|
83%
|
The Patience Stone (2013)
|
"There isn't a false step from the quietly devastating Farahani; her tour-de-force performance carries the film through its rocky stretches."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
63%
|
Pulling Strings (2013)
|
"Ultimately, the film is absolutely charming if a bit too predictable and glued more to sit-com narrative strategies and aesthetics than is healthy. Still, Pulling Strings works on a number of levels."
|
Louis Black
|
|
90%
|
Inequality For All (2013)
|
"[Robert Reich] headlines this documentary in which he explains his views about the United States' current economic woes. It's something he manages to do engagingly and with great clarity."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
68%
|
Bad Milo! (2013)
|
"Call it odious, call it repugnant, call it downright nasty - just don't call it dumb."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
75%
|
Generation Iron (2013)
|
"The film ends up being about much more than itself, much more than just bodybuilding or bodybuilders. Although a bit overlong, it is really a triumph of intelligent, strategic filmmaking."
|
Louis Black
|
|
46%
|
Parkland (2013)
|
" Parkland adds no significant knowledge to history or conspiracy theorists, but such details as the way Zapruder's scrunched-up eye pops wide open when he witnesses what will be forever imprinted on his retina and amateur film are vivid."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
98%
|
Gravity (2013)
|
"This is a film spectacular enough to demand the full IMAX 3-D treatment."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
93%
|
Still Mine (2013)
|
" Lovely performances by Cromwell and Bujold, as well as those playing their extended family of children and friends, are understated yet truthful. And it's good to be reminded that love that withstands a lifetime is a most precious thing."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
78%
|
Metallica Through the Never (2013)
|
"DeHaan's possession of the spotlight might well best the band itself, since Metallica never completely catches fire live."
|
Raoul Hernandez
|
|
95%
|
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2013)
|
"Alternating between color footage and the genius interplay of startlingly lovely sequences of Stanton singing and playing harmonica in granular black-and-white, Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction perfectly captures the essence of the man."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
80%
|
Prisoners (2013)
|
"It's a veritable shoo-in for an Oscar nod this year, and one of the more disturbing films to come out of a major studio in ages."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
5%
|
Battle of the Year (2013)
|
"In particular, as mentioned, the dance sequences are a mess, which is the kiss of death for a film in this genre."
|
Louis Black
|
|
95%
|
Enough Said (2013)
|
"It's a funny, tender, impactful story of two divorcées, authentically in their early 50s, struggling to trust and love again."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
83%
|
Don Jon (2013)
|
"Although the film's character portraits are vividly drawn, they remain largely one-dimensional."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
88%
|
Rush (2013)
|
"Rush may begin as a two-man race, but Brühl's Lauda wins by a landslide."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
16%
|
Baggage Claim (2013)
|
"Baggage Claim should be left behind at the carousel."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
59%
|
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)
|
"For both kids and adults, CWCM2 is little more than a vague memory as soon as it's over."
|
Steve Davis
|
|
53%
|
The Muslims Are Coming (2013)
|
"Supporting commentary comes from the likes of Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, and Rachel Maddow, but the real stars, rightly so, are Farsad and Obeidallah."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
81%
|
The Short Game (2013)
|
"While a cast of characters this large could easily hinder a doc's focus, it works perfectly in The Short Game to give both a global view and to show how sports can be a Zen-like calling at any age."
|
Joe O'Connell
|
|
99%
|
Short Term 12 (2013)
|
"The unembellished emotional honesty conveyed in the indie drama Short Term 12 is so expertly handled that it carries the viewer past any hesitations harbored regarding the film's overly familiar storyline."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
34%
|
Salinger (2013)
|
"A distractingly bombastic music design starts at a thundering pitch and has nowhere to go but further."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
33%
|
The Family (2013)
|
"The film's remorseless brutality in response to relatively minor transgressions is hard to swallow, even for those with the darkest senses of humor."
|
Steve Davis
|
|
50%
|
Thanks For Sharing (2013)
|
"Despite making sex addiction its topic, Thanks for Sharing isn't interested in exploring those idiosyncratic erotic preferences that sometimes explode into obsessions."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
80%
|
Drinking Buddies (2013)
|
"If you're going to build an entire film on microexpressions, then a certain innate magnetism is required. Swanberg gets it in spades from his top-shelf cast."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
59%
|
Afternoon Delight (2013)
|
"Afternoon Delight has many small pleasures but falls far short of reaching the G spot."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
35%
|
Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
|
"Whannell's script is so rife with portentous backstory, third-act goofiness, and a denouement that practically screams Insidious 3: Same Old S---, that the film as a whole is jarring, and not in a good way."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
53%
|
Instructions Not Included (2013)
|
"Charming and entertaining, if overlong and a bit too melodramatic, Instructions ultimately works because of the cast."
|
Louis Black
|
|
31%
|
Austenland (2013)
|
"Sincere Austen devotees -- or Janeites, if you want to get bubblegum about it -- won't find much in common with this modern-day Jane."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
18%
|
The Ultimate Life (2013)
|
"This new film's contrived storyline is long on melodrama and short on surprise."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
60%
|
Riddick (2013)
|
"Director Twohy gets plenty of ferocious mileage out of stranding a weaponless Riddick on an inhospitable planet and then letting the character do what he does best: seek and destroy. And destroy. And destroy."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
96%
|
Cutie And The Boxer (2013)
|
"Heinzerling allows us to read whatever we want into this picture. The endless struggle for money and professional recognition is either a curse or a raison d'être."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
69%
|
I Declare War (2013)
|
"Its unpredictable tone clicks back and forth between the comical and the serious like the safety catch on a firearm. But no matter what you ultimately think about it, you can't deny one thing: It's not like anything you've seen before."
|
Steve Davis
|
|
64%
|
One Direction: This Is Us (2013)
|
"[It] amounts to little more than a big, wet kiss to the group's worldwide legions of young, female fans "
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
74%
|
The Grandmaster (2013)
|
"He's typically more show than tell, but The Grandmaster -- charting a largely chronological course and plodgy with pedantic title cards that rehash what the attentive viewer has already gleaned -- is heavy with the telling."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
46%
|
Closed Circuit (2013)
|
"I'd gladly pay to see Jim Broadbent do pretty much anything, but even he can't save this taut, stylish, but finally meh foray into the shadowy landscape of high-echelon statecraft gone haywire."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
3%
|
Getaway (2013)
|
"The film is more than a bit of a mess, with the crashes, explosions, and gunfire all dominating the action, if never quite coalescing into anything coherent."
|
Louis Black
|
|
83%
|
Computer Chess (2013)
|
"It's idiosyncratic, actively noncommercial, and doesn't follow the rules -- like playing a game of chess on a board with no squares."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
81%
|
Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)
|
"It's a hardscrabble, heartbreaking, love-and-death affair, and the fact that you just know it's going to end badly for all involved from the get-go does nothing to dispel the pleasure of watching Affleck and Mara swoon toward each other."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
75%
|
You're Next (2013)
|
"It's fair to note a certain similarity to certain home-invasion films of recent make. In the end, however, Wingard's film is its own subset of fractious family crazy."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
26%
|
Jobs (2013)
|
"Jobs' remarkable life and persistently prickly personality are simply too complicated and his roller-coaster ride to the top of the personal-computing business is simply too crammed with improbable side trips and switchbacks to distill into 128 minutes."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
91%
|
In a World... (2013)
|
"In a world in which cookie-cutter, unchallenging movie heroines are assembled according to Hollywood's cynical assumption that Jane Q. Public is a flaming idiot, Bell's breath-of-fresh-air creation definitely has something interesting to say."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
4%
|
Paranoia (2013)
|
"The inert techno-thriller Paranoia is much like watching an app download on a weak Internet connection -- slow and tedious, it seems to take forever."
|
Steve Davis
|
|
12%
|
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
|
"Not only have we seen this all before, but we were probably hoping to not see it again."
|
Louis Black
|
|
89%
|
The World's End (2013)
|
"Wright isn't a subtle filmmaker -- but he is a joyful one. Who wouldn't drink to that?"
|
Kimberley Jones
|
|
84%
|
Prince Avalanche (2013)
|
"David Gordon Green's latest film has the amusing buoyancy of a lark but the existential depth of a head-scratcher. The film entertains, puzzles, and strays outside the lines."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
30%
|
Kick-Ass 2 (2013)
|
"It's a bumpy ride to the final heroes vs. villains melee, and the film is frequently stopped dead by meaty chunks of exposition and Kick-Ass' disquisitions about what it means to be a hero."
|
Marc Savlov
|
|
73%
|
Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013)
|
"Lee Daniels' The Butler is a straightforward film that puts the recent past in our grasp."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
97%
|
The Act Of Killing (2013)
|
"The Act of Killing allows the victors a forum to elaborate on their story, and, by their own hands, these aged conquerors unwittingly rewrite aspects of the history that has propped them up for so many decades."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
91%
|
Blue Jasmine (2013)
|
"The Woody Allen mojo is at work in his latest film, which gets an extra boost from Cate Blanchett's extraordinary performance as a Park Avenue matron brought low by the recent financial crisis."
|
Marjorie Baumgarten
|
|
27%
|
Planes (2013)
|
"What a clunker."
|
Kimberley Jones
|
