instantwatcher.com

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

1. 360 2012 360 is a classic example of how you can't always judge a movie by its credits. full review
2. Act of Valor 2012 The bad guys, who specialize in funny beards, funny accents, and shaved heads, would feel right at home in an Austin Powers movie. full review
3. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry 2012 Though he has paid the price, Ai is a pathfinder in this new phenomenon in tactical insurrection. Never Sorry is a new-style profile in 21st-century courage. full review
4. Bachelorette 2012 I don't see why women being as slobby and gross as the guys is such a feminist breakthrough -- especially since, as in Bachelorette, the slobbiness and grossness is witless. full review
5. Brooklyn Castle 2012 As inspirational academic stories go, it doesn't get much better than this. full review
6. China Heavyweight 2012 In China Heavyweight, we have a new variant on an old theme, but the idealism and heartbreak on view are timeless and universal. full review
7. The Deep Blue Sea 2012 In addition to Davies's visual style, the film benefits from precision acting from players who get the most out of Rattigan's dialogue. full review
8. The Forgiveness of Blood 2012 The film's director, Joshua Marston, is American, but, as in his previous film, Maria Full of Grace, about a Colombian girl who accepts a job as a drug smuggler, he does a commendable job of immersing himself in a foreign culture. full review
9. Friends With Kids 2012 It's the kind of cutesy idea that doesn't ring remotely true. full review
10. Holy Motors 2012 This is the kind of it-can-mean-whatever-you-want-it-to-mean art film that I usually run from, but Carax is such a prodigiously gifted mesmerist that, if you give way, you're likely to be enfolded in the film's phantasmagoria. full review
11. The Hunger Games 2012 Ross manages to keep the pacing remarkably swift, given that the games themselves don't start until halfway through the 144-minute running time. full review
12. I Wish 2012 It's an adult movie about children that feels made from the inside out. full review
13. The Imposter 2012 This is one creepy mystery. full review
14. The Island President 2012 What makes Nasheed's whirligig tactics so urgent is that, unlike most other countries participating in the summit, his own nation is actually in danger of being annihilated by climate change. full review
15. The Loneliest Planet 2012 The Loneliest Planet is not a perfect work of art, but it gets at something powerful: the way that life can turn us around in a flash, without warning. full review
16. The Magic of Belle Isle 2012 Madsen, a strong actress who might have matched Freeman, is portrayed in varying shades of blandness. Even Freeman, good as his is, is held back here. full review
17. Monsieur Lazhar 2012 The French-Canadian film Monsieur Lazhar has one of the most powerful openings I've ever seen in a movie. full review
18. Orchestra Of Exiles 2012 It's a great, too-little-known piece of history. full review
19. Seeking Justice 2012 A dumb-dumb variant on the Death Wish vigilante justice genre. full review
20. Side by Side 2012 There is great flux in this world, as Side by Side so entertainingly demonstrates, and where it's all headed is both discomforting and exhilarating. Stay tuned. full review
21. Take This Waltz 2012 Margot comes across as such an elusive and unsympathetic twit that you wonder why we should care about her. full review
22. Unforgivable 2012 Every single player in Unforgivable is worth a movie of his or her own. The fact that they are all in the same movie together is more boon than bust. full review
23. Union Square 2012 Mira Sorvino is very good -- too good -- at playing a very annoying person in Nancy Savoca's Union Square. full review
24. We Have a Pope 2012 Melville (an excellent Michel Piccoli), not being the front-runner, is caught so completely unawares that he goes into meltdown mode while the world waits. full review
25. What to Expect When You're Expecting 2012 Babies are cute and expectant parents often aren't. That kind of sums up What to Expect When You're Expecting. full review
26. The Adventures of Tintin 2011 The main achievement of Tintin is that at least the cartoon people and pets come across as characters and not hollow, humanoid entities. full review
27. Angels Crest 2011 A garbled melodrama striving to be tragic drama. full review
28. Another Happy Day 2011 Dislikable movie characters don't always result in dislikable movies but that's certainly the case with Sam Levinson's Another Happy Day. full review
29. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey 2011 Who can fail to be moved by this? full review
30. Buck 2011 It celebrates a communion between man and animal that runs deeper than any division. full review
31. First Position 2011 I've become weary of documentaries about winning prizes, but this one is special because the kids are. They are ardent and amazingly accomplished, but they are also... kids. full review
32. Footloose 2011 It seems more pandering (and dated) than ever. full review
33. Friends With Benefits 2011 Timberlake and Kunis try hard to keep this charm machine purring, and they do indeed have traces of chemistry... But their chemistry is at the service of a science project we've all seen before. full review
34. The Hedgehog 2011 Balasko, however, makes The Hedgehog worth seeing. full review
35. Hugo 2011 Hugo is a mixed bag but one well worth rummaging through. full review
36. Into The Abyss 2011 Into the Abyss does what too few documentaries these days do - it gives ample play to all sides of the argument. Herzog allows us to think things through on our own. full review
37. The Kid with a Bike 2011 It's minor, but powerfully so. full review
38. Like Crazy 2011 The emotional honesty of Like Crazy, which is comparable to Richard Linklater's great Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, is far removed from most of what passes in these goony movie days as youthful romance. full review
39. Machine Gun Preacher 2011 Even the Sudanese orphans, whose plight is, after all, the film's reason for being, are presented as a grievous backdrop to Childers's calisthenics. They are poster-art children, framed to elicit our maximum sympathy. full review
40. Magic Trip 2011 The result may have value to '60s sociologists, ethnologists, superannuated hippies, and Kesey fanatics, but for the most part what is on view is a jumble of scenes featuring pranksters getting high on grass and LSD. full review
41. Margin Call 2011 It's all fairly entertaining but also confusing for anybody who doesn't get the Wall Street lingo. full review
42. The Names of Love 2011 I'm not saying that seriousness and nudity cannot coexist, even in France, but the mix of gravitas and friskiness here is annoyingly superficial. The film's tone is "crowd-pleasing," but which crowd exactly is being pleased? full review
43. No Strings Attached 2011 At least Portman is playing someone who is recognizably human, unlike her dancer in Black Swan. full review
44. Page One: Inside the New York Times 2011 Carr is a marvelous camera subject and the only newspaperman in the movie who provides a temperamental link to the old "Front Page" days. full review
45. Polisse 2011 Over the film's more-than-two-hour running time we are immersed in the lives of these cops as they attempt both to see justice done and to preserve their sanity. full review
46. Rango 2011 The best of Rango is a lot like the best of the first Pirates movie -- crazily funny and rambunctious. full review
47. Seven Days In Utopia 2011 Seven Days in Utopia, of course, like most sports movies with higher aspirations, tries to position itself as more than a sports movie. And lo and behold, it is -- sort of. full review
48. Super 8 2011 If Abrams had stuck with the kids and cut way back on all the sci-fi hoo-ha, his film might have stood a fighting chance of being charming. Big is not always better, even when it comes to fantasies. full review
49. There Be Dragons 2011 Few films about the Spanish Civil War have been any good -- Pan's Labyrinth being the big exception. full review
50. This Must Be The Place 2011 This Must Be the Place gives Penn a chance to vamp and camp in ways that are sometimes touching and mostly annoying. full review
51. Transformers: Dark of the Moon 2011 Fine actors like John Turturro and John Malkovich are encouraged to strip-mine the scenery. Frances McDormand, playing a government bigwig, can now rest content knowing she has given the worst performance of her career. (Not her fault, either.) full review
52. Trishna 2011 Winterbottom uses the Indian locations with a documentarian's eye and a dramatist's mind. full review
53. Undefeated 2011 I wish the directors had emphasized more of the players' personal lives apart from the football field. But, in the end, this is a documentary about Courtney and the transformative powers of caring. He works wonders on his players and they reciprocate. full review
54. Warrior 2011 O'Connor films the fight scenes, and the fight training scenes leading up to them, with the requisite oomph. full review
55. Young Adult 2011 Theron does a fairly convincing job. It's the movie surrounding her that isn't quite so convincing. full review
56. Young Goethe In Love 2011 Turns one of the greatest geniuses of German literature into a love-struck rapscallion. full review
57. Biutiful 2010 Inarritu is far from untalented -- Amores Perros had sequences as powerful as anything in the films of Luis Bunuel -- but misery has become his shtick. full review
58. Blue Valentine 2010 The film's time structure is splintered into shards of past and present, which is probably just as well -- a strictly narrative chronology would make this wallow seem even sloggier. full review
59. Casino Jack 2010 Kevin Spacey gives a bravura performance as superlobbyist Jack Abramoff in George Hickenlooper's uneven but often loopily entertaining Casino Jack. full review
60. Cave of Forgotten Dreams 2010 Herzog is reaching for ways to comprehend what he imagines to be the emblems of the birth of the modern soul. full review
61. City of Life and Death 2010 Here, in bloodless miniature, is the true obscenity of war. full review
62. Cold Weather 2010 Almost a textbook example of how to do more with less. It's about aimless people who suddenly find their aim. full review
63. The Conspirator 2010 The nightmare of Lincoln's assassination, and its immediate aftermath, is effectively delivered, and Wright, shrouded in black, her face a mask of indomitable sorrow, gives great gravity to what might otherwise have been a waxworks historical reenactment. full review
64. The King's Speech 2010 Among many other good things, The King's Speech, directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler, is a meditation on a transitional time when royalty was expected to speak to the nation and not just pose commandingly before it. full review
65. Morning Glory 2010 Morning Glory isn't targeting the dumbing down of TV news. It's pandering to the audience that craves the dumbness full review
66. Nowhere Boy 2010 Johnson does a terrific job of capturing Lennon's mannerisms without coming across like a puppet. full review
67. Rabbit Hole 2010 For all its sympathy and intelligence, Rabbit Hole is ultimately too safe an experience for such a free-form tragedy. full review
68. The Romantics 2010 It's possible that Niederhoffer was too close to her novel to stand back from its excesses. She's made a seriously self-indulgent movie about self-indulgent people. full review
69. Senna 2010 There are some thrilling you-are-there sequences shot inside the racing car from his POV as he zooms around the tracks. It's like watching a video game made real. full review
70. The Switch 2010 Aside from the fact that it's all too entirely predictable, The Switch is a pleasant enough end-of-the-summer time killer. full review
71. The Tempest 2010 Normally I'd watch Helen Mirren in anything, even if she was just putting out the laundry or reading the phone book. But, given the roteness of her line readings here, it might have been better if the phone book rather than Shakespeare was her text. full review
72. Tiny Furniture 2010 Dunham has a sharp eye for visual composition and a sharp ear, too. full review
73. Vidal Sassoon: The Movie 2010 Less of a documentary than a testimonial, Craig Teper's Vidal Sassoon: The Movie offers up a carefully coiffed look into the life of the legendary hairdresser. full review
74. Waste Land 2010 [Muniz's] intention to have them re-create photographic images of themselves out of garbage, while it may not pass muster as high art, has the effect of raising their spirits. At least for a while, their lives, and ours, have been transformed. full review
75. The Whistleblower 2010 The Whistleblower is frustratingly uneven, but at least it affords us the rare opportunity these days to meet up with a movie hero who isn't wearing jammies and a cape. full review
76. Antichrist 2009 Allegorical in the worst ways, Antichrist is about as profound as a slasher movie. full review
77. Bruno 2009 There's good bad taste and then there's just plain bad bad, which is what describes most of Bruno. full review
78. Cairo Time 2009 The lovely twilit moments in this movie stay with one, and that summoning them up in your mind is like slowing down time. full review
79. Crossing Over 2009 It's a powerful opening to a movie that rapidly fractures into a hodgepodge of interlocking subplots showcasing immigration woes. full review
80. Extract 2009 The result doesn't seem as fresh as Office Space, but Judge still comes up with enough laughs to deserve our attention. full review
81. Five Minutes of Heaven 2009 So many movies set in Northern Ireland are about the Troubles that we might justifiably ask, why another? Five Minutes of Heaven is far from the best of the breed, but it does at least take a new tack. full review
82. Great Directors 2009 Great Directors is not a great film, but in moments like these we feel as though we're eavesdropping on genius. full review
83. Last Train Home 2009 Fan's camera moves sinuously through these people's lives and gives a human face to a national panorama. full review
84. The Limits of Control 2009 The eerie displacement of being at large in alien territory is the guiding emotion in Jarmusch's movies, and in none more so than this one. full review
85. Mine 2009 If you've ever lost a pet, or grown misty at the sight of a lost-pet poster, this movie will raise your hopes. full review
86. Paper Man 2009 We don't even get a real sense of what kind of writer Richard is, or even if he's any good. It does make a difference, after all, if the novel he can't write is worth writing. A bigger question: Was "Paper Man" worth making? full review
87. The Perfect Game 2009 Notable only for being a catalog of just about every kid-pic cliche' ever committed to film. full review
88. Vincere 2009 Here, in microcosm, is the tragedy of totalitarianism and its impact on the human soul. full review
89. Wild Target 2009 Practically a text book in how ugly things can get when you don't have the right, light touch for this sort of thing. full review
90. American Violet 2008 Director Tim Disney and screenwriter Bill Haney lay out Dee's story with a minimum of fuss. They are smart enough to realize that the material is compelling all on its own. full review
91. Defiance 2008 As a piece of historical redress, a great service has been done in bringing this narrative to the screen. full review
92. Happy-Go-Lucky 2008 It's a small, radiant gem in a movie season cluttered with rhinestones. You leave the theater feeling both clearheaded and buoyant. full review
93. Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 2008 The aura of shock-and-awe surrounding this game is laid on a bit thick, and sometimes you feel like you're just watching an ESPN special. Still, it's fun. full review
94. Man on Wire 2008 By any rational gauge, Petit's WTC obsession was flat-out crazy, but Marsh takes a limpid, nonjudgmental view of it all. full review
95. Management 2008 Sometimes a movie thinks it's one thing (charming) when it's really something else (creepy). full review
96. New York, I Love You 2008 full review
97. Religulous 2008 Was Maher afraid he might muddy his clownish jape if he actually brought into the mix a learned theologian? full review
98. The Square 2008 The Square is a terrific film noir with an Aussie twist. full review
99. Broken English 2007 A pleasantly disposable romantic comedy. full review
100. Charlie Bartlett 2007 Yelchin gives Charlie a fresh-faced naivete that raises the question: Is he a do-gooder or a villain? And do you care? full review
101. Encounters at the End of the World 2007 A supremely cranky and lyrical feat. full review
102. Freedom Writers 2007 Engaging but cliched inspirational drama set during the time of the 1992 race riots in Los Angeles. On some level, just about any movie featuring never-say-die teachers is effective. full review
103. Trumbo 2007 Family home movies and photos and archival clips round out the film, which holds its hero-worshiping to fairly tolerable levels. full review
104. Fay Grim 2006 For most of the way Fay Grim is a very dry slice of deadpan humor. full review
105. Heading South 2006 The new film by Laurent Cantet (Human Resources and the masterpiece Time Out) is evocative and disturbing. full review
106. An Inconvenient Truth 2006 Just because truths are inconvenient is no reason to suppose they are not real. full review
107. Mission: Impossible III 2006 It's an expertly engineered popcorn movie -- hold the butter substitute -- but it also tries (and fails) to be a love story for the ages. full review
108. Saint of 9/11 2006 Saint of 9/11 is more of a testimonial than a documentary, but it weaves together a portrait of a remarkable Irish-American friar, who was gay and a recovering alcoholic, and the many lives he inspired. full review
109. World Trade Center 2006 Despite my strong reservations, World Trade Center is strongly acted and has sequences of undeniable power. At its best it shares with Stone's finest work a feeling for the imminence of death and salvation. full review
110. Casanova 2005 Although Casanova is far from a stinker, I can't join in the chorus of praise for what is essentially a coy farce replete with arch performances and even archer dialogue. full review
111. Cavite 2005 Cavite was shot on a microbudget, and that turns out to be a plus. After so many overproduced blockbusters this season, it's nice to see a movie that's lean and mean. full review
112. Color Me Kubrick 2005 Malkovich captures not only the nuttiness of Conway, with his smorgasbord of foreign-sounding accents, but also his pathos. full review
113. The Constant Gardener 2005 Rises to a pitch of terror and outrage that leaves one shaken. full review
114. Neil Young: Heart of Gold 2005 All in all, a visual and musical feast. full review
115. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days 2005 The realization that we are, in many instances, listening in on actual proceedings gives the film an immediacy that no dramatist could hope to match. full review
116. The World's Fastest Indian 2005 Parts of it are enjoyably shaggy, and Hopkins is very endearing. full review
117. A Good Woman 2004 [Tom] Wilkinson artfully deepens a character who in Wilde's original play was rather boobish. It's a marvelous performance in a pretty good film. full review