|
84%
|
The Tree of Life (2011)
|
"It's a phenomenal artwork but, for all its solar flares, it's cold to the touch."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
34%
|
The Hangover Part II (2011)
|
"I can't dismiss the ugliness behind many of its antics."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
59%
|
Yves Saint Laurent - L'amour fou (2011)
|
"An oddly discursive documentary that is, ultimately, more about Pierre Bergé, his companion and business partner of 50 years."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
77%
|
Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (2011)
|
"It would have been wonderful if Lee had consented to an interview for this documentary, but at least we have, among many others, her 99-year-old sister Alice."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
81%
|
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
|
"For a movie touting "inner peace," this 3-D sequel sure goes in for its share of battle scenes, but for the most part they are excitingly conceived by director Jennifer Yuh Nelson and her writers, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
93%
|
Midnight in Paris (2011)
|
"sweet, not altogether satisfying variation on the fantasy-becomes-reality conceit he used in his Depression-era The Purple Rose of Cairo."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
33%
|
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
|
"With further sequels already in the works, and billions more to be made, I would nevertheless like to point out that the wind went out of these pirate ship sails a long time ago."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
59%
|
The First Grader (2011)
|
"Director Justin Chadwick filmed in Kenya, and his imagery, as well as the faces of the schoolchildren, and of Litondo, all of them nonactors, is far more expressive than the formulaic script."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
13%
|
The Big Bang (2011)
|
"Where else can you see a movie where a sexy waitress says, "Reality is just a wave function"?"
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
75%
|
Everything Must Go (2011)
|
"Rush draws on the intense attachment we can feel for the mundane objects in our lives. For Nick, these things are talismans from a past that promised a lot more than it delivered."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
90%
|
Bridesmaids (2011)
|
"Wiig has terrific audience rapport, a prerequisite for comics, and a squiggly way of seeming totally reasonable and altogether daft at the same time."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
61%
|
The Beaver (2011)
|
"I've rarely seen a movie about severe malcontents that ended on such a note of unearned uplift."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
51%
|
Last Night (2011)
|
"Will Michael succumb and prove Joanna correct in her suspicions? Will Alex's French accent conquer all? Do you care? I didn't."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
11%
|
There Be Dragons (2011)
|
"Few films about the Spanish Civil War have been any good -- Pan's Labyrinth being the big exception."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
77%
|
Thor (2011)
|
"I approached this new lollapalooza with an open mind that was quickly addled by loads of back story and front story and an ear-splitting avalanche of special effects."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
29%
|
Sympathy for Delicious (2011)
|
"Mark Ruffalo is one of the best actors of his generation, and I'd like to be able to say that, with his directorial debut, Sympathy for Delicious, he's one of its best filmmakers, too. Alas, this semiexpressionist fantasia is a botch."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
60%
|
That's What I Am (2011)
|
"Since a large portion of the film is taken up with the theme of school bullying, it may have some contemporary relevance, but good intentions do not always a good movie make."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
96%
|
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)
|
"Herzog is reaching for ways to comprehend what he imagines to be the emblems of the birth of the modern soul."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
71%
|
Exporting Raymond (2011)
|
"What makes Exporting Raymond more than just a funny sketchbook are its insights into the mutability of comedy."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
73%
|
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011)
|
"The nonstop onslaught of product placements in our lives is, alas, a given. The only novelty here is that Spurlock has hauled the corporate marketeers into an indie movie arena supposedly too pure for such temptations."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
92%
|
Incendies (2011)
|
"Azabal, a Belgian actress, has a feral, mesmerizing power."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
86%
|
Meek's Cutoff (2011)
|
"Williams also starred in Reichardt's last, and best, film, Wendy and Lucy, and she clearly has a special affinity for the director, for whom she shows off her subtlest shades."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
61%
|
Water for Elephants (2011)
|
"The film has a pleasing retro-ness that often mitigates the dullness."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
92%
|
My Perestroika (2011)
|
"The openness of these people is often astonishing -- and a sign of hope."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
55%
|
The Conspirator (2011)
|
"The nightmare of Lincoln's assassination, and its immediate aftermath, is effectively delivered, and Wright, shrouded in black, her face a mask of indomitable sorrow, gives great gravity to what might otherwise have been a waxworks historical reenactment."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
83%
|
The Double Hour (2011)
|
"A psychological thriller that is very heavy on the mumbo-jumbo."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
84%
|
The Princess Of Montpensier (2011)
|
"Tavernier, who likes to film in long tracking shots even in tight, enclosed spaces, is adept at staging both battle scenes and courtly shenanigans, and he wisely keeps this period film within its own antiquated confines."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
26%
|
Your Highness (2011)
|
"Sword and sorcery movies often resemble parodies of themselves even when they are intended to be taken seriously. And then there are genre spoofs like Your Highness that are meant to be funny and leave you stone-faced."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
71%
|
Hanna (2011)
|
"This film is bound to give the home-schooling movement a bad name, unless, of course, you're running a home school for assassins."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
45%
|
Soul Surfer (2011)
|
"Hamilton is played, blandly, by Anna Sophia Robb, and her devoted parents, less bland, are played by Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt. The surfing footage, much of it shot off the coast of Kauai, is not bland at all."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
26%
|
Arthur (2011)
|
"I don't buy the notion that this is all a lavish fantasy to cheer us in troubled times. It's too clueless and condescending for that."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
77%
|
In A Better World (2011)
|
"Despite its overweening tone of serioso realism, the movie exhibits little or no understanding of how real people actually behave."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
78%
|
Trust (2011)
|
"What Trust conveys, at its best, is that ultimately parental protections are not foolproof, and that is the greatest horror of all."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
82%
|
Trust (1991)
|
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
74%
|
Winter in Wartime (2011)
|
"It's an affecting, if somewhat flavorless, journey."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
91%
|
Source Code (2011)
|
"Years -- months? -- hence I expect there will be an avalanche of PhD theses focusing on these mumbo-jumbo mind-meld melodramas. In the meantime you can pick up your BA at the multiplex today."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
17%
|
Miral (2011)
|
"Schnabel and his collaborators get points for taking on a crucial and underrepresented viewpoint. If only the result were more compelling..."
|
Andy Klein
|
|
83%
|
Potiche (2011)
|
"For its first two-thirds, Potiche is a frothy delight."
|
Andy Klein
|
|
23%
|
Sucker Punch (2011)
|
"Snyder's accomplishment is to drain that of any erotic heat; he generated a lot more with the glistening-with-sweat abs in 300 than he manages here."
|
Andy Klein
|
|
44%
|
White Irish Drinkers (2011)
|
"Veteran TV director John Gray brings little or nothing new to conflicts we've seen in an endless stream of movies, including Saturday Night Fever and (to go straight to the top of the list) Mean Streets."
|
Andy Klein
|
|
97%
|
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (2000)
|
"A warmly human look at the career of major-league baseball's most famous Jewish star."
|
David Sterritt
|
|
72%
|
Paul (2011)
|
"This is not quite enough of a conceit to sustain a full-length movie -- Paul would have made a terrific short film -- but there are incidental pleasures all along the way."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
70%
|
Limitless (2011)
|
"What would you do if you could take a pill and suddenly access 100 percent of your brain power? This is the premise behind Limitless, a sci-fi thriller that looks as if its makers utilized around 30 percent of theirs."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
94%
|
Win Win (2011)
|
"Giamatti knows how to play characters in conflict not only with the world but with themselves."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
88%
|
Certified Copy (Copie Conforme) (2011)
|
"The Iranian-writer director Abbas Kiarostami has always been enthralled by the shifting planes of fantasy and reality. His latest film, Certified Copy, is his fullest expression of that entrancement."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
11%
|
Red Riding Hood (2011)
|
"Just when you think you've finished with one of these annoying franchises, another one pops up to plague you."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
84%
|
Jane Eyre (2011)
|
"It has passion all right -- in the stylistics. Those star-crossed love birds Jane and Rochester are no match for the tracking shots and throbbing violins."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
68%
|
Black Death (2011)
|
"There's something here for just about everyone, or at least for everyone who looks back fondly on the similarly themed Wicker Man from 1973."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
35%
|
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
|
"With his hawklike profile and square jaw, the hyperstalwart Eckhart looks like a comic-book hero and acts like one, too. He's so stalwart he creaks."
|
Peter Rainer
|
|
80%
|
Carmen 3d (2011)
|
"One of the most heartening theatrical developments in recent years has been the success of the Metropolitan Opera HD broadcasts."
|
Peter Rainer
|
72%
76%
61%
52%
26%
4%
