Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 52%
| Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) | "
No kiddie movie would be complete without spazzy supporting characters, booger jokes, yucky food and toilet humor; Diary delivers them in abundance without straying too far from Disney Channel wholesomeness." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 18, 2010 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 89%
| Fish Tank (2010) | "
The characters are guarded, and as we come to understand them scene by scene, they become ever harder to sort into convenient categories of hero and villain." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 18, 2010 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 82%
| The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2010) | "
A densely plotted 2 1/2-hour saga, with enough mutilation, serial homicide, S&M rough stuff, cold-blooded violence and frank nudity to spice up the saggy bits." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 18, 2010 |
Rotten 0/4
| Rotten 20%
| Repo Men (2010) | "
With its radiantly ugly visuals, mean-spirited worldview and gut-wrenching levels of gore, Repo Men is about as entertaining as a burst appendix." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 18, 2010 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 27%
| Remember Me (2010) | "
A seemingly inconsequential action at the climax becomes a profound life-changer, giving each character's journey an unpredictable -- and I would argue, contrived -- conclusion." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 12, 2010 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 96%
| A Prophet (2010) | "
French director Jacques Audiard's grim, disturbing prison picture slices through gangster clichés to hit raw nerve." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 12, 2010 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 82%
| The Art of the Steal (2009) | "
Marshaling a wealth of archival and new material, it made me want to hop on a plane to Philadelphia to see the original before it's emptied." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 12, 2010 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 71%
| The Yellow Handkerchief (2010) | "
This modest but moving indie ensemble piece puts three estimable actors in a convertible, sets them on a long drive to post-Katrina Louisiana and lets the character dynamics do the rest." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 12, 2010 |
— | Fresh 86%
| A Town Called Panic (2009) | "
If a precocious 9-year-old with attention deficit issues made a stop-motion animated movie, he might produce a triumph of supreme silliness like A Town Called Panic." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 12, 2010 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 53%
| Green Zone (2010) | "
Frenetic in execution and formulaic in substance, the film leaves one lathered into a frenzy but not moved, at once overwhelmed and undernourished." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 12, 2010 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 82%
| Ghost Writer (2010) | "
So elegant, so deliciously scary, so masterfully controlled that you feel tingles of bliss even as your skin crawls." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 4, 2010 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 40%
| Brooklyn's Finest (2010) | "
The adventures are sometimes interesting; there are stirring, chaotic outbursts of violence. But yelling and shooting alone don't engage the imagination, and the domestic interludes verge on soap opera." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 4, 2010 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 52%
| Alice in Wonderland (2010) | "
Indecision haunts every frame. The result is a clattering, hectic spectacle that by the end has run out of inspiration. It's a home for abandoned ideas." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Mar 4, 2010 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 33%
| My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (2009) | "
Lynch and Herzog have tickled us for years with their dwarves and iguanas and impenetrable stories. This collaboration represents the vanishing point of willful obscurity." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 26, 2010 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 39%
| 44 Inch Chest (2010) | "
After a while you can see why the wayward wife moved on to fresher prospects. Our man Ray is all talk, no bloody action." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 26, 2010 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 19%
| Cop Out (2010) | "
Cop Out is a silly waste of time. In other words, it's just what we need right now." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 26, 2010 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 72%
| The Crazies (2010) | "
This remake of George A. Romero's 1973 biological warfare shocker is a trim, taut, terrifying essay in homespun horror." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 26, 2010 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 83%
| North Face (2010) | "
The film puts us on the cruelly beautiful mountain alongside the climbers as they inch up treacherous limestone crags and unstable ice fields. The fear of falling is palpable." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 18, 2010 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Fresh 73%
| District 13: Ultimatum (2010) | "
While it doesn't match the bombastic, bone-breaking brio of its predecessor, 2004's District B-13, this sequel imaginatively spices up the leftovers." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 18, 2010 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 67%
| Shutter Island (2010) | "
Its overripe atmospherics put it in that rare class of failures that can only be made by talented people falling on their face while reaching for the moon." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 18, 2010 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 18%
| Valentine's Day (2010) | "
The film seems like a package deal arranged by a talent agency that found half its stars were idle for a day or two over a three-week period." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 11, 2010 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 51%
| Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) | "
The fireballs are great but the story feels confused in its tone and direction." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 11, 2010 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 46%
| Creation (2010) | "
Bettany's sheepish performance fails to engage, and Connelly, his wife in real life, seems distant and frigid. There is no sense of romance between them. That may be accurate, but it's no fun to watch." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 11, 2010 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 32%
| The Wolfman (2010) | "
A lavish coffee table book of a horror film, The Wolfman features visuals so beautifully planned and executed that each frame begs to be lingered over and savored." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 11, 2010 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 69%
| The Last Station (2009) | "
A fun, sexy romp about the last days of Leo Tolstoy? Believe it." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 4, 2010 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 76%
| That Evening Sun (2009) | "
Hal Holbrook's performance in "That Evening Sun" is a piece of work like Jeff Bridges' turn in Crazy Heart -- a veteran actor who knows all the moves, taking a fine little movie and making it great." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Feb 4, 2010 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Rotten 28%
| Extraordinary Measures (2010) | "
Ford's participation, and the grandstanding performance he delivers, raise it from a middlebrow TV-style weepie to a higher plateau of quality. Intermittently, anyway." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Jan 21, 2010 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 77%
| Bronson (2009) | "
Part literate black comedy, part surrealistic character study, part horror movie, Bronson is a sophisticated confection, rich and dark, sprinkled with bitter little jokes." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Jan 21, 2010 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 67%
| The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) | "
The movie has the busy-aimless feeling of a cocktail party rather than a rigorously constructed drama. Interesting people drift through, anecdotes are shared, attention shifts here and there, and abruptly it's time to go." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Jan 21, 2010 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 92%
| Crazy Heart (2009) | "
You can see why Bridges signed on for this low-key, low-budget character study. It isn't every day an actor gets the chance to pitch face-forward into the camera, dead drunk." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Jan 14, 2010 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 45%
| The Book of Eli (2010) | "
Travolta had his Battlefield Earth, Costner had his Waterworld and now Denzel Washington has his truly awful sci-fi epic, The Book of Eli." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Jan 14, 2010 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Rotten 32%
| The Lovely Bones (2009) | "
Rarely has a film launched by a killing seemed so insistently alive." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Jan 14, 2010 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 66%
| The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) | "
I'd love to report that The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a work of renegade genius. Alas, it's a minor film, memorable largely as the farewell of Heath Ledger, who died when his scenes were only half completed." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Jan 7, 2010 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 69%
| Sherlock Holmes (2009) | "
This is a swashbuckling, pratfalling romp designed to make cerebral Holmes purists drop their monocles into their teacups." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 25, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Rotten 37%
| Nine (2009) | "
Nine expires in every sluggish, graceless scene." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 25, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 85%
| A Single Man (2009) | "
It is as gorgeous as you would expect, and surprisingly large-hearted." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 25, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 81%
| Broken Embraces (2009) | "
Pedro Almodovar's latest movie is positively drunk in its desire for handsome actors and beautiful actresses, gorgeously art-directed sets, suspense, comedy, ironic flashbacks, tragic romance." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 25, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 58%
| It's Complicated (2009) | "
Nancy Meyers never pushes for a hard truth when she can reach for an easy laugh. She's like an industrial device, stamping out 100 percent pure-plastic midlife female fantasy." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 25, 2009 |
Rotten 1/4
| Rotten 13%
| Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009) | "
A painful failure, lumpish and crude." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 18, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 82%
| Avatar (2009) | "
The film vibrates with the excitement of discovery and awe. Not just for the sight of six-legged rhinos and butterfly-hued dragons, but for the thousands of hours of work that unite here in a creative epiphany." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 82%
| Me and Orson Welles (2009) | "
Me and Orson Welles is a little velvet sack of diamonds. It's a sparkling love letter to a gigantic talent, a romance, a comedy, a drama." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 76%
| Invictus (2009) | "
It's a film of big themes played out on a grand scale, a story of races and generations making an effort to connect." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 85%
| The Princess and the Frog (2009) | "
A charming carnival of a movie, Disney's The Princess and the Frog is a landmark, business as usual and a return to form for the world's preeminent animation studio." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 10, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 90%
| Up in the Air (2009) | "
It would be easy to make Ryan a louse or a hero who just needs a bit of armor polish. Clooney makes Ryan both ruthless and sympathetic." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 45%
| Everybody's Fine (2009) | "
Jones clumsily establishes that De Niro's trade was producing telephone wires. And yet he can't communicate with his kids, see? The film includes so many shots of phone poles you'd think it was an AT&T documentary." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 59%
| Brothers (2009) | "
The film packs a wallop. Too bad about the missteps. It could've been a knockout." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Rotten 0.5/4
| Rotten 21%
| Oh My God (2009) | "
A mashup of slick tourist photos, a cacophony of contradictory sound bites yielding zero insight. Watching this disorganized essay on organized religion may actually make you stupider." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Dec 3, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 93%
| Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) | "
The film earns its title's superlative and a hundred more." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Nov 24, 2009 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 75%
| The Road (2009) | "
John Milton described hell as "darkness visible." That is the grim, mesmerizing world that director John Hillcoat creates here." — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Nov 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/4
| Fresh 88%
| Red Cliff (2009) | "
The compelling emotion that marks the best Woo movies is AWOL. The pacing is choppy, with most of the human moments lopped off. Is the Han emperor the good guy? Or should we cheer the rebellious opposition warlords? And what the heck is a viceroy?" — Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted Nov 24, 2009 |
