The Awakening2012
Nick Murphy's bigscreen directorial debut has good atmospherics that only go so far to prop up a mystery whose overdue explanation is convoluted and underwhelming.
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Craigslist Joe2012
The briskly edited docu seldom stops long enough to let Joe's new friends (identified only by first name) make anything beyond the most superficial impressions.
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Detropia2012
A potent snapshot of a potential future for many American cities.
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Grave Encounters 22012
[Adds] additional layers of self-consciousness to a story that was already pretty derivative.
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I Wish2012
This tale of two elementary-school brothers plotting to end the physical separation their parents' divorce has forced on them effortlessly pulls off the naturalism and charm desired from material that might have easily curdled into calculated preciousness.
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Sassy Pants2012
Landing between the twee, naturalistic and formulaic, Sassy Pants settles for cute, taking too few gambles to make a more lasting impression.
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Teddy Bear2012
The low-key drama is well-crafted and likable as far as it goes, but there's not enough narrative impetus or depth to maintain more than passing viewer interest.
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The Zen Of Bennett2012
These elements leave the documentary hanging somewhere between a glorified making-of album promo and a more in-depth portrait of the artist.
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Going Down In La-la Land2011
A creditable if familiar portrait of one aspiring-actor newbie's disillusioning wade into the rough waters of Hollywood.
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Gun Hill Road2011
Writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green's first feature is earnest and well cast, but less involving than it should be.
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The Perfect Host2011
A familiar horror/suspense trope -- criminals choose the wrong hideout, discover twisted residents more dangerous than cops -- gets entertainingly respun in The Perfect Host.
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Septien2011
Septien proves the paths of "weird" and "interesting" do not always intersect.
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Surviving Progress2011
Surviving Progress offers a cinematic wakeup call so cogent and non-didactic even Tea Partyers would be hard-pressed to shrug it off.
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The Weird World of Blowfly2011
Hanging out with a 1970s cult figure of raunchy R&B "party records" is less fun than one would expect in The Weird World of Blowfly.
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Chain Letter2010
Chain Letter yields few surprises, compensating with de rigueur false scares, unmemorable deaths and the kind of improbably exaggerated gore.
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Eating Out: All You Can Eat2009
Somewhat departs from the series' gay spin on the raunchy teen sex comedy in favor of semi-sincere romantic comedy -- after a crass and abysmal first stretch, that is.
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Five Minutes of Heaven2009
Powerhouse performances by Liam Neeson and James Nesbit make this an intense, ultimately moving tale.
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Zombie Girl: The Movie2009
While subject Emily Hagins' precocious pluck is admirable and endearing, what lends the docu its dramatic edge is the way in which her mother goes from supportive to meddlesome over the course of the no-budget horror pic's production.
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I Sell the Dead2008
Droll perfs, diverting f/x and handsome B-pic atmospherics ensure a good time for horror fans with a memory past last weekend's slasher remake.
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I Think We're Alone Now2008
The outer frontier of celebrity culture, where fandom meets mental illness, is home to I Think We're Alone Now.
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Play The Game2008
The comedy's broad perfs, predictable story beats and pro but characterless packaging have a smallscreen feel.
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American Zombie2007
If Lee intended primarily to spoof documentary conventions, she should have chosen a theme less commercially overexposed -- and worked harder at making it more than just sorta-kinda humorous.
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Postal2007
Boll does mean to provoke, but to pull off a satirical critique of the volatile subjects here would require sharper wit than he and co-scenarist Bryan C. Knight generally provide.
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Colma: The Musical2006
Amerindie Colma: The Musical just gives the kids music they like and characters they can identify with, forgetting any grandiosity.
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How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer2005
While there are rewards to sticking with this tempest-in-teapot saga of sexual awakening across three family generations of Mexican-American women, its pacing is leisurely to the brink of stasis.
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Neverwas2005
This is the kind of movie where a madwoman's outburst leads her to throw a mug that just happens to be filled with gold sparkles -- which can then be photographed cascading down on all the adorable loonies, in slow-motion.
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Race You to the Bottom2005
Brown's screenplay and direction, both economical and unshowy, sketch character dynamics in crisp terms that resist the temptation to explain all, beg sympathy or heighten drama for purely histrionic purposes.
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Mouth to Mouth2004
An uneven, occasionally vivid, ultimately unsatisfactory treatment of themes that should've packed more punch.
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Equilibrium2002
An unsophisticated sci-fi drama that takes itself all too seriously.
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The Master of Disguise2002
A jumbled fantasy comedy that did not figure out a coherent game plan at scripting, shooting or post-production stages.
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Manic2001
A riveting troubled teens story that has the unvarnished poignance of first-rank docus (e.g. Streetwise, Decline of Western Civilization III, etc.) on similar thematic turf.
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Clay Pigeons1998
Slanted as a black comedy, but fails to secure the sufficiently outre tone (let alone any real suspense) needed to make it more than a middling retread.
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Pi1998
It's remarkable to what extent Aronofsky has rendered the cerebral kinetically intense. The film's imaginative, diverse images create a mind's-eye urban claustrophobia.
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The House of Yes1997
[Waters] manages to open up the text while maintaining its perilous mix of arch wit, pathos and suspense.
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