
43%
|
To Rome with Love (2012)
|
"There are four "stories", linked by the fact that they all take place in Rome. None of them are funny, interesting or in the slightest way connected to how real people exist."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
86%
|
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
|
"This movie has to be seen to be believed, and to be believed, it simply has to be seen."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
93%
|
Looper (2012)
|
"Intelligent, extremely imaginative, visually stunning and constantly surprising, this is filmmaking of the highest order from Rian Johnson."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
76%
|
Killing Them Softly (2012)
|
"A masterclass in precise, auteurist cinema ... Short, sharp, talky, lean, and almost completely inhabited by men, Killing The Softly is cerebral, nasty, and hugely entertaining."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
86%
|
The Master (2012)
|
"The least accessible of Anderson's films, and the least enjoyable, but it's intelligent and original enough for him to remain a "must-see" director."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
92%
|
Skyfall (2012)
|
"I have no compulsion whatsoever in declaring Skyfall, in terms of cinematography, the best looking Bond film ever ... Action movies simply don't look like this - but ... this is no ordinary action movie."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
67%
|
God Bless America (2012)
|
"It's an intriguing satirical idea, and it works very effectively in places, while being tremendously didactic and heavy-handed in others."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
81%
|
Pitch Perfect (2012)
|
"Great young actors ... are encouraged to seriously overplay their particular stereotype, which makes the film grating and repetitive ... Obviously green-lit in the wake of Glee, it makes a joke at that show's expense, setting a challenge it fails to win."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
13%
|
Red Dawn (2012)
|
"This remake has none of the cultural currency of the original, nor its violence nor campy panache. It is a cowardly, irrelevant thing ... one of those really ill-advised remakes that should never have happened, but at least will be forgotten very quickly."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
22%
|
The Words (2012)
|
"Sometimes you're flabbergasted when very good actors are in very bad films. But no-one sets out to make a bad movie. They just turn out that way. But, seriously, there's no way that the script of The Words could have appeared good to anyone, could it?"
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
90%
|
Holy Motors (2012)
|
"When most cinema these days pedals nothing but the crushingly predictable, a movie like Holy Motors cannot be recommended highly enough. "
|
Nick Dent
|
|
89%
|
Chinese Take-Away (Un Cuento Chino) ()
|
"This sweet little tragicomedy about life's absurdities plays out as a buddy movie in which two damaged men from opposite sides of the world find unexpected common ground. "
|
Nick Dent
|
|
67%
|
Jackpot (Arme Riddere) ()
|
"A true "black comedy" if ever there was one."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
64%
|
Cosmopolis (2012)
|
"Hyper-stylised, cold, cerebral, difficult, stylish, at times visually sublime and at times unintentionally humorous, Cosmopolis is David Cronenberg back in Cronenberg Land ... You can't say it's anything other than unique."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
80%
|
Magic Mike (2012)
|
"What works in the movie are its cast, locale, and unique milieu. We're shown the behind-the-scenes workings ... the same way we become privy to the workings of wrestling in The Wrestler, although it's obviously much, much more fun being a stripper."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
100%
|
The King Is Dead ()
|
"The King is Dead!, while not as brilliant as Bad Boy Bubby or Alexandra's Project, shares with those films a unique and perverse vision of Australian suburbia ... De Heer's always bold, and here he's bold again. The Independent King is certainly not dead."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
87%
|
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
|
"Nolan is skirting brave ground applying Batman to what is essentially a 9/11 story, re-framed as an act of domestic terrorism, but he stays on the audience's side by never treating the terror as sensationalistic ... An extremely satisfying conclusion."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
58%
|
Hysteria (2012)
|
"It's a tall tale that happens to be true, and, in the right hands, it could be wonderfully funny. I'm not sure that Wexler's were the right hands."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
——
|
The Curse Of The Gothic Symphony ()
|
"Extremely similar in theme, structure and tone to last year's Mrs. Carey's Concert, it suffers in comparison to that exquisite film, but it certainly stands alone as a swift, entertaining look at a very particular artistic quest."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
40%
|
Tonight You're Mine (2012)
|
"The climax is almost unbearably joyful. Feel-good movie of the year, thus far? Absolutely."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
69%
|
Ted (2012)
|
"What interests MacFarlane is the business of funny, and a talking teddy bear (particularly one with a healthy sex drive) is pretty funny."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
73%
|
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
|
"Don't believe the marketing: this is the same old boring origin story all over again. Watch Peter Parker get bitten! Watch him discover his spider-powers! Watch him use them on the "school bully" before taking them to the street to fight crime!"
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
89%
|
A Royal Affair (2012)
|
"This gorgeously mounted, exquisitely acted slice of Danish history is, in this age of political polarisation, strangely and depressingly topical. I was certainly enlightened by the history here, which encompasses a Royal Tale of intrigue and passion."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
48%
|
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
|
"You could literally cast Harold Pinter's The Homecoming AND The Caretaker with these eight men and run them side by side on the West End to packed houses for years."
|
CJ Johnson
|
|
41%
|
Rock of Ages (2012)
|
"Two films in one: the good film, which is composed of extremely proficient, highly energetic production numbers (of which there are many), and the clichéd, surprisingly non-energetic other film, which is composed of all the talky bits."
|
CJ Johnson
|
47%
45%
95%
99%
65%
61%
