instantwatcher.com

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

1. 2 Days in New York 2012 2 Days in New York plays like 2 years in Attica. full review
2. 360 2012 One thing is remarkable here: the amount of high-powered talent assembled to document the obvious. full review
3. Act of Valor 2012 Although the Seals continue in fine form, the co-directors seem fatigued from the journey, allowing their once-clean style to degenerate into a typical mishmash of clutter and bombast. full review
4. Bully 2012 Tackles this headline-heavy topic by mixing moments of raw emotional power with intervals of somewhat suspect manipulation. full review
5. Casa de mi padre 2012 Really, Casa de mi Padre is a skit blown up to a feature flick, amusing for a while until its welcome wears out. full review
6. Citadel 2012 It's all rather nausea-inducing and a bit frightening - not the film (I can only wish) but its subtextual message. full review
7. A Dark Truth 2012 A lightweight flick about a heavy-duty subject, A Dark Truth plays like a TV movie back in the days when TV wasn't worth watching. full review
8. The Deep Blue Sea 2012 "It's difficult to judge when you're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea." So it is. full review
9. Detachment 2012 The film is guilty of reverse sentimentality, where the relentless unhappiness comes to seem as manufactured and artificial as the schmaltz in a romcom. full review
10. End of Watch 2012 End of Watch suffers from no end of sanctimony. full review
11. The Forgiveness of Blood 2012 We don't see any blood, or much forgiveness either, but we do witness something far more resonant - a young generation caught between the rock of tradition and the hard place of modernity. full review
12. House at the End of the Street 2012 Lawrence is perfectly in character yet somehow outside it too, floating above Elissa and the weak movie alike. full review
13. How to Survive a Plague 2012 A raw history, often cluttered and sometimes repetitive but, when strategies fail along with immune systems, deeply affecting. full review
14. The Imposter 2012 In the annals of forged identity flicks, this is a towering Everest, dwarfing the deceivers in the likes of Catch Me If You Can and F for Fake. full review
15. Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet 2012 The story that remains is intriguing without being transporting - the facts are all there but the emotion is largely lost in translation. full review
16. Meet the Fokkens 2012 Despite the occasional stumble, the doc never falls, thanks to the sheer strength of its subjects' undaunted and indomitable character. full review
17. Mirror Mirror 2012 When the dust settles, all that's left are a few motes of lame comedy atop a few million bucks worth of overdressed sets. Call me Grumpy, but this seems less an adaptation than a random assault. full review
18. The Moth Diaries 2012 Not enough psychology to be intelligently creepy, and not enough schlock to be viscerally scary. full review
19. The Paperboy 2012 The Paperboy is southern Gothic wallowing in the swamp of low camp. And if the wallowing were deliberate, this might have been hugely funny. full review
20. ParaNorman 2012 If the story lacks the consistent psychological depth of Coraline, another tale of an outcast finding solace in a parallel world, amends are made during the lovely climax. full review
21. Payback 2012 Payback is nothing if not brave. full review
22. The Queen of Versailles 2012 More than a social morality tale, this is a character study, with the title well chosen. full review
23. Safe 2012 The plot first strains and then assassinates credulity, while Yakin's handling of the action/mayhem runs the gamut from the merely dull to what-the-hell's-going-on. full review
24. Safety Not Guaranteed 2012 Neatly, the script embarks on one journey while dangling the possibility of another: the prospect of taking a sudden leap from comic reality into the realm of pure imagination. full review
25. Silent House 2012 Olsen is compelling even when the film isn't. full review
26. The Woman in the Fifth 2012 The Woman in the Fifth is an interesting chameleon until it runs out of disguises, and all that was transitory just looks transparent. full review
27. The Artist 2011 My, The Artist is delightful, ingenious, funny, poignant and, in its own small way, profound. Put Oscar on high alert. full review
28. Dirty Girl 2011 Dirty Girl isn't. Sorry, but it's just faux grime, a thin layer of bad behaviour that wipes clean with a two-ply tissue to reveal the real movie beneath - all shiny sentimentality. full review
29. Into The Abyss 2011 full review
30. Like Crazy 2011 Call it l'amour phooey. full review
31. Machine Gun Preacher 2011 Why is it that uplifting movies based on true stories often feel so untrue and fall so flat? full review
32. The Names of Love 2011 The film is sometimes funny and occasionally smart yet never quite what it wants to be -- funny and smart at the same time. full review
33. Scream 4 2011 Not even the smug irony endures -- it's hard to congratulate yourself for being in on a stale joke. full review
34. Super 8 2011 It's the child actors, heroic indeed, who rescue Super 8 from the blockbuster grip of its adult makers. full review
35. Wrecked 2011 In all those empty blockbusters, the big screen swells pointlessly; at least in these narrow spaces it shrinks with a real purpose. Far better the tight squeeze than the big bloat. full review
36. And Everything Is Going Fine 2010 Soderbergh's editing neatly duplicates Gray's methods, showing us how memory treats the same material at different stages in a life, applying those different coats and shades of lacquer. full review
37. Biutiful 2010 Watch Bardem here -- his eyes speak heart-rending volumes. full review
38. Blue Valentine 2010 The performances are as raw as the characters. full review
39. The Company Men 2010 Turns out three stories are two too many. The Company Men should have been downsized. full review
40. I Am Love 2010 Despite a superb cast and a fabulous look, the picture collapses under the weight of its lofty pretensions, especially in the black hole of the last act, where it topples into near-absurdity. full review
41. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child 2010 Tamra Davis's documentary does serve as a worthy companion to Julian Schnabel's 1996 biopic. full review
42. The King's Speech 2010 The King's Speech is a lively burst of populist rhetoric, superbly performed and guaranteed to please even discriminating crowds. full review
43. Senna 2010 Kapadia is working with an embarrassment of riches, but to his credit he selects wisely, and has the good sense to keep the talking heads off the screen. full review
44. The Switch 2010 Another in a recent line of romcoms eager to get us laughing all the way to the sperm bank, and then to the infant dividends beyond. full review
45. White Irish Drinkers 2010 White Irish Drinkers is a heavy borrower deep into the pocket of pop culture's loan shark, and lacking the grace to acknowledge the debt. full review
46. Crossing Over 2009 All we get is a mess of good liberal intentions loosely anchored to a mass of pure Hollywood hokum. full review
47. The Eclipse 2009 Ultimately, though, it feels fleeting and slight passing across our line of vision, never a full but merely a partial engagement. full review
48. Fish Tank 2009 To the script's credit, when the climax comes it feels inevitable yet surprising too -- that ideal combination. full review
49. The Fourth Kind 2009 The mission here is to demonstrate how, in this explosive age of dubious information, cynicism can be quickly trumped by gullibility. full review
50. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest 2009 Much of the problem can be traced to the villains of the piece: The snakes in the establishment are a bunch of really old white guys. Now this may be true to life, but it's hell on drama. full review
51. The Infidel 2009 Tthis thing plays like a cheeky Brit-com blown up to feature length, with a thin coat rack of plot to hang the ethnic humour on, and a wish to offend without being offensive. full review
52. Kings of Pastry 2009 The documentary proves almost as sweet as its subject. full review
53. The Perfect Game 2009 Director William Dear is not one to miss a sentimental beat. full review
54. The Time That Remains 2009 Living in a part of the world where politics, and the pursuit of politics by warring means, are the rule, director Elia Suleiman is the exception. full review
55. Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen 2009 Barbara Sukowa brings her veteran presence to the role, and nicely fuses its dual nature, holy instrument and holy terror, the passive vessel of a higher power and the active force of the good mother. full review
56. Elegy 2008 Kingsley perfectly tunes his performance to these psychological nuances, the strong features in his face undone by an anxious flicker of his eyes. full review
57. Let the Right One In 2008 A wicked trick, a cinematic treat, this is some Halloween offering. full review
58. Unmistaken Child 2008 This documentary is only partly a story of the chosen one; mainly, and more intriguingly, it's a chronicle of the choosing one, of the nervous young monk charged with the job of leading the search party. full review
59. What Just Happened? 2008 What Just Happened? has already happened and, to everyone but Levinson, that shouldn't be surprising. full review
60. Before the Rains 2007 When the rains in Before the Rains finally arrive, there's nothing to cleanse, no real dirt to wash away -- not with history already so neatly packaged and polished to a dull shine. full review
61. Charlie Bartlett 2007 Like the teenagers in it, Charlie Bartlett is a movie in search of an identity, wondering just what sort of high-school flick it wants to be when it grows up. full review
62. Civic Duty 2007 It begins by swiping a premise and concludes with an attempted robbery of our principles, pretending that today's world is too confusing for us to know whether to cheer for George Bush or to march with Michael Moore. full review
63. Encounters at the End of the World 2007 Who better than Herzog to share with us the off-beat Encounters at the End of the World. full review
64. Freedom Writers 2007 Freedom Writers is a tribute to individualism wrapped in the most conformist of packages, one of those pictures where the message of the tale is flatly contradicted by the manner of the telling. full review
65. The Go-Getter 2007 A fairly well-made picture that's just been fairly well-made too many times before, a knock-off of a thousand other knock-offs. full review
66. Lars and the Real Girl 2007 A sweet little fable about how a delusional man-child is helped by the loving ministrations of his family and community, the kind of throwback flick where human nature is seen as inherently good -- a notion so quaint that it feels damn near buoyant. full review
67. Keeping Up With The Steins 2006 Shooting a comedy, like telling a joke, demands a sense of rhythm, and Scott is no dancer -- he keeps tripping against the grain of the humour. full review
68. Lady Chatterley 2006 A picture about passion that invites none, a picture far easier to admire than to adore. full review
69. Severance 2006 You got your humour, you got your horror, simply ratchet up both and, voila, Severance -- or, as the billing not inaccurately puts it, The Office Meets Deliverance. full review
70. Trailer Park Boys: The Movie 2006 The movie falls apart at the centre. Where it works, brilliantly on occasion, is at the edges. full review
71. United 93 2006 ... United 93 is a riveting docudrama as compelling as it is odd. full review
72. World Trade Center 2006 Obviously, living through 9/11 even at a televised remove, we felt overwhelmed. Now, sitting through the re-creation, we feel something altogether different and yet faintly familiar -- underwhelmed. full review
73. Brick 2005 It's a clever gimmick, cleverly wrought, offering further evidence that you can dress up the student body in all manner of garb for all types of genres. full review
74. Brokeback Mountain 2005 With its measured pace and its sumptuous visuals, transforming a taboo into a romantic totem, this opening act is fascinating, like watching Red River with the subtext cranked way up. full review
75. Coach Carter 2005 The appeal lies in the genre's mixed marriage of liberal sensibilities to conservative values, a happy American union that simultaneously acknowledges the fact of social injustice while insisting on the need for individual responsibility. full review
76. The Constant Gardener 2005 Yes, the cast is certainly seductive, and the direction often beguiling, yet ultimately we're left with a distinct sense of abandonment, of a story insufficiently told. full review
77. Conversations With Other Women 2005 The posturing twosome in the movie are themselves a compendium of stylish ticks in need of substantive redemption -- for once, the gimmick is a perfect reflection of the characters. full review
78. Elizabethtown 2005 This is a bona fide, absolute, unmitigated fiasco. full review
79. Factotum 2005 The transplant didn't take in Barfly, and it works no better here in Factotum. In each case, the baying of the boozehounds just seems repetitious and banal -- the noise endures but the joy is gone. full review
80. Jarhead 2005 A war picture that, trying to pass off fidelity to the book as objectivity, sacrifices any voice of its own, and ends up not knowing what to think. full review
81. Karla 2005 No audience, Canadian or otherwise, will learn anything here outside of the macabre facts. Worse, they won't feel anything either, not even -- and this is inexcusable -- for the victims themselves. full review
82. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man 2005 Cohen frequently isn't talking -- the subject too often goes missing from his own portrait. full review
83. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind 2004 The twists here are the rare sort that seem both narratively surprising and emotionally engaging, particularly the one that boxes us into this interrogative corner. full review
84. The Forgotten 2004 There is nothing worse than a thriller that doesn't play fair. full review
85. Inside Deep Throat 2004 This feeble documentary ends up perpetuating the very hypocrisy it means to probe. full review
86. The Puffy Chair 2004 Too soon, the stuff that seemed charmingly idiosyncratic turns annoyingly odd and then just plain annoying. full review
87. Vera Drake 2004 Gripping film. full review
88. Bad Boys II 2003 In some eyes, this is a movie; in others, it's a weapon of mass destruction. full review
89. CSA: Confederate States of America 2003 The satire comes to feel strained and the whole premise gets awfully precious, reducing social subtleties to cinematic simplicities. full review
90. Darkness Falls 2003 Pretty much the whole of this unholy horror flick is shot under cover of night, the small-town-in-New-England kind where the woods are deep and the barometer always points to rain. full review
91. Hollywood Homicide 2003 Sometimes the laugh is there, sometimes it's a coin-flip, and sometimes it all feels like so much made-up filler. full review
92. Identity 2003 Opens with its mind nicely intact, suffers a major crisis about 30 minutes in, then bad turns to worse. full review
93. The Machinist 2003 Anderson's effort here isn't bad, but, as measured on the scary-intruder index, this is more of a front-porch flick. Movie over, it's not hard to shut the door on it. full review
94. Mona Lisa Smile 2003 Such a mixed-up child, but not without worthy intentions and glimmers of realized potential -- sorry, but I just can't bring myself to come down too hard. full review
95. Radio 2003 A lot better than the Muzak it threatens to be, but, ultimately, not good enough to keep our itchy fingers off the dial. full review
96. Something's Gotta Give 2003 A romance comedy of the type favoured by writer-director Nancy Meyers, who, from her script for Private Benjamin to her remakes of Father of the Bride, has never met a laugh she couldn't reduce to a formula. full review
97. Swimming Pool 2003 Well-acted, nicely shot, slick and certainly sexy, Swimming Pool may be all foreplay and no climax, but what the heck -- there are worse ways to be teased. full review
98. Changing Lanes 2002 Definitely erratic, this thing -- all in all, it's the sort of commercial vehicle you might want to stay well back of. full review
99. Igby Goes Down 2002 Good actors have a radar for juicy roles -- there's a plethora of characters in this picture, and not one of them is flat. full review
100. Irreversible 2002 An integrated work whose form clearly mirrors its content. full review
101. Lost in La Mancha 2002 Gilliam himself is a joy to behold. His wit stays sharp even as his fortunes dull, and the conditions that conspire against him only prove the mettle in our man of La Mancha. full review
102. The Master of Disguise 2002 Despite all evidence to the contrary, this clunker has somehow managed to pose as an actual feature movie, the kind that charges full admission and gets hyped on TV and purports to amuse small children and ostensible adults. full review
103. The New Guy 2002 An occasional one-liner rises to the level of near-wit... Most everything else ranges from routine to heavy-handed. full review
104. Rollerball 2002 Despite the technical advances of the past quarter century, the game sequences are as goofy as the first go-round. full review
105. Sex Is Comedy 2002 This is amusing, and even poignant in the final moments. But Breillat just can't help herself. full review
106. The Sum of All Fears 2002 All that moviemaking money, plus all those gadgets, plus Ben Affleck: It doesn't add up to very much. full review
107. XXX 2002 Ultimately, this is a movie as generic as its title. full review
108. Black Hawk Down 2001 Black Hawk Down is all dazzling craft and no redeeming art; it's simultaneously a superb piece of filmmaking and a highly suspect film. full review
109. America's Sweethearts 2001 The kind of flick that gives fluff a good name. full review
110. Bully 2001 full review
111. Scary Movie 2 2001 The picture wastes barely a second heading straight into the toilet. full review
112. Lara Croft - Tomb Raider 2001 The movie credits five separate persons for the story and screenplay, a quintet of scribes who might better consider a career shift into acting -- they've clearly done a splendid job of impersonating monkeys at a typewriter. full review
113. Wet Hot American Summer 2001 David Wain and Michael Showalter simply set up a bunch of stock characters in stock situations, and then repeatedly explode the cliches. full review
114. Gossip 2000 All style and no substance. full review
115. Gangster No. 1 2000 A movie that hovers somewhere between an acute character study and a trite power struggle. full review
116. Hamlet 2000 The result is more than a mere gimmick and less than an unqualifed success, but yes -- it's always watchable. full review
117. Maybe Baby 2000 Just a bit of romance-comedy fluff. full review
118. Meet the Parents 2000 When the script puts its faith in the audience, allowing us to find the laughs on our own, the film is irresistible, a bright lark. Yet when the writers panic, upping the antic volume and shifting into crazed sitcom gear, the lark stops. full review
119. Mission: Impossible 2 2000 A strained sequel to a feature rip-off of an old television show with a stealable theme song. On screen and off, no one's getting marks for originality here. full review
120. Sordid Lives 2000 If the film's flaws are large, so are its laughs.
121. The Taste of Others 2000 The movie's unique appeal lies less in the style than the substance -- particularly, in the emerging hero at the centre of the tale. full review
122. Traffic 2000 Director Steven Soderbergh is riding one of the hottest streaks in the movie world. full review
123. Being John Malkovich 1999 Wonderfully inventive, wickedly funny, and thoughtful enough to keep your mind on full alert, it's a square peg in the round world of genre films. full review
124. The General's Daughter 1999 No doubt about it, to divulge the plot would spoil the experience -- you'll be shocked to discover, and maybe even surprised to learn, just how lame the damn thing really is. full review
125. In Too Deep 1999 Competent yet largely forgettable. full review
126. Man on the Moon 1999 Superficially clever yet profoundly shallow. full review
127. A Midsummer Night's Dream 1999 Hoffman charts a middle course, and travels it quite well -- his version is neither as elaborately baroque as Max Reinhardt's 1935 film treatment nor as starkly sexual as Peter Brooks's celebrated 1970 staging. full review
128. Ride with the Devil 1999 The intriguing (if not always successful) result is an oddly contemplative picture about a horribly bellicose time. full review
129. She's All That 1999 A trite classic. full review
130. Topsy-Turvy 1999 Not your normal period piece, to be sure. full review
131. Waking the Dead 1999 Waking the Dead may put you to sleep. full review
132. Another Day In Paradise 1998 Ho-hum. full review
133. Shakespeare in Love 1998 Seems the Bard is badly blocked. full review
134. As Good As It Gets 1997 Romance comedies definitely come better than this, although perhaps not lately. full review
135. Cop Land 1997 This is a good filmthat could have been great if not for an act of well-intentioned, but misguided casting. full review
136. Eve's Bayou 1997 In Eve's Bayou, Tennessee goes to Louisiana, and finds a familiar home. Tennessee Williams, that is. full review
137. Gridlock'd 1997 The movie's appeal lies largely in its capacity for surprise, riffing off tired characters and pooped genres to produce, intermittently at least, a fresh new tone. Call it junkie humour. full review
138. Jackie Brown 1997 Beyond the grasp of most directors, this is tour de force stuff -- definitely meriting the price of admission and almost worth the three-year wait. full review
139. Liar Liar 1997 As Carrey's celebrated rubber does its patented act, the flick turns into a gyrational marathon -- mildly funny but seriously exhausting. full review
140. Clerks 1994 A hoot one moment, a hiss the next, the film is about as even as a city road after a hard winter. But the script's sheer vigour sees us through. full review
141. Pulp Fiction 1994 Scintillating. full review
142. Reservoir Dogs 1992 It's dynamite on a short fuse. full review
143. Hoosiers 1986 Shameless, yes, but open your eyes, close your mind, sit back and enjoy. full review