|
58%
|
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (in 3D) (2012)
|
"We don't want to remember it's pretty bad. Then we do. "
|
Roger Moore
|
|
53%
|
Safe House (2012)
|
"Even at its most frantic and mechanical, the movie relies on Washington to provide a visual anchor, some sociopathic calm amid the storm."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
43%
|
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
|
"It's only disguised as fun."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
13%
|
W.E. (2012)
|
"Madonna as a director has no discernible idea of how to locate a tone, or a provocative blend of tones. Her camera makes circles around its subjects every chance it gets in ways that evoke - nothing."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
76%
|
The Innkeepers (2012)
|
"Writer-director Ti West goes where many - especially Stephen King - have gone before... "
|
Roger Moore
|
|
64%
|
The Woman in Black (2012)
|
"The film, a handsome nerve-jangler co-produced under the storied Hammer horror banner, amps up the scares without turning them into something completely stupid."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
93%
|
Coriolanus (2011)
|
"You buy the concept, from start to finish, because it feels strong and purposeful and in sync with Shakespeare's own vision of a malleable, fickle populace and a leader raised by the ultimate stage mother."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
72%
|
Big Miracle (2012)
|
""Big Miracle" tells its sort-of-true version of events in a democratic and humane fashion, by way of a rangy, lively group of competing interests who actually do on occasion act like real people."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
76%
|
The Innkeepers (2012)
|
"Each visit to the root cellar is an exercise in nerve-tightening; the first time we hear the overloud telephone at the front desk, it's both alarming and funny."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
32%
|
Man on a Ledge (2012)
|
"You can say this for screenwriter Pablo F. Fenjves' story: It stays busy."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
77%
|
The Grey (2012)
|
"There's an actual human element to go with Carnahan's Jack London-inspired depiction of humans against the elements."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
99%
|
A Separation (2011)
|
"Some films wear their artistry so lightly they appear simply to be happening, the inner workings of the story guided by an unseen hand."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
54%
|
The Iron Lady (2012)
|
"Streep's performance of a dismissive line such as "People don't think anymore, they feel," will have even the most dyed-in-the-wool liberal questioning core beliefs. "
|
Roger Moore
|
|
76%
|
War Horse (2011)
|
"Despite having a horse that has as much personality as any animal actor we've ever seen on the screen, "War Horse" never achieves the pathos, awe and lump-in-the-throat emotion that director, composer and screenwriters were aiming for. "
|
Roger Moore
|
|
36%
|
Red Tails (2012)
|
""Red Tails"squanders a great subject, reducing the real-life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliche."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
95%
|
Pina (2011)
|
""Pina"is the best possible tribute to Bausch, and to adventurous image-making."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
80%
|
Haywire (2012)
|
"Carano may not be a born or a natural actress; she is, however, an undeniable and heartening rebuke to the skinny-Minnies Hollywood favors over real women with curves."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
45%
|
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012)
|
"Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock ... Max von Sydow, Zoe Caldwell, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, John Goodman... thanks for your honest efforts in the service of a fundamentally dishonest weepie."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
54%
|
The Iron Lady (2012)
|
"Yes, it's a strangely de-politicized portrait of Britain's first female prime minister. But what's there is actually enough."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
71%
|
Carnage (2011)
|
""Carnage" becomes a lesson in how to handle a willfully claustrophobic assignment with panache."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
34%
|
Joyful Noise (2012)
|
"The movie's all right, if you can take its rampant artificiality - and I'm not even talking about Parton's face yet."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
48%
|
Contraband (2012)
|
"Wahlberg has the presence, the glower and the laconic line readings to guide us through a mess of pain, painlessly."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
5%
|
The Devil Inside (2012)
|
"The Devil Inside joins a long, woozy-camera parade of found-footage scare pictures, among them The Blair Witch Project, the Paranormal Activity films and certain wedding videos that won't go away."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
54%
|
In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)
|
""In the Land of Blood and Honey" clearly came from the same impulse that has led Jolie into so many humanitarian efforts around the world."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
96%
|
Pariah (2011)
|
"Rees packs a lot into a simple narrative, and only rarely overpacks."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
63%
|
We Bought a Zoo (2011)
|
"Damon, thank the family-friendly-movie gods, really knows how to hold his head above the corn."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
97%
|
The Artist (2011)
|
"Is "The Artist" a screwball comedy? A sentimental melodrama? A spoof? Serious? What? Yes, yes, yes and yes."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
75%
|
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
|
"I fear Spielberg and Jackson hitched their wagon to the wrong technological star here."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
87%
|
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
|
""Dragon Tattoo" knows precisely how to achieve its look, rhythm, sound and spirit. It's extremely well made by a genuine and reliable talent. But I thought he was done with this sort of thing."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
65%
|
Ironweed (1987)
|
"Watching "Ironweed" is like having a large, metal object lodged in your brain for 2 1/2 hours. It hurts."
|
Dave Kehr
|
|
77%
|
A Dangerous Method (2011)
|
"A satisfying drama of historical speculation, substantially researched and shrewdly dramatized..."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
93%
|
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011)
|
"Manages to be a pretty good time for much of its overgenerous 132 minutes."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
84%
|
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
|
"Alfredsen made the excellent vampire thriller "Let the Right One In," and his knack for brackish, enveloping atmosphere is rare indeed."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
60%
|
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
|
"You may ponder: Would this movie actually be less aggravating with Adam Sandler in it, playing twins?"
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
61%
|
Young Goethe In Love (2011)
|
"You needn't know a thing about Goethe or his works to enjoy the picture."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
82%
|
Young Adult (2011)
|
"Theron nails the specifics of her character, all the distress signals, from the nervous hair-pulling to the relentless default sarcasm."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
8%
|
New Year's Eve (2011)
|
"Marshall knows a certain kind of comedy, but his technique has a way of pitting performers squarely against their own material."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
22%
|
The Sitter (2011)
|
"I hope Green one day finds a way to bridge the style and rhythm of his early pictures (the ones that didn't make money) and the bumper-car approach of "The Sitter.""
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
80%
|
Loveless (2011)
|
"Watch for [director] Serry; he is a genuine talent, with a sidewinding sense of humor and an affection for his characters. "
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
81%
|
Tyrannosaur (2011)
|
"The acting - particularly the moving performance of Olivia Colman as a battered spouse living in a grim corner of Leeds, England - is fierce and committed. So why doesn't its impact linger?"
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
80%
|
Shame (2011)
|
"There is a good movie to be made about someone like Brandon, especially with someone like Fassbender, a performer of exceptional technical facility and a fascinating sense of reserve. McQueen's isn't quite it."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
94%
|
Hugo (2011)
|
""Hugo" is big, and it exists mainly to dazzle, but its storytelling ambitions are more modest. I enjoyed it more than many a later Scorsese picture."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
92%
|
Arthur Christmas (2011)
|
"It's good. Frantic, yes, sometimes aggressively so. There's some padding in the airborne sequences built to exploit the 3-D format. But a tender and upbeat spirit informs the writing and the execution."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
97%
|
The Muppets (2011)
|
"It's fun to spend time with these characters again."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
84%
|
My Week with Marilyn (2011)
|
"First-time feature film director Simon Curtis has made a minor picture about a minor picture, major talents notwithstanding."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
44%
|
Happy Feet Two (2011)
|
"If it weren't for the comic relief provided by Will and Bill, tiny shrimplike crustaceans known as krill and voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, this would be a forbidding return to Antarctica indeed."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
25%
|
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)
|
"Whenever certain actors take the lead and set the pace of the dialogue, time itself begins to crawl backward and the breaking dawn begins to feel like yesterday's breaking dawn, or last Tuesday's."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
90%
|
The Descendants (2011)
|
"It's lovely - funny and sad and funny/sad in ways you can't always pinpoint, capturing both the perpetual Pacific island breezes and the unsettled interior lives of Hemmings' characters, chief among them the attorney played by George Clooney."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
89%
|
Into The Abyss (2011)
|
"Not since Errol Morris' masterwork of investigative documentary, "The Thin Blue Line," has a filmmaker had such an easy time of making the death penalty-crazed state of Texas look quite so casually venal."
|
Michael Phillips
|
|
78%
|
Melancholia (2011)
|
"No one creates richer overtures on screen than von Trier. As "Melancholia" begins, music from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" floods a series of discrete, striking images."
|
Michael Phillips
|
