|
93%
|
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
|
"Jessica Chastain delivers a powerful performance, and recent history teaches us that a glamorous woman agent is entirely possible in the agency, but sometimes you have to question Maya's outfits."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
95%
|
West of Memphis (2012)
|
" Director Amy Berg builds West of Memphis with the gripping suspense of a police thriller; but real life has not cooperated in providing an ending."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
37%
|
Stand Up Guys (2013)
|
"What makes it work is the mastery of its three venerable lead actors, and the deep pockets of career history they bring along for this joy ride."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
85%
|
Side Effects (2013)
|
"The movie revels in its twists and turns, and in the convoluted world of movie thriller logic most of them more or less work. Ask your doctor if Side Effects is right for you. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
51%
|
Promised Land (2013)
|
"Promised Land is a modern Frank Capra movie, and few in the audience will doubt where it, and Steve, are headed. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
100%
|
Precious Life (2011)
|
"The terrible irony of this whole saga is the intense effort to save one tiny life while outside the hospital lives on both sides are being snuffed out wholesale. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
45%
|
On the Road (2012)
|
"Youth will be served, but in Walter Salles's rendering of On the Road, Jack Kerouac's seminal novel of a generational revolution at mid-century, it's served a little underdone."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
13%
|
Molly's Theory Of Relativity (2013)
|
"Jeff Lipsky (Flannel Pajamas) steers his story through intriguing waves of philosophical clarity and doldrums of talky boredom."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
100%
|
Masquerade (2012)
|
"It's a robust, colorful, masterfully-spun yarn. It calls to mind the great MGM technicolor swashbucklers of the forties and fifties, particularly The Prisoner of Zenda "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
82%
|
Like Someone in Love (2013)
|
"A quiet, conversational movie about love, deception, mistaken identity, seeming and being, and the vague ominous shadow of violence that drifts in the background like a cold mist coiling at the edge of a garden."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
69%
|
Les Misérables (2012)
|
"The Hugo story is a cherished classic. But the execution here, in the hands of director Tom Hooper, who guided The King's Speech with such subtlety and grace, is garish, shrill, and breathtakingly over the top."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
81%
|
The Impossible (2012)
|
"Despite fine work by Ms Watts, Mr. MacGregor, and the oldest boy (Tom Holland), and a remarkable orchestration of digital effects, the movie treads water, and never catches the wave."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
——
|
Cirque du Soleil - La Nouba (2005)
|
"Director Andrew Adamson and 3D visionary James Cameron manage a beautiful, if boring, spectacle built around an Alice-in-Wonderland story"
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
91%
|
Caesar Must Die (2013)
|
"It's not exactly Julius Caesar the Movie, although it contains some of the most gripping, persuasive Shakespearean acting you'll see in a long time."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
90%
|
Beyond The Hills (2013)
|
" At two and a half somber hours, the movie sometimes requires the patience of holy vows to see it through."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
67%
|
Barrymore (2012)
|
"The role is an actor's dream, a smorgasbord of everything from songs and dirty limericks to classical soliloquies, and Plummer plays it to the hilt."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
64%
|
Anna Karenina (2012)
|
"A stunningly original vision that treads the border between triumph and disaster, and manages to keep miraculously to the side of the angels. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
87%
|
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
|
"The truth that the movie invites us to take to heart is that a society that thinks a child is better off in an institution than in a loving parental environment is a society desperately in need of treatment."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
93%
|
Amour (2012)
|
" This is a picture that deserves to be seen. All it needs is an audience steeled to watch it. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
55%
|
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013)
|
"Nair spins out a story that doubles as a psychological and a political thriller. The stakes rise, the tension mounts, the atmosphere grows incendiary, the air becomes hard to breathe. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
92%
|
No (2013)
|
"It's Coke vs. Pepsi, with the fate and freedom of a nation to the winner."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
99%
|
Mud (2013)
|
"Mud is very cool, and McConaughey carves him with a sharp blade. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
50%
|
The Great Gatsby (2013)
|
"Baz Luhrmann's movie rendering of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel is The Great Gatsby the way Jay Gatsby might have directed it. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
92%
|
The Gatekeepers (2013)
|
"To a man, they sound a common theme - that the policy of Israel toward the Palestinians simply doesn't work. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
77%
|
André Gregory: Before and After Dinner (2013)
|
"If you find André Gregory a charming and fascinating figure, this is an easy movie to like. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
49%
|
At Any Price (2013)
|
"Dennis Quaid, in an inept, mugging performance, is Henry Whipple, a successful third generation Iowa farmer who works painfully hard at squeezing the charmin' as he glad-hands customers and closes deals at funerals with strangers. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
48%
|
Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf's (2013)
|
"A parade of fashion designers gushing about the store as the pinnacle of their dreams, and a chorus of recession-proof conspicuous consumers culled from the population most likely to be taken out and lined up against a wall come the revolution. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
84%
|
The Flat (2012)
|
" "When Arnon Goldfinger's 98-year-old grandmother died she left behind a lifetime of possessions. But it was the secrets she took with her that supply the haunting narrative of this thought-provoking documentary.""
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
52%
|
Flatliners (1990)
|
"The Flat can indulge itself in passages that are no more interesting than your neighbors' travel slides, but it opens can after can of ethical worms."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
63%
|
Hitchcock (2012)
|
" There are lapses in judgment, lapses in timing, lapses in artistry that keep reminding us that great moviemaking isn't as simple as it looks. Alfred Hitchcock knew that."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
77%
|
Any Day Now (2012)
|
"A society that thinks a child is better off in an institution than in a caring, loving parental environment, whatever the sexes and sexual orientations of those parents, is a society desperately in need of treatment."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
94%
|
The Sessions (2012)
|
"Hunt is superb, and fearless.Hawkes Is confined to the expression he can discover in his face, and in a voice thinned by the ravages of polio."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
88%
|
The Big Picture (2012)
|
"Eric Lartigau's thriller is one of those dark, tasty numbers that the French export like burgundy. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
84%
|
Smashed (2012)
|
"The story runs through paces as predictable as a 12 step program. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
65%
|
All Together (2012)
|
"All your old favorites are in the mix - dementia, cancer, heart attack, erectile dysfunction. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
67%
|
Cloud Atlas (2012)
|
"If you see only one movie this year, perhaps it should be Cloud Atlas. Not that it's a great movie . But it's six movies for the price of one."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
96%
|
Argo (2012)
|
"Ben Affleck takes a true story by the throat and delivers a seat-squirming, pulse-pounding nail-biter. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
81%
|
Pitch Perfect (2012)
|
"The Breakfast Club meets Glee in this likable adolescent romp, but doesn't quite meet it halfway. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
77%
|
Samsara (2012)
|
"But for all the negatives it shows, Samsara is not a downer. The beauty ultimately trumps the squalor. It's a fascinating planet. You'll see sights of natural and cultural magnificence that will take your breath away."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
75%
|
Chicken with Plums (2012)
|
"There are parts of a magical movie here, and while they are periodically undercut by missteps, they are rich enough to give this movie a special quality that lifts it well above its low points. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
87%
|
Arbitrage (2012)
|
"Arbitrage is a cold, crisp chablis of a movie, that goes down smoothly, finishes well, and lingers on the palate. If there's something slightly off about it, something you can't quite put your finger on, it's not enough to make you send it back. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
87%
|
Robot & Frank (2012)
|
"There is much to be explored, both with heartbreak and with humor, in the dark wasteland of short-term memory loss. But coming out of Robot and Frank, it feels like something to be embraced."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
93%
|
Elena (2012)
|
"Elena is beautifully accessorized with clean, elegant camerawork by Mikhail Krichman, and a compelling score from Philip Glass. But if a movie's story doesn't grab you, the accessories are just wrapping around a disappointing gift. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
77%
|
Killer Joe (2012)
|
"This is McConaughey's movie. From the moment he slithers into the movie like a serpent in a black Stetson and dark glasses, he commands the attention of everyone on both sides of the screen."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
74%
|
Hope Springs (2012)
|
"The movie straddles, sometimes uncomfortably, the worlds of sap and substance -- director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) can't quite seem to make up his mind. But there's enough of the latter to carry the day. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
64%
|
Kumaré (2012)
|
"Some audiences will be amused at this voyage to hoaxterism and beyond, others will be offended or outraged. But the false prophet offers a genuinely intriguing perspective on the subject of spirituality. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
79%
|
Ruby Sparks (2012)
|
"The real charm of the movie is in its creator and star, Kazan. She's not a classic beauty, but she'll soon have you forgetting that. She's the Little Miss Sunshine of this movie."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
42%
|
Hide Away (A Year in Mooring) (2012)
|
"Eyre has moved far from the Native setting of his breakthrough film Smoke Signals; the stillness at the center here owes more to classic Japanese cinema. "
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
67%
|
Trishna (2012)
|
"Winterbottom clearly has a thing for Hardy, and he's made an intriguing calculation with this subcontinental adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles; but ultimately, like a chapati, the dough doesn't rise."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
|
75%
|
Damsels in Distress (2012)
|
"Plot lines abound, intersect, and peter out. There is a lot of smart and funny dialogue in this movie ("the past is gone, so we might as well romanticize it,") but it gets bogged down by a pervasive smugness problem."
|
Jonathan F. Richards
|
73%
21%
63%
85%
46%
40%
