instantwatcher.com

Robert Koehler, Variety

1. 28 Hotel Rooms 2012 Lacking much dramatic or intellectual stimulation, it's ultimately a limp effort. full review
2. Act of Valor 2012 A mechanically efficient yet soulless dramatization of the U.S. Navy SEALs in action. full review
3. For Ellen 2012 So Yong Kim takes what could have been routine story elements and transforms them into something deeply sad and touching. full review
4. Ultrasonic 2012 Undone by tone-deaf repetitiveness and a particularly slack midsection, this debut feature by jack-of-all-trades filmmaker Rohit Colin Rao has some interesting ideas, but is unable to convincingly dramatize them. full review
5. Bones Brigade: An Autobiography 2011 Skate culture remains in solid hands with filmmaker Stacy Peralta, who fashions his most personal doc on the sport-cum-lifestyle. full review
6. The Devil's Double 2011 full review
7. I Melt with You 2011 A weekend romp for four middle-aged buddies devolves into a drug-fueled, suicidal hell in Mark Pellington's ill-conceived and executed I Melt With You. full review
8. Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview 2011 Ultimately the docu shows Jobs, as always, ahead of his time. full review
9. Casino Jack And The United States Of Money 2010 Auds will feel info-glut over the course of the two-hour-plus film, which is hardly the desirable response for a piece of reporting on the vital issue of the corrupting effect of money in American politics. full review
10. Cherry Tree Lane 2010 full review
11. Fubar: Balls to the Wall 2010 full review
12. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child 2010 Tamra Davis' labor of love... is a tender ode from one friend to another, but it's also another wheel in the hype machine that persists around the late, famed painter who blew apart the art scene in the 1980s. full review
13. Repeaters 2010 Repeaters drifts into a flatlining exercise in pseudo-thrills long before its eventual moralistic ending. full review
14. Bustin' Down the Door 2008 With verve, style and a fine sense of the human side of surf culture, Jeremy Gosch makes a terrific splash with his debut doc. full review
15. Dog Eat Dog 2008 Resembles a Tony Scott movie without any of his intelligence and cinematic invention. full review
16. The Other Man 2008 The promising intrigue of a husband's bullheaded obsession with his wife's lover falls flat in The Other Man, directed with an indifferent hand by Richard Eyre. full review
17. The Devil Came on Horseback 2007 Keeps visual dazzle to a minimum, and applies subtle techniques to provide a needed background to current events. full review
18. Hank and Mike 2007 full review
19. Sangre De Mi Sangre 2007 [Jesus] Ochoa is such a masterful actor that he makes things fairly interesting despite the script, with Hernandez and Espindola well-cast as two young men operating by different moral compasses. full review
20. The Signal 2007 Thesps get seriously into the roles, rendering the situation that much funnier. full review
21. Trumbo 2007 It will serve as a fine entry point for younger auds interested in learning about theprice paid by moviemakers and their families swept up in the 1950s anti-Communist net. full review
22. The Big White 2005 Snowed under by misjudgment on every level, The Big White is DOA. full review
23. Cavite 2005 For a guerrilla-style, no-budget Yank indie to even tackle issues of jihad terror and naive Western thinking is noteworthy in itself, but Gamazon and Dela Llana inflame the issues with a gutsy, athletic filmmaking package. full review
24. Inside Out 2005 full review
25. Karla 2005 full review
26. Sahara 2005 Eisner shows himself to be a solid helmer of complex and beautifully staged action sequences with a sure ear for character interplay and an exact eye for glorious widescreen framing with nods to images from Lawrence of Arabia. full review
27. Special 2005 Special enjoyably toys with some knockabout comedy until it begins to take itself too seriously. full review
28. Waterborne 2005 full review
29. Fahrenhype 9/11 2004 full review
30. Secuestro Express 2004 Depicts a nocturnal Caracas with tense energy while gingerly trying not to offend any political group in the current class wars embroiling Venezuela. full review
31. Down to the Bone 2003 First-time feature director's disciplined objectivity is coupled with humanism in this collaboration with a gifted cast and cinematographer. full review
32. Radio 2003 full review
33. S.W.A.T. 2003 Director Clark Johnson strives for realistic detail and action. Unfortunately, such adherence to technical purity proves to be a weakness for the movie. full review
34. Changing Lanes 2002 Combines a knack for storytelling with a rare instinct for exploring ideas within the framework of a major, star-driven Hollywood movie. full review
35. Dahmer 2002 Jacobson produces a remarkably creepy piece of cinema that disturbs by suggestion, nuance and ambiguity. full review
36. The New Guy 2002 Distinguished by certain rodent-like features, Qualls is a bargain-basement, pre-adult version of David Spade -- and becomes just as tiresome. full review
37. Rollerball 2002 Although Norman Jewison's stolidly grim and ultimately ludicrous 1975 original was hardly a landmark of nightmarish sci-fi, it towers over this. full review
38. The Sum of All Fears 2002 full review
39. Windtalkers 2002 A powerful premise turned into a stubbornly flat, derivative war movie. full review
40. Along Came a Spider 2001 full review
41. The Animal 2001 The Animal is never more nor less than stupid, but stupid in ways that deliver goofiness rather than rampant humiliation. full review
42. Children Underground 2001 Edet Belzberg's fearless aesthetic is also a measure of her film's brilliant indictment of any society that can allow its most vulnerable to slip into oblivion. full review
43. Friends and Family 2001 full review
44. Rat Race 2001 There are no winners in Rat Race, only a lineup of comic actors running on empty long before the dust settles. full review
45. Scary Movie 2 2001 full review
46. Session 9 2001 Although aimed at restoring the psychological horror movie to full life after years of dormancy, Session 9 is little more than an overworked exercise in jostling red herrings, and not particularly fresh herrings at that. full review
47. Blow Dry 2000 It's not a good hair day for Blow Dry, in which The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy tries to mesh melodrama and camp, but comes up with merely a fraction of the inspiration of his previous international hit. full review
48. Sordid Lives 2000 full review
49. Double Jeopardy 1999 Double Jeopardy is single-minded and engaging thriller storytelling without an afterglow. full review
50. For Love of the Game 1999 Costner is as uneven as the storytelling itself, stone cold at moments, shimmeringly real in others. full review