|
76%
|
The Help (2011)
|
"Thanks to a talented cast -- starting with leads Emma Stone, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer -- the movie is often entertaining. But The Help should have been challenging too."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
89%
|
Crime After Crime (2011)
|
"Though rife with talking-head interviews and straightforwardly shot, the movie is quietly riveting and cumulatively galling."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
73%
|
Sarah's Key (2011)
|
"Thomas' performance is one of brilliant restraint and believable naturalism."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
82%
|
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
|
"Tthe movie has some plot-point missteps. But it seldom puts the brakes on a story that moves toward a furious ape-human rumble, not in a jungle, but atop the Golden Gate Bridge."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
86%
|
Terri (2011)
|
"Jacobs and talented cinematographer Tobias Datum once again do a deft job conveying the texture of a home, this time the unkempt, jammed warren Terri shares with his Uncle James."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
71%
|
Friends With Benefits (2011)
|
"Directed with quick-witted ease by Will Gluck, the [film is a] frank, frisky, even touching romantic comedy."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
90%
|
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
|
"One would have to have a heart of cold temperament to find much -- if anything -- wrong with the animated adventure Winnie the Pooh."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
96%
|
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
|
"In the 10 years since Harry's first big- screen close-up, the spell has never been broken. And we Muggles have been made better for the magic."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
14%
|
Zookeeper (2011)
|
"Did we mention that things just go better with Kevin James? Well-trodden comedy hooks become strangely more amusing. Goofball physical shtick elicits broader smiles. The bumblingly stupid is made endearing."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
70%
|
Horrible Bosses (2011)
|
"As they say, the best laid plans go oft awry. So what transpires in a comedy about the worst-laid schemes? These guys don't seem built for premeditated murder but are perfectly capable of mayhem."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
35%
|
Larry Crowne (2011)
|
"Larry Crowne doesn't come close to providing the rom-com satisfactions of films attached to the names Hanks and Roberts, or writer Nia Vardalos for that matter."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
36%
|
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
|
"One can argue that summer is built for spectacle. Now if only it could be truly spectacular, too."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
80%
|
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011)
|
"Meta-irony can get a guy who's still grinding an ax only so far."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
38%
|
Cars 2 (2011)
|
"Larry the Cable Guy has helped make Mater one of Pixar's sweetest creations. He just happens to reside in the studio's least-magical franchise."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
89%
|
The Trip (2011)
|
"It's rife with observations about men of a certain age, actors of a certain career -- and for a bonus, restaurants of a certain moment."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
71%
|
The People vs. George Lucas (2011)
|
"Eentertaining if mildly worrisome."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
84%
|
Beginners (2011)
|
"Wwhile there's plenty of melancholia, there is also sweet wonder and celebration in writer-director Mike Mills' semiautobiographical tale of a straight son coming to terms with his own love's possibilities after his father comes out of the closet."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
84%
|
The Tree of Life (2011)
|
"What a transcendent achievement."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
82%
|
Super 8 (2011)
|
"There's much to like in this story of a group of young movie-makers who stumble upon an event right out of, well, the movies."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
93%
|
Midnight in Paris (2011)
|
"Midnight in Paris is charming and clever, at times wickedly astute and hopeful."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
88%
|
X-Men: First Class (2011)
|
"The finest comic-book flick since 2008's The Dark Knight."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
81%
|
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
|
"The film's visuals are thrilling, beguiling, vivid: the greens of a glade or a terraced hillside; the molten reds of Shen's smelting works or yellow-orange arcs of fireworks."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
61%
|
The Beaver (2011)
|
"The film is amusing, then melancholy, then weirdly funny, then not. It's a quiet, measured work."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
33%
|
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
|
"Ian McShane gives Blackbeard as much menace as a goofball romp can handle."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
77%
|
Thor (2011)
|
"[Kenneth Branagh's] Shakespearean chops add texture in scenes that require the care and feeding of literature's grander themes: pride, paternity and honor."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
55%
|
Jumping the Broom (2011)
|
""Jumping the Broom" combines tried-and-true oil-water class tensions with the challenges of modern romance and family, then adds some African-American flavors."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
15%
|
Something Borrowed (2011)
|
"The movie strains far too hard to make what Rachel and Dex have done all right, as if their guilty anguish - and the movie's saccharine score - frees us to root for them."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
77%
|
In A Better World (2011)
|
"An ethically ambitious, morally thoughtful - and deeply vexing - drama about the fragility of civil order and the menace of the lawless."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
78%
|
Fast Five (2011)
|
"The chemistry of the core cast - steered by Vin Diesel and Paul Walker - keeps this outing from running on fumes."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
34%
|
Prom (2011)
|
"Except for a couple of nice touches, "Prom" is a remedial class in cliches."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
——
|
13 Families ()
|
""13 Families" isn't a visually wowing or clever doc. Yet, it reminds us of film's capacity to memorialize the lost and honor the ache of the living."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
75%
|
Putty Hill (2011)
|
"With "Putty Hill," Porterfield joins the company of American indie directors Ramin Bahrani and Kelly Reichardt, filmmakers often compelled to seek out everyday souls in their textured, oh-so quotidian environs."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
61%
|
Water for Elephants (2011)
|
"Water For Elephants is not, to borrow the Benzini Bros. Circus' motto -- "the most spectacular show on Earth." But it is a class act."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
58%
|
Scream 4 (2011)
|
"Compared with so many of the rebooted slasher flicks, Scream 4 remains a cut above. No, that is not an intended pun."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
55%
|
The Conspirator (2011)
|
"The Conspirator is a quality drama with a capital Q. We should expect no less from Robert Redford, who takes seriously (at times, earnestly) the duties of director."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
100%
|
Into Eternity (2011)
|
"Directed by Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen with grace and deep curiosity, "Into Eternity" is better than timely."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
45%
|
Soul Surfer (2011)
|
"It's Bethany and Alana's friendship - its sturdiness and vulnerability, its laughs and sincere apologies - that rules the day."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
71%
|
Hanna (2011)
|
""Hanna" plays out as a visceral fairy tale about a naif discovering a world both fascinating and dangerous."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
65%
|
The Music Never Stopped (2011)
|
"A wounded and hopeful take on generation gaps and the wider, nearly unbridgeable chasms created by neurological disaster."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
94%
|
Win Win (2011)
|
"Tom McCarthy's third feature proves something incontestable: The writer-director has a way with American characters."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
91%
|
Source Code (2011)
|
"Duncan Jones' swiftly paced and engaging sci-fi thriller is a Groundhog Day for a post- 9/11 world."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
95%
|
Making the Boys (2010)
|
"Clayton Robey's documentary starts off wobbly before becoming a bracing cocktail of cultural, creative and personal histories."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
72%
|
Paul (2011)
|
"In the end - as well as the middle and maybe even at the outset - Paul is more often a close encounter of the middling kind."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
83%
|
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
|
"The Lincoln Lawyer is not a feat of genre-breaking design. But it is a well-oiled machine."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
87%
|
The Last Lions (2011)
|
"Wrenching and wondrous, Dereck and Beverly Joubert's documentary The Last Lions is not a tale for the faint-hearted. "
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
100%
|
Poetry (2011)
|
"Now is the time to bestow on yourself the gift of one of the most, well, poetic films of 2010. And by "poetic," we mean rich with soulful pauses that are at once visual and aural and deeply observant of the dance of routine and quiet surprise."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
88%
|
Rango (2011)
|
"Yes, [there are] enough nods to other sources to make Rango a bobblehead. But the movie, and much of John Logan's writing, is still pretty durn clever."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
51%
|
Vanishing On 7th Street (2011)
|
"Brad Anderson's supernatural thriller is stacked to keep us guessing. Initially, this makes it watchably atmospheric. But the inconclusive hints lead to the sense that he's withholding too much."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
34%
|
Hall Pass (2011)
|
""Something about Mary" seems a lifetime ago."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
|
64%
|
Biutiful (2010)
|
"Iñárritu has a delicate yet searing sense of intimacy, which cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto captures with hand-held determination."
|
Lisa Kennedy
|
78%
——
——
85%
45%
40%
