instantwatcher.com

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News

1. The Business of Being Born 2008 Passionate, enlightening and unabashedly one-sided, Abby Epstein's documentary is not for everyone. But at the very least, it should be seen by every pregnant woman in America. full review
2. Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe 2007 Wagstaff was a fascinating figure and deserves the detailed tribute provided here. full review
3. Chop Shop 2007 Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani showed great compassion for New York's underclass with his first feature, Man Push Cart, and his storytelling skill has only sharpened with this riveting followup. full review
4. Civic Duty 2007 Though Civic Duty seems to be a study in paranoid psychosis, it has just enough ambiguity to make you wonder if it isn't something else. You'll still be wondering when it's all over. full review
5. Closing Escrow 2007 If you can watch it without weeping over your own predicament, you'll see some serious talent bursting out. full review
6. Day Zero 2007 Truth to be told, it's hard to care. full review
7. Descent 2007 No moviegoer has done anything to deserve the images that director Talia Lugacy would throw in their face. full review
8. Evening 2007 Things are happening too fast to be convincing, and the romance -- rather, the one-night stand -- between Ann and Harris hardly seems worth a lifetime of regret, or two hours of your time. full review
9. Freedom Writers 2007 An educational fantasy that happens to be mostly true. full review
10. The Hunting Party 2007 The opening credit disclaimer for writer-director Richard Shepard's The Hunting Party -- 'Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true' -- didn't help me much. Everything about this political thriller is ridiculous. full review
11. No End in Sight 2007 The most compelling and least partisan of all the Iraq documentaries. full review
12. Outsourced 2007 Josh Hamilton gives a marvelously engaging performance in this fish-out-of-water comedy. full review
13. The Rape of Europa 2007 This meticulously rich documentary chronicles the cultural scavenging of the Nazis and the heroic efforts of art patrons and ordinary citizens to hide the treasures. full review
14. Shooter 2007 The plot is so dense and cockamamie, trying to follow it isn't worth the bother. full review
15. You Kill Me 2007 John Dahl returns to the quirky black-comedy genre where he began his career in the late '80s. It's good to have him back there. full review
16. Brooklyn Rules 2006 Though the three friends at the center of the story don't always look or sound smart, the movie does both. full review
17. Bug 2006 Bug, a tale of love, desperation and conspiratorial madness, comes off on the big screen as a wacky psychological snow job. full review
18. Cashback 2006 It's no small trick to blend fantasy, slapstick and genuine emotion, but [director] Ellis pulls it off with whimsy to spare. full review
19. Colma: The Musical 2006 Wonderfully staged numbers -- a raucous song in a tavern, a lovely ballad sung in a cemetery with couples dancing through the tombstones -- that give this little indie a big heart. full review
20. Copying Beethoven, (Klang der Stille) 2006 It was audacious of the filmmakers to imagine they could build a story and characters around the creation of the Ninth Symphony that would play as dramatically as the music. full review
21. Deep Water 2006 His story is a footnote in sailing history, to be sure, but a fascinating one. full review
22. Failure to Launch 2006 The plot synopsis sounds less like sitcom than sick-com: A womanizer has the tables turned on him when he falls in love with, essentially, a prostitute whose services are being paid for by parents who don't have the decency to ask him to leave. full review
23. Heading South 2006 A well-acted but misguided tale of displaced sexual longing on the beaches of Baby Doc Duvalier's 1970s Haiti. full review
24. I'm Reed Fish 2006 Modest charmer about a folksy community radio show host. full review
25. Lady Chatterley 2006 It captures the animal attraction we call lust and carefully tracks its evolution to true love. For all its faults, this beautifully shot, sexually graphic film is a gem. full review
26. Nacho Libre 2006 Nacho Libre scores points only on occasion. full review
27. One to Another 2006 The confusing time line of Pascal Arnold and Jean-Marc Barr's bizarre tale of sibling romance, murder and obsession is just one of its problems. The others are the romance, the murder and the obsession. full review
28. Sherrybaby 2006 ... for all the missteps, Gyllenhaal gives such a riveting central performance, the others tend to blend into the background. full review
29. Slither 2006 In a year that is heavily front-loaded with horror movies, Slither is easily the best in the class. full review
30. This Is England 2006 Turgoose, in his first film role, is entirely convincing. full review
31. Trailer Park Boys: The Movie 2006 Canada may have a better health care system than ours, but the popularity of the TV show Trailer Park Boys proves that when it comes to low-brow entertainment, they can go lower than Jerry Springer. full review
32. United 93 2006 It is a docudrama done with great sensitivity, and with unerring judgment in the writing and in the depiction of the passengers and hijackers. full review
33. Unknown 2006 It all comes together at the end, logically and with a twist. But it's not a game that allows the audience to play along. full review
34. The Wind That Shakes the Barley 2006 ... Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley may be the most powerful look yet at the guerrilla-styled Irish rebellion against occupying British forces in 1920-22. full review
35. Broken Flowers 2005 A Jarmusch film through and through, with the stars shining against the same minimalist backdrop. full review
36. Cavite 2005 The hand-held camera work gives the film an effective documentary pulse, but it adds up to only half a movie. full review
37. The Constant Gardener 2005 A slick, fast-paced production with first-rate performances and an emotional punch you won't soon forget. full review
38. Conversations With Other Women 2005 Theirs is an affair not worth remembering. full review
39. Elizabethtown 2005 Whether Elizabethtown proves to be Crowe's Johnstown or just a run-of- the-mill flood, it's still a soggy mess. full review
40. Land of the Dead 2005 Land is pure entertainment and superbly well done. full review
41. Lonesome Jim 2005 The real problem is its absolute absence of energy. full review
42. Nine Lives 2005 A fascinating series of vignettes. full review
43. Old Joy 2005 Kelly Reichardt's minimalist buddy film about two former roommates on an overnight camping trip in Oregon's Cascade Mountains features some of the year's most beautiful scenery and two of its most wooden characters. full review
44. Sahara 2005 Eisner is not remotely up to the challenge. Spending millions on action scenes does not mean you get them right. full review
45. Stoned 2005 The good news here is that Woolley and his writers have taken the mystery surrounding Jones' tragic 1969 death as their main interest, and have adopted as fact the long-cherished rumor that the blond rocker's drowning was a case of murder. full review
46. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price 2005 It takes the gleam off those penny-saving bargains. full review
47. After Innocence 2004 A powerful indictment of a judicial system too anxious to close cases, and then close ranks when someone tries to reopen them. full review
48. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind 2004 A masterpiece? Probably. Ingenious? Absolutely! Unforgettable? I'll see you at the 10th-year anniversary. full review
49. The Forgotten 2004 It has been 17 years since Joseph Ruben last directed a good thriller (The Stepfather), and it may be another 17 if he can't find better material than Gerald Di Pego's script for The Forgotten. full review
50. A Good Woman 2004 Besides the consuming, universal glibness of its characters, A Good Woman is also undermined by some ditsy casting. full review
51. CSA: Confederate States of America 2003 CSA is a sophomoric film essay that would have barely rated a passing grade from a tougher teacher. full review
52. Identity 2003 I think it's a fascinating movie that, if you are able to make the leap it asks of you at about the three-quarter mark, will give you something to think and talk about for days. full review
53. Ned Kelly 2003 A handsome, action-packed biographical drama with a credibility gap wider than the screen. full review
54. S.W.A.T. 2003 Fresher popcorn than most of the sequels that have come and gone. full review
55. The Master of Disguise 2002 The film contains no good jokes, no good scenes, barely a moment when Carvey's Saturday Night Live-honed mimicry rises above the level of embarrassment. full review
56. Sex Is Comedy 2002 All of this might have made a really great short film. But at feature length, it is tedious self-indulgence. full review
57. Love the Hard Way 2001 Desperately overblown 2001 melodrama. full review
58. Topsy-Turvy 1999 A hive of broad, brilliant performances. full review