|
83%
|
Inside Deep Throat (2005)
|
"If their new film never quite makes the case that one dirty movie set off the culture war that rages across America today, it is a highly entertaining and informative look back."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
64%
|
Bride and Prejudice (2005)
|
"Chadha proves that Austen's material is timeless, but not tireless."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
95%
|
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2005)
|
"The film is that rare documentary that has romance, comedy and a surprise ending that makes you feel as if you could fly out of the theater like a cherry headed conure."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
91%
|
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
|
"A glorious knockout punch of a movie."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
83%
|
In Good Company (2004)
|
"If the rest of the movie were as good as Scarlett, we might give a damn."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
10%
|
Elektra (2005)
|
"[Garner] is ... gloriously in gear, ready to kick some Hand."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
90%
|
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
|
"If [Schindler's List] had never been made, Hotel Rwanda might seem better than it does, and probably better than it is."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
43%
|
Beyond the Sea (2004)
|
"This is one of those rare movies that's so bad it's good, with lavish production numbers in which Spacey sings out of sync with the voice track and dances out of sync with his own feet."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
38%
|
Meet The Fockers (2004)
|
"More than any recent comedy I can think of, Meet the Fockers seems likely to split audiences between those who find it deliriously funny and those who grind their teeth at its obviousness."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
87%
|
The Aviator (2004)
|
"Someone is going to have to prove to me that those events occurred in that order. Watching The Aviator, I didn't buy a minute of it."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
88%
|
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
|
"House of Flying Daggers pierces the mind's eye with its crazy beautiful images, then rends the heart."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
84%
|
The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro) (The Sea Within) (2004)
|
"Without lifting a finger, Javier Bardem gives the most stirring performance of the year."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
55%
|
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
|
"With Ocean's Twelve, Hollywood moves a step closer to the glorious day when it will no longer have to rouse itself to the bothersome task of making movies at all, skipping straight ahead to what the studios truly care about: the marketing campaign."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
68%
|
Closer (2004)
|
"Everything about Closer -- from its four wonderful performances to Nichols' stunning work -- looks and feels perfect."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
87%
|
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004)
|
"One of the things the film captures most astutely is the beginnings of the American media frenzy that has become a staple of the news cycle."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
16%
|
Alexander (2004)
|
"Despite a budget reportedly north of $150 million, Stone fails to make war on an epic scale, preferring to allow Alexander to talk the world to death."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
90%
|
Kinsey (2004)
|
"As Kinsey, the remarkable new film about his life, clearly reveals, there was more to the biologist in the bow tie than met the eye."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
83%
|
Finding Neverland (2004)
|
"It is Depp who makes the magic real enough to believe."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
44%
|
National Treasure (2004)
|
"The picture is 25 minutes of fun, spread over 125 minutes."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
87%
|
Lightning in a Bottle (2004)
|
"The massive stage at Radio City Music Hall doesn't lend itself easily to the intimate particulars of the blues."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
27%
|
Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason (2004)
|
"Why, in other words, should we care about this woman, when the filmmakers obviously do not?"
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
56%
|
The Polar Express (2004)
|
"Barrels across the trackless landscape of our affections, arriving where no one would have thought to look for a big-budget Hollywood movie: in the terrain of the heart."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
97%
|
The Incredibles (2004)
|
"Pixar has delivered its first pure action picture, while still managing not to lose sight of its preoccupation with family."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
49%
|
Alfie (2004)
|
"The newly remade Alfie does for Jude Law what the 1966 original accomplished for Michael Caine: It makes him a star."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
81%
|
Ray (2004)
|
"Ray is a sprawling, and mostly triumphant, tribute to a man whose appetites often were as big as his voice."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
39%
|
Birth (2004)
|
"Becomes more labored, its plot twists more predictable and its characters less believable."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
96%
|
Sideways (2004)
|
"Never betrays the longing for love and friendship that makes it both painful and painfully funny."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
92%
|
Vera Drake (2004)
|
"The question that makes the movie subversive is one it never asks, even though contemporary audiences probably will: Where would women be if we returned to a world like this?"
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
76%
|
Being Julia (2004)
|
"The play is supposed to serve as both the centerpiece and the climax of the film, which may explain why it wobbles until the end."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
73%
|
Primer (2004)
|
"Writer-director Shane Carruth makes a low-tech, low-budget entry into a staple of science fiction and manages to make it feel like a genre you've never been to before."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
77%
|
Team America - World Police (2004)
|
"Horribly, wonderfully offensive."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
62%
|
I Heart Huckabees (2004)
|
"An ambitious but disjointed spoof of New Age quirks and quacks that attempts to simultaneously put down and lift up. But, despite the A-list ensemble, it accomplishes neither."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
81%
|
Friday Night Lights (2004)
|
"Friday Night Lights is the real deal, a grim, in-your-face expose of one West Texas school's fanatical sports program."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
83%
|
Red Lights (Feux Rouges) (2004)
|
"This French ... opens so promisingly that it's tres tragique when, two-thirds along, it makes a U-turn into the melodramatic and maudlin."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
48%
|
Dog Days (Hundstage) (2001)
|
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
36%
|
Shark Tale (2004)
|
"Whatever we found with Nemo and his determined dad seems to have been lost or forgotten in this fishy tale."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
40%
|
Ladder 49 (2004)
|
"Morrison, trapped beneath burning rubble, reviews his cliche-ridden life."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
84%
|
The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de Motocicleta) (2004)
|
"This is the kind of impassioned, richly detailed character piece that reminds us why we fell in love with movies in the first place."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
53%
|
A Dirty Shame (2004)
|
"Let the chant begin here. Ullman for best actress! Ullman for best actress!"
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
31%
|
The Forgotten (2004)
|
"A genuine spellbinder, with the power to suck you right out of your seat."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
32%
|
When Will I Be Loved (2004)
|
"When Will I Be Loved isn't so much a variation on the indie director's earlier themes as it is an amusing riff."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
72%
|
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
|
"A glossy piece of humbug cooked up by well-intentioned amateurs as a science experiment."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
65%
|
Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence (2004)
|
"This is a meaning-of- everything flick -- with a superficial plot about murderous androids -- yet its main characters are interesting because of their connection to each other rather than the metaphysical."
|
Mike Antonucci
|
|
48%
|
Silver City (2004)
|
"This is an if-the-shoe-fits, non-partisan attack on the whole crummy, self-perpetuating System. And as such, it's a whole lot more disquieting."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
70%
|
Criminal (2004)
|
"It's all done with sufficient style that, when we get there, the end no longer feels like the point."
|
Bruce Newman
|
|
58%
|
Ju-on: The Grudge 2 (Ju-on 2) (2003)
|
"Never really lives up to its reputation."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
23%
|
Wicker Park (2004)
|
"A mess structurally, and any attempt to make sense of its non-linear narrative is guaranteed to bring on an instant migraine."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
43%
|
The Brown Bunny (2004)
|
"Hypnotic and unforgettable."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
47%
|
Ja zuster, nee zuster (Yes Nurse! No Nurse!) (2004)
|
"Goofy, episodic and intermittently charming."
|
Glenn Lovell
|
|
50%
|
Vanity Fair (2004)
|
"The satire is sharply observed and the performances acutely felt, most of all Witherspoon's."
|
Bruce Newman
|
78%
——
——
85%
45%
40%
