instantwatcher.com

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

1. 5 Broken Cameras 2012 [A] bit jagged, inevitably incomplete, and in no way news-breaking: it is simply moving. full review
2. Elena 2012 Naturalism lives. If Zola were a Russian in Russia today, he might have written Elena. full review
3. Elles 2012 One of her (Binoche's) lesser choices. full review
4. I Wish 2012 Transforms the commonplace into the extraordinary. full review
5. Last Ride 2012 The Australian outback, the setting for most of Last Ride, an extraordinary film for which the locale is a quiet, almost secret catalyst. full review
6. Monsieur Lazhar 2012 With a few folds, this story could have made a script for John Barrymore, like Topaze, or for Chaplin. full review
7. Oslo, August 31st 2012 [Screenwriters] Trier and Vogt are neat and cunning. full review
8. Unforgivable 2012 [Unforgivable] sets out as an account of unusual lives, finishes as a portrait of a society -- one that lives between the conventional and the openly low. full review
9. We Have a Pope 2012 Moretti's latest work looks at the church sympathetically, veristically, comically. full review
10. Gerhard Richter Painting 2011 A kind of residence with its subject rather than a report. full review
11. Goodbye First Love 2011 Writer-director, Mia Hansen-Love, whose third feature this is, has addressed her subject with complete emotional confidence. full review
12. Polisse 2011 [O]ne of the best based-on-facts police pictures. full review
13. Defiance 2008 full review
14. Momma's Man 2008 Momma's Man is an act of daring. full review
15. Our City Dreams 2008 full review
16. Sangre De Mi Sangre 2007 Plot flaws and all, we can be glad that the picture was made -- because of its acting.
17. Trumbo 2007 It is oddly pleasant to know that such a man once existed. full review
18. United 93 2006 This limitation in source material has had a peculiar effect on the script. Never is there a moment of repulsive sentimentality or exploitation, but neither is Greengrass able to realize an ultimate purpose. full review
19. World Trade Center 2006 (Director Oliver) Stone has concentrated on one of the catastrophe's stories and has fashioned it well -- with almost palpable physical detail, and with performances that never sink to exploitation.
20. The Passion of the Christ 2004 [Gibson's] film, virtually stripped of Jesus's incandescent views, is little more that a record of one of the thousands of barbarities committed by the Romans in Judea. full review
21. Touching the Void 2003 A wondrous recreation of that physical adventure.
22. Igby Goes Down 2002 In all, Steers has insured that this teenage film will be recognizable to teenagers but not limited to them.
23. Love the Hard Way 2001 Brody creates exactly the taunting demi-monster who could inveigle Claire.
24. Tape 2001
25. Quills 2000
26. The Taste of Others 2000 Jaoui's directing and sympathy are what hold us from the start.
27. Another Day In Paradise 1998
28. Arguing the World 1997
29. As Good As It Gets 1997 Nicholson struggles for the core of the man but never gets it; so, in most scenes, he resorts to working his face, with grimaces and sneering smiles and lip-pursings in place of acting.
30. The Devil's Own 1997
31. The Peacemaker 1997
32. Private Parts 1997
33. Trekkies 1997
34. Flirting With Disaster 1996
35. Nell 1994
36. Pulp Fiction 1994 The way that this picture has been so widely ravened up and drooled over verges on the disgusting. Pulp Fiction nourishes, abets, cultural slumming. full review