|
44%
|
The Paperboy (2012)
|
"Gives you an idea what "The Help" might have been like had Lee Daniels directed it."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
100%
|
How to Survive a Plague (2012)
|
"[An] unflinching look at the activists' mistakes and acheivements, their regrets, their very solemn pride at a victory attained at so high a cost."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
39%
|
Here Comes the Boom (2012)
|
"Rutten is a natural ham, and his off-kilter, upbeat, Euro-kook personality is one of the movie's wild cards, and keeps a story that relies heavily on formula from being stale."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
63%
|
Sinister (2012)
|
""Sinister" ... borrows shrewdly, expanding on the found-footage gimmick in a way that manages to invoke both "Manhunter" and "The Ring.""
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
96%
|
Argo (2012)
|
"We know how it ends, but Affleck amps up the tension with his command of thriller dynamics, and the final moments at the Tehran airport are suitably tense."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
32%
|
Won't Back Down (2012)
|
"[Davis] and Gyllenhaal cut through the spin and speechifying to carve out some affecting human moments."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
81%
|
Pitch Perfect (2012)
|
""Pitch Perfect" has some legitimately funny moments."
|
Molly Eichel
|
|
85%
|
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
|
"Takes the other side of the bullied high-school outcast story and shows us a teen who discovers the fun of belonging."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
93%
|
Looper (2012)
|
"Despite the movie's downbeat view of the life-is-cheap future, it's a kick to watch, and makes a virtue of its bleakness by virtue of amusing performances."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
78%
|
Dredd (2012)
|
"The movie bears a suspicious resemblance to the Indonesian hit "The Raid: Redemption," but trades that movie's sweaty, muscular martial-arts brio for a RoboCop-ish futurism and very slick F/X (the 3-D is very good)."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
86%
|
The Master (2012)
|
"America is fertile land for crackpot spirituality, and what "The Master" wants to know is why, and why now."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
85%
|
End of Watch (2012)
|
"A lively, vivid piece of work."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
51%
|
Trouble with the Curve (2012)
|
"Reassuringly familiar, powered by an all-star lineup. Hall of Fame cleanup hitter Eastwood, and Adams, Hollywood's leading lovable redhead."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
85%
|
Sleepwalk With Me (2012)
|
""Sleepwalk with Me" puts a laudably offbeat new spin on the familiar story of the slacker guy with the commitment problem."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
56%
|
For a Good Time, Call... (2012)
|
"A shallow movie with nothing new besides than the exalatation of the bonds of female friendship."
|
Molly Eichel
|
|
89%
|
Compliance (2012)
|
"Zobel makes his setting feel immediate and real, from the gum-smacking employees to the dowdy manager who just wants to do the right thing."
|
Molly Eichel
|
|
76%
|
Premium Rush (2012)
|
"A refreshingly simple stunt-packed, low-budget action movie."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
58%
|
Red Hook Summer (2012)
|
"You will have no trouble picking out the emotional contours of the movie's tumultuous final scenes, and although Peters holds the drama together, late-game revelations raise narrative questions that are left glaringly unanswered."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
64%
|
Cosmopolis (2012)
|
"Here we have a brainy, sometimes impenetrable director, working from a book by brainy, sometimes impenetrable author. What do they come up with? Something that's brainy, sometimes impenetrable."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
48%
|
Hit & Run (2012)
|
"A B-movie throwback, meant to be seen at a drive-in, where you can make out during the dull parts or honk your horn as Arnold runs his poor minivan into a tree for the fifth time."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
87%
|
ParaNorman (2012)
|
""ParaNorman" finds a way to make this night of the living dead play essentially as a comedy ..."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
70%
|
Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012)
|
"The compulsive self-blame that follows a breakup feel drawn from life, and lend the movie gravity."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
100%
|
Gloria: In Her Own Words ()
|
"Stick with this fast-moving, clip-heavy survey course of Steinem's career, and you'll eventually get past the surface stuff."
|
Ellen Gray
|
|
40%
|
Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story (2011)
|
"Dull beyond the power of even a mammoth opening weekend for the final Harry Potter film to render interesting."
|
Ellen Gray
|
|
65%
|
The Campaign (2012)
|
"Some of Hollywood's top comic talent takes on our laughable political system and comes up with something that's curiously short on laughs."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
74%
|
Hope Springs (2012)
|
"Although you couldn't find two better actors, they seem to have more movie-star chemistry than chemistry as a couple."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
85%
|
George Harrison: Living In The Material World ()
|
"Olivia Harrison's honesty contributes mightily to Scorsese's portrait of an artist more interesting than some of us may have realized."
|
Ellen Gray
|
|
8%
|
The Babymakers (2012)
|
""The Babymakers" has a stronger narrative arc than Broken Lizard's previous films, but that doesn't better serve the gross-out sight gags or the flat one-liners."
|
Molly Eichel
|
|
31%
|
Total Recall (2012)
|
"I completely lost track of the so-called plot - something about a dystopian dictator and a revolutionary leader, with Farrell as a secret agent somewhere in between, trying to figure out where his true loyalties lie."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
79%
|
Ruby Sparks (2012)
|
"Written by Zoe Kazan (Elia's granddaughter), who plays the title character, written by Kazan as a pointed inversion of movie formula, and an updating of the classic Pygmalion myth."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
42%
|
Step Up 4: Miami Heat (2012)
|
""Step Up Revolution" is the series' "Live Free or Die Hard": There are more explosions and the stakes are laughably higher."
|
Molly Eichel
|
|
95%
|
The Queen of Versailles (2012)
|
"There are improbably involving human stories here."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
16%
|
The Watch (2012)
|
"I'll watch Vaughn in anything. It's just that in the case of "The Watch," I'm pretty sure I did."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
87%
|
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
|
"It's overlong, overplotted, but comes together brilliantly in the final moments, sending one of the movies' darkest franchises out on a rousing note."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
51%
|
Savages (2012)
|
"Johnson, Kitsch and Lively struggle to make an impression in a movie filled with grand-standing stars, and one questions the work habits of their characters."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
73%
|
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
|
"The cast is top-drawer, the movie is competent, but beats are essentially the same, and as a fan of the "original," I found that frustrating."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
69%
|
Ted (2012)
|
"In "Ted," Seth MacFarlane becomes the latest comic brain to take on the popular subject of the adult male who refuses to grow up."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
56%
|
People Like Us (2012)
|
"I didn't think I'd ever see Banks top her five minutes in "The Forty-Year-Old-Virgin" as the girl in the book store, but she's outdone herself here, in a large, meaty dramatic role."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
80%
|
Magic Mike (2012)
|
"I could barely hear the dialogue for the screams of the women. I think they were women."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
55%
|
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
|
"The movie grinds gears as it shifts moods, and the one thing that does unify it - Carell's downbeat, muttering performance - begins to wear after awhile."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
78%
|
Brave (2012)
|
"[It has] Pixar storytelling precision, with its sense of how to pace a movie with (young) audience-pleasing action beats, with its ability to replenish its roster of cute, comical supporting characters."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
21%
|
That's My Boy (2012)
|
"In a culture as polluted as ours, transgressive isn't daring. It's become the opposite of that - repetitive and lazy."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
91%
|
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
|
"Around every corner is a scene we don't expect, a joke we haven't heard (plus some inspired visual gags)."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
41%
|
Rock of Ages (2012)
|
"Tom and his auto-tuned voice do okay with "Wanted Dead or Alive." Musically, "Rock of Ages" is fun."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
74%
|
Prometheus (2012)
|
"As a thriller, it's muddled, and as a Big Ideas movie, it seems to trip over its own double helix."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
29%
|
Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding (2012)
|
"The plot is as contrived as the characters..."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
27%
|
High School (2012)
|
"The movie goes flat when it needs to be upping the tempo and hitting new heights of absurdity."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
70%
|
Men in Black III (2012)
|
"Smith tries hard here, but that's part of the problem - beads of sweat are all over this thing."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
25%
|
Mansome (2012)
|
"Spurlock's glib, drive-by look at the recent trends in male grooming and fashion."
|
Gary Thompson
|
|
38%
|
Crooked Arrows (2012)
|
"You know what? It mostly works."
|
Gary Thompson
|
87%
22%
90%
