|
59%
|
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel (2010)
|
"To put it mildly, the doc is way more than just T&A , Bunnies and centerfolds. Although there's some of that too."
|
Elizabeth Snead
|
|
94%
|
Casino Royale (2006)
|
"Craig is a marvel, but the decision to have Bond engaged in a game of Hold 'Em poker is a betrayal of the character and an embarrassing bit of pandering. Small detail, I know."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
84%
|
This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006)
|
"The movie is driven not by the desire to explore one or two specific aspects of the problem in any depth, but to run through the long list of Dick's frustrations superficially"
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
61%
|
Crank (2006)
|
"It boils down to 83 minutes of Chev journeying through LA's ethnic 'hoods dispatching minorities. Granted the movie can't be taken seriously, its cavalier racism is shocking."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
48%
|
Idlewild (2006)
|
"There's a certain oddness to a movie that casts Paula Patton as a singer only to dub her voice but leaves legends like Ben Vereen and Patti LaBelle in non-musical parts."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
71%
|
Invincible (2006)
|
"Credit Invincible with varying the Disney formula just a bit. While still a "feel good" movie, it's a dark and miserable road that must be traveled along the way."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
39%
|
Beerfest (2006)
|
"Beerfest is a one-joke movie ("Hey what if the Olympics had cool competitions like beer pong?") and the level to which it sustains that one joke is almost admirable."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
69%
|
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
|
"t's fascinating to watch some of the actors who have had real-life addictions (like Dick did himself) dive into their own convoluted rationalizations and philosophies during the film. It's almost like watching one of their 12-step meeting"
|
Michael Szymanski
|
|
74%
|
The Illusionist (2006)
|
"The story is about ineffable things, but the police procedural aspects of The Illusionist make it all too effable."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
36%
|
Accepted (2006)
|
"Unlike recent supposedly pro-outcast movies like "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Benchwarmers," "Accepted" seems to have actual affection for its characters."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
3%
|
Zoom (2006)
|
"Featuring a bizarrely dated soundtrack fueled by new music from Smash Mouth, Zoom was designed as a film of training montages. I stopped counting after a half-dozen."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
20%
|
Step Up (2006)
|
"The stars blend decently when they're flailing their limbs, but faced with the horribly earnest dialogue written by Duane Adler and Melissa Rosenberg, neither stands out"
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
69%
|
World Trade Center (2006)
|
"Stone doesn't shy from bawling wives, gauzy sentimental flashbacks or rousing musical cues, but there's little doubt that he could have gone more overboard."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
72%
|
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
|
"Talladega Nights is a tighter, more structured film than Anchorman, which is probably both to its advantage and determent."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
84%
|
The Descent (2006)
|
"Can audiences weaned on the murky sadism of the Saw movies and the Hills Have Eyes remake even recognize what a truly scary movie looks and feels like?"
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
39%
|
Scoop (2006)
|
"Scoop is surely a slight and flimsy film, but it's pleasant to watch Woody Allen wander around London and to watch Allen's new favorite leading lady expand her range."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
91%
|
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
|
"A Sundance-tested slice of American Domestic Dysfunction proving, once again, that no matter what Tolstoy said, sometimes unhappy families are unhappy in very familiar ways."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
24%
|
Lady in the Water (2006)
|
"Lady is a solipsistic and sour fairy tale that sets out to be about the value of community and magic, but ends up as the director's somber celebration of himself."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
74%
|
Monster House (2006)
|
"Ultimately, the environments are far more interesting than the humans navigating within them."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
63%
|
Clerks II (2006)
|
"Although it's as funny as any movie this summer, Clerks II has to struggle to achieve the level of universality that the original "Clerks" seemed to hit effortlessly."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
54%
|
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
|
"Watching Depp in The Black Pearl was like discovering a new acting continent. Watching him here is like returning to a warm, familiar place - nice and all, not exciting"
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
88%
|
Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006)
|
"No matter how fine Paine's intentions, he can't obscure that the movie is, at day's end, the tragic tale of rich people whining because somebody took their trendy toys away. "
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
76%
|
Superman Returns (2006)
|
"Overlong and occasionally unfocused, it may have flaws, but like its formerly unknown star, it weathers its early uncertain steps by providing memorable moments of its own. "
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
33%
|
Click (2006)
|
"While Sandler shouldn't be advised to shun movies with heart, he needs to recognize the difference between genuine emotions and this sort of decidedly unfunny mawkishness."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
35%
|
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
|
"A couple bravura set pieces and a surprise cameo may make fans forget that for much of the time, this "Fast and the Furious" is closer to "Sluggish and the Dispassionate.""
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
40%
|
Nacho Libre (2006)
|
"Someday, Jared Hess will aspire to make a movie that goes a bit deeper than just a geeky outsider with bad hair, a funny name and an exaggerated accent. But not today."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
36%
|
The Lake House (2006)
|
"If Kate (Bullock), a doctor with easy access to computers, would just take 10 seconds to Google the man she professes to love so much, the movie could be over in five minutes."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
81%
|
A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
|
"Such is Altman's gift with actors that he even makes Lindsay Lohan seem fresh-faced, building the film to a climax in which the pop tartlet makes the most of her thin voice."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
74%
|
Cars (2006)
|
"I'm wondering if the Piston Cup conceit of huge crowds of cars watching fellow cars race around a track crashing is perverse in a "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" sort of way."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
34%
|
The Break-Up (2006)
|
"A wishy-washy little relationship comedy that's nowhere near as nasty as it evidently wants to be."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
57%
|
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
|
"Ratner has taken a series characterized by subversive wit and intelligence and put it in a bland box -- It could be worse, but it couldn't be less distinctive."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
25%
|
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
|
"Langdon's not a human character, but an amalgamation of pop-up trivia and pensive stares and there's nothing Hanks can do to make him sympathetic, interesting or engaging."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
33%
|
Poseidon (2006)
|
"There are several characters you're happy to see go -- Try not to cheer when Fergie takes a blast of water to the face -- but there's nobody you'd particularly want to save. "
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
51%
|
Down in the Valley (2005)
|
"As he did in Primal Fear, American History X and Fight Club, Norton generates suspense by never tipping viewers off if he's supposed to be trusted."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
52%
|
Wah-Wah (2006)
|
"Although it's clearly a personal story, Wah-Wah proves as formulaic and meandering as its satirical targets are bloated and obvious. "
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
26%
|
Hoot (2006)
|
"There has to have been a way for Hoot to have preached the gospel of wildness preservation, grabbed a PG rating and still maintained Hiaasen's delirious nastiness."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
12%
|
An American Haunting (2006)
|
"A Post-Colonial Scooby-Doo, as respectable actors in perfectly pressed costumes run up and down stairs avoiding unseen spooks. The director stands in the corner yelling "Boo!""
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
87%
|
The Proposition (2005)
|
"If Peter Weir, Sam Peckinpah and Jim Jarmusch could somehow collaborate on a film written by Joseph Conrad, it would probably look something like this."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
31%
|
The Promise (Master of Crimson Armor) (Wu ji) (2005)
|
"Gorgeous costumes, elaborate fights and the illusion of swooning romance don't amount to very much if you don't care about any of the characters for a single second."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
70%
|
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
|
"You never completely forget Abrams' TV pedigree, but the fact he's turned Mission: Impossible into a star-studded, amped-up version of Alias isn't a bad thing."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
83%
|
Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
|
"Atchison's film relentlessly rams warm fuzzies down your throat and you know what? For all of the cliches and cringe-worthy dialogue, I found it nearly impossible to stay mad."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
91%
|
United 93 (2006)
|
"The supposed centerpiece of the movie is its least involving part. There's a crude transition from the ground docudrama to in-air melodrama that occurs about halfway through."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
29%
|
Silent Hill (2006)
|
"Had Silent Hill been directed by Peter Jackson, perhaps there would have been an explanation or justification for its 127-minute length. But Christophe Gans? Seriously?"
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
33%
|
The Sentinel (2006)
|
"Without any mystery or twists, all you're left with is a jumble that Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brien could unravel before the first commercial break on a single episode of "24.""
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
36%
|
Standing Still (2005)
|
"I continue to enjoy Van Der Beek's willingness to play obnoxiously against type -- it turns out as a big-headed hero, he's boring, but as a big-headed ***, he's a funny guy."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
37%
|
Scary Movie 4 (2006)
|
"Thin on plot even by spoof standards, Scary Movie 4 runs like clockwork for 80 minutes. It's a movie strangely lacking in both comedic highs and lows."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
68%
|
Hard Candy (2006)
|
"The movie often talks circles around itself, trying to layer in subtext to cover for a slasher movie final act, but it was still enough to have me squirming in my seat."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
56%
|
The Notorious Bettie Page (2006)
|
"Although Page is described as the model who shocked the nation, "The Notorious Bettie Page" is notable only for how very unshocking it is."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
71%
|
Friends With Money (2006)
|
"Another plot-lite, character-heavy portrait of woman dealing with love, friendship and self-worth and Holofcener has little interest in adding polish or scale to her formula."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
|
42%
|
When Do We Eat? (2006)
|
"When Do We Eat? isn't a great film or, necessarily, a particularly good one, but it's a worthy attempt at making an entertaining movie about faith."
|
Dan Fienberg
|
