|
60%
|
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
|
"The game is now afoot with Holmes' arch-nemesis, Professor James Moriarity -- and that makes a notable difference. This time, Holmes is up against an equal, and it's elementary indeed that muscle and firepower alone won't carry the day."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
96%
|
The Muppets (2011)
|
"The film is loaded with everything Muppets fans love: loopy musical production numbers, very funny montages, some hilarious asides and weird little moments."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
44%
|
J. Edgar (2011)
|
"For all its virtues -- or, perhaps, because of them -- J. Edgar is a disappointment."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
47%
|
Anonymous (2011)
|
"If you are looking for something more intellectual, and certainly more accurate in its portrayal of a rich period in English history, you will have to go elsewhere."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
85%
|
The Ides of March (2011)
|
"This is intelligent filmmaking, and a provocative moral fable. It may not be perfect, but it stands as one of the better, most realistic movies about the way we elect our leaders."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
76%
|
The Help (2011)
|
"This is one shameless tear-jerker that earns its sniffles."
|
Karen D'Souza
|
|
44%
|
Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
|
"There is enough to like and to savor in Cowboys & Aliens that it makes for an enjoyable two hours in the dark with a big bag of buttery popcorn."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
96%
|
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
|
"Tears are shed for the lost, cheers are raised for the (often unexpectedly) brave and noble, and, in the movie's final moments, there is a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment rarely achieved in filmmaking."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
39%
|
Cars 2 (2011)
|
"[Pixar]t has set such a high bar with what it has done with animation and storytelling over its 25 years that when it falls short -- and it does fall short with Cars 2 -- the disappointment can make a perfectly good, entertaining movie seem like a letdown."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
85%
|
Jane Eyre (2011)
|
"True aficionados will doubtless wish the film etched every aspect of the Brontė experience but that's a quibble in light of the movie's intoxicating charms. It's impossible not to fall in love with this Jane."
|
Karen D'Souza
|
|
32%
|
How Do You Know (2010)
|
"What's truly perplexing about the failures of How Do You Know is that the film was written and directed by James L. Brooks, a master of the rom-com genre."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
79%
|
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010)
|
"Much of the heavy lifting falls to Watson, and, in such moments as the one where she must wipe out her family's memories of her to protect them, she is more than up to the task."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
96%
|
The Social Network (2010)
|
"You will know The Social Network is something very special from its first scene."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
54%
|
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
|
"Stone and the script shortchange the characters, forcing them to do things that seem phony and having them recite lines that sound stilted and overly didactic."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
81%
|
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
|
"For most of its hour and 53 minutes, it's a dazzling and thoroughly engaging ride through a fantasy world born of Wright's (and O'Malley's) vivid imaginations."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
53%
|
Knight & Day (2010)
|
"After so many bad romance movies, it's a treat to see genuine sparks fly between two major stars. That the budding relationship evolves over the course of bullets, die-hard assassins and chiseled torsos increases the pleasure."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
99%
|
Toy Story 3 (2010)
|
"In a summer that will be littered with bad sequels, bad 3-D and bad storytelling, it is a movie to be heartily embraced."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
58%
|
Shrek Forever After (Shrek 4) (2010)
|
"There is no happy ending for the Shrek franchise."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
43%
|
Robin Hood (2010)
|
"In one unfortunate regard, Ridley Scott's grimy Robin Hood lives up to the actions of its legendary character: It, too, robs -- but just from richer movies."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
74%
|
Iron Man 2 (2010)
|
"It's a solid blockbuster with a few faults that you just don't mind overlooking."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
91%
|
The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) (2010)
|
"Its real beauty is in letting you take from it whatever you want. Should you choose to peel back the layers, you will discover rich lessons about love, loneliness, fear and redemption."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
68%
|
The Runaways (2010)
|
"It may be, as Fowley says near the end of the film, that the Runaways "were a conceptual rock project that failed." But as a film about a certain time and place in rock history, The Runaways largely succeeds."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
52%
|
Green Zone (2010)
|
"Green Zone is far from perfect. But man, oh, man, as a pulse-pounding thriller, it is a knockout."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
51%
|
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
|
"You leave the theater with a pleasant grin on your face, but by no means is it as wide as the Cheshire Cat's, and that's a shame."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
69%
|
Shutter Island (2010)
|
"Showing an explosive temper and a wounded psyche, DiCaprio eerily channels the great Richard Widmark, a film noir giant, as Teddy, a shaky World War II veteran still at war with his memories."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
29%
|
Dear John (2010)
|
"Dear John succeeds where Sparks duds like Rodanthe crumbled because it harnesses fresher talents to pull off a comforting tale about the enduring power of love."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
33%
|
The Lovely Bones (2009)
|
"Most often, Jackson's magical other world resembles the land of Oz on steroids or, in one scene, a feminine hygiene ad."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
68%
|
Youth in Revolt (2010)
|
"The studio's lackluster release will likely mean it'll thrive on DVD. Don't wait for that. Youth in Revolt is worth making a trip to the theaters."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
28%
|
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
|
"Sexier, darker and funnier, New Moon rises well above the anemic 2008 film version of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
60%
|
Pirate Radio (The Boat That Rocked) (2009)
|
"I started glancing at the time well before the midway mark."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
39%
|
2012 (2009)
|
"Preposterous? You bet. But 2012 delivers the disaster-movie goods better than any other popcorn movie we've seen since the '80s."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
53%
|
Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009)
|
"Disney's excessively hyped A Christmas Carol revels so richly in bringing the Dickensian details to sumptuous life that you wind up forgiving it for possessing a stop-motion soul."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
81%
|
Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009)
|
"Perhaps the best way to approach it -- at least for those who are not total Jackson fans -- is to view it as an often-fascinating document on how the sausage (or magic, if you will) is made for a mega-concert tour."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
82%
|
Bright Star (2009)
|
"Bright Star is a rich, sumptuous and, yes, challenging experience."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
7%
|
Whiteout (2009)
|
"Its worst offense is assuming the audience is so dumb that it'll be shocked by one of the most telegraphed endings in movie history. On second thought, maybe the filmmakers got their wish: Whiteout is shocking, shockingly bad."
|
Randy Myers
|
|
48%
|
Taking Woodstock (2009)
|
"The characters are all representative of the period but they come off as one-dimensional, more symbols than individuals."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
75%
|
Julie & Julia (2009)
|
"Sometimes a meal can be less than perfect but still so thoroughly enjoyable that a missed ingredient here or a bit of overcooking there doesn't really matter."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
84%
|
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
|
"Half-Blood Prince shows the Potter film franchise and Rowling's story are in very good hands indeed."
|
Charlie McCollum
|
|
95%
|
Star Trek (2009)
|
"Writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman manage to morph the new actors into the general outlines of the original crew, but even as they slip into the old character molds, they immediately start to break out of them."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
42%
|
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
|
"Chadwick and Morgan have cooked up a potboiler, the sort of thing that might have been fun to watch with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as the Boleyn sisters, while Charles Laughton lasciviously eyed the backs of their necks as Henry."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
21%
|
Semi-Pro (2008)
|
"Ferrell is capable of a great deal more than he's been delivering. It might surprise him to learn that white men can jump. But first they have to try."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
35%
|
Vantage Point (2008)
|
"The bones of a good idea for a conspiracy thriller lie buried in the corpse of Vantage Point. It feels more like a movie with a personality disorder."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
16%
|
Jumper (2008)
|
"The only force on Earth so dense that it apparently can't be moved even by the movie's special effects is Christensen's wooden acting."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
71%
|
Definitely, Maybe (2008)
|
"The picture does have a certain unimpeachable charm."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
82%
|
In Bruges (2008)
|
"It somehow manages to never stop being brutally funny, while also becoming tragically bleak."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
95%
|
4 Luni, 3 Saptamāni si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) (2007)
|
"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 days feels like a kind of appendix -- and a bursting one at that -- to Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
16%
|
Untraceable (2008)
|
"Untraceable often seems to go out of its way to tip off what's coming, so that it's hard to tell whether the film's writers are lazy, clumsy or just painfully obvious."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
96%
|
Nanking (2007)
|
"Anyone who sees Nanking should know going in what a brutal story it is, but no one should miss it because of a restrictive rating."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
77%
|
Cloverfield (2008)
|
"Cloverfield is the ultimate movie for people who don't feel a cataclysm has really happened until they can videotape it, upload it and stream it live to the rest of the world."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
93%
|
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) (2007)
|
"Director Julian Schnabel uses his skill as a painter to assemble a collage of fantastical images to reveal the exquisite physical wreck that Bauby has become."
|
Bruce Newman
|
