instantwatcher.com

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

1. John Dies at the End 2013 Salvador Dali meets George Romero. Say hello. full review
2. 2 Days in New York 2012 Finds its comedy in the familiar annoyances of urban life (a contentious neighbor, random acts of vandalism), in the conflict between parents and siblings, but also in bigger, kookier, existential quandaries. full review
3. Bernie 2012 [A] weirdly funny, inspiring film. full review
4. Casa de mi padre 2012 Ferrell, as he's done in Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, walks undaunted through the amiable absurdity, delivering his not-exactly-mellifluous espanol in earnest flurries, as the dialogue, and the bullets, fly. full review
5. Deadfall 2012 Deadfall is fast and fatalistic ... full review
6. The Deep Blue Sea 2012 Weisz gives a heartbreaking performance; her Hester spirals into doom, hungry for the physical pleasures she has found. full review
7. The Dictator 2012 Directed by Cohen's longtime collaborator Larry Charles, The Dictator mixes its high and low comedy with surprising success. full review
8. The Forgiveness of Blood 2012 A satisfying, psychologically complex tale of a teenager caught in a blood feud in the craggy countryside of Albania. full review
9. The Grey 2012 Devolves into a predictable man-against-nature, and man-against-fellow man, affair. full review
10. Haywire 2012 From start to finish, serious fun. full review
11. The Hunger Games 2012 [It] smells very much like a movie with money on its mind - not altogether successfully balancing its loftier ideas with a sense of superficial whimsy and Vegas-meets-Wizard of Oz production design. full review
12. I Wish 2012 A wistful heartbreaker from the Japanese master of quiet observation, Hirokazu Kore-eda. full review
13. The Innkeepers 2012 There's a lot to be said for horror that doesn't hit you over the head with shock and gore and special effects. But if you're going to go that route, you need to have more than The Innkeepers delivers. full review
14. Jiro Dreams of Sushi 2012 Jiro Dreams of Sushi isn't just a film for foodies, or Japanophiles. It's a meditation on work, on finding one's path in life, and then walking it with singular purpose. full review
15. A Little Bit Of Heaven 2012 The film reaches into the pits of moviegoing hell when it finds Marley on a celestial white couch, ringed in billowing white curtains, communing with God. And God is embodied by Whoopi Goldberg. full review
16. Losing Control 2012 Losing Control nicely mixes comedic absurdity with weightier career vs. commitment themes. full review
17. Marley 2012 Marley celebrates the fact that its subject is still among us in the way that perhaps matters most: His music not only survives, it thrives. full review
18. Mirror Mirror 2012 Everything looks, well, fantastic. full review
19. Monsieur Lazhar 2012 A sad, reflective study of the possibilities, and the impossibilities, inherent in the teacher-student relationship. full review
20. The Paperboy 2012 The Paperboy is over-the-top every which way you look. full review
21. The Queen of Versailles 2012 The Queen of Versailles combines the voyeuristic thrills of reality TV with the soul-revealing artistry of great portraiture and the head-shaking revelations of solid investigative reporting. full review
22. A Royal Affair 2012 A Royal Affair is historical drama of the highest order - teeming with big ideas, and anchored by the nicely nuanced performances of Vikander and Mikkelsen. full review
23. Safety Not Guaranteed 2012 Expectedly funny but unexpectedly touching, too. full review
24. Sleepwalk With Me 2012 A smart, neurotic slice-of-life comedy about a stand-up comic with confidence issues, commitment issues, and career issues. full review
25. Take This Waltz 2012 Williams lives and breathes her role, Kirby is charming and real, and you actually start to ache and empathize with Rogen - the emptiness and heartache he conveys when Lou and Margot finally thrash things out is crushing. full review
26. Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie 2012 A lazy assemblage of sketch- comedy raunch, mock-schlock TV ads, and ideas that even the writers of Mall Cop and Observe and Report would have tossed. full review
27. We Have a Pope 2012 We Have a Pope takes its shots at the institution of the Catholic Church, but this is by no means a scathing satire. It's more of a character study, insightful and nuanced, about a man grappling with a profound sense of inadequacy, questioning himself. full review
28. The Adventures of Tintin 2011 It should win over the uninitiated, and work quite well for those who have already pitched their tents in the Tintin camp. full review
29. Albert Nobbs 2011 Close's performance as this poor, wounded fellow resonates with depth and poignancy. full review
30. The Artist 2011 Strangely, wonderfully, The Artist feels as bold and innovative a moviegoing experience as James Cameron's bells-and-whistles Avatar did a couple of years ago. full review
31. Coriolanus 2011 Even in what is viewed as a minor work, the inevitable currents of ambition and violence, cruelty and competition, rivalry and rage run strong and truthfully. full review
32. Footloose 2011 Every now and then, we need to be reminded that shaking your booty is something essential. Or, in the case of director Craig Brewer's Footloose update, shaking your rebooty. full review
33. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy 2011 I scrawled the words completely unappealing people in my trusty notebook, sitting there in the dark in the early going of A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. full review
34. Hobo With a Shotgun 2011 Even connoisseurs of the genre (and I confess, I'm not one) will find the cheesy chopfests and gratuitous gore less than exciting as one urban prosthetics-strewn bloodbath begets the next. full review
35. Hugo 2011 A state-of-the-art affair, an epic adaptation of Selznick's pretty-epic-itself tome, full of dazzling visuals and rapturous tributes to Melies and the magic of movies. full review
36. Into The Abyss 2011 An inquiry into fundamental moral, philosophical, and religious issues, and an examination of humankind's capacity for violence - individual and institutional. full review
37. Machine Gun Preacher 2011 Childers' deeds are presented simply as heroic. By the end of Machine Gun Preacher, its title character has become a cartoon. full review
38. Magic Trip 2011 To be sure, one gets a better sense of the personalities, and the passions stirring their souls, in Wolfe's book. But Magic Trip literally brings these characters to life. full review
39. The Names of Love 2011 Playfully provocative and boasting a star-making turn from Sara Forestier, The Names of Love addresses the volatile issue of European assimilation and multiculturalism, but in a tone and tenor full of screwball whimsy. full review
40. Page One: Inside the New York Times 2011 Page One centers around the Times' media desk, all these big, breaking stories - Iraq, WikiLeaks - come and go, offering drama and distraction, but little in the way of coherence and closure. full review
41. Pearl Jam Twenty 2011 If Pearl Jam Twenty has its share of hyperbole, it's leavened with humor, self-deprecating commentary, and a deep-pockets budget's worth of great clips. full review
42. Pina 2011 This meditation on movement and space, transportation and transcendence is not to be missed. full review
43. Revenge of the Electric Car 2011 As filmmaking goes, Paine's follow-up is a dud. full review
44. Seven Days In Utopia 2011 Until Seven Days in Utopia sucker punches you with a surfeit of faith-based platitudes, its upbeat brand of golf mysticism isn't altogether unappealing. full review
45. Surviving Progress 2011 [A] remarkably cogent, albeit remarkably alarming, film. full review
46. Undefeated 2011 Undefeated is undeniably inspirational stuff. full review
47. Warrior 2011 The two leads, Edgerton and Hardy, pull off their respective roles - rising above the cliches and the melodrama - with ferocity and focus. full review
48. Young Adult 2011 Theron is thrillingly nasty as Mavis. full review
49. Young Goethe In Love 2011 More diverting than it is deep... full review
50. All Good Things 2010 It's a strange, thrilling tale begrimed by bad memories, by bad deeds. full review
51. Bill Cunningham New York 2010 I love this man, I love this movie. full review
52. Biutiful 2010 [Bardem] draws from a deep, deep well of love, pain, and who-knows-what-else. full review
53. Blood Done Sign My Name 2010 Blood Done Sign My Name may not be great cinema, but it nonetheless deserves attention. full review
54. Casino Jack 2010 Casino Jack is all over the place: exaggerated comedy, cartoonish high jinks, then heavy-handed melodrama... full review
55. Casino Jack And The United States Of Money 2010 Casino Jack is designed as an indictment of a whole culture of influence peddling, a Beltway way of life where a pat on the back often comes with a kickback. full review
56. Cave of Forgotten Dreams 2010 We're never going to be allowed in this place, so thanks, Werner, for inviting us along. full review
57. Cherry Tree Lane 2010 full review
58. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer 2010 Client 9 works like a good detective novel: Colorful and seemingly disparate characters are introduced, and then the strands that tie them together are revealed in a rich, sordid, thrilling tableau. full review
59. Freakonomics 2010 Freakonomics examines social, cultural, and financial issues with an eye to getting people to think differently. full review
60. Heartbeats 2010 Alas, although Heartbeats is quite lovely to look at, there isn't much going on after all. full review
61. I'm Still Here 2010 A meditation on a life lived in the public eye, I'm Still Here is strange, riveting, and occasionally appalling stuff, any way you look at it. full review
62. A Little Help 2010 This is one of the smarter, more honest scripts to be filmed in quite some time. And Jenna Fischer gives one of the smarter, more honest - and vulnerable, and tough - performances by an actress on the big screen in an even longer stretch. full review
63. Marwencol 2010 Marwencol is about Hogancamp and his miniature alter-ego, about his photographs and his creative process. But it is also, on a deeper level, about how we process our experiences... full review
64. Monsters 2010 Just remember, folks: If a NASA probe finds alien life forms in space, it's not a good idea to bring DNA samples back to Earth. full review
65. Nowhere Boy 2010 Taylor-Wood stresses the universals rather than the specifics of John's youth. So don't go expecting a Fab Four origin story. The word Beatles is never uttered. But do go. full review
66. Senna 2010 Senna is earnest, eloquent, and impossibly charismatic, and his rocketing ascension through the ranks of professional drivers - gunning his car at more than 200 m.p.h. down the straightaways - is something to behold. full review
67. Tiny Furniture 2010 There's a fierce, self-lacerating wit on display in Lena Dunham's tiny indie Tiny Furniture: as big and bold as the production is modest and (literally) homemade. full review
68. Waste Land 2010 It's not a very good title, Waste Land - this isn't a bleak film, at all - but just about everything else in Lucy Walker's documentary works, and illuminates. full review
69. 44 Inch Chest 2009 The whole thing feels like middle-period Mamet with English accents, and not much to say. full review
70. Amreeka 2009 Although the drama heads on a predictable course, Faour brings intelligence and humor to her performance and Muallem, as the smart adolescent turned surly and scared, is likewise sharp. full review
71. Antichrist 2009 What is Von Trier trying to say? full review
72. The Boys Are Back 2009 Relationships -- between men and women, fathers and sons -- are more complicated in real life, and The Boys Are Back deftly acknowledges that fact. full review
73. Cairo Time 2009 Cairo Time: Take the time to see it. full review
74. Crude 2009 Powerful and powerfully upsetting. full review
75. The Eclipse 2009 The Eclipse is about death and sadness, rebirth and possibility. The film is anchored by Hinds' performance -- the actor brings a soulful melancholy to the proceedings. full review
76. Fish Tank 2009 Fish Tank digs around in its protagonist's psyche, unafraid to explore. It's oppressive and claustrophobic, confused and scary in there. But it's also compellingly real. full review
77. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest 2009 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest comes close to self-parody at times ... [but] the final chapter has its satisfying turns. full review
78. Hunger 2009 Hunger is daunting and powerful work. full review
79. The Joneses 2009 Almost everything about The Joneses, from the transparent plot twists to the winking irony of the golf-course patter, falls flat. full review
80. The Limits of Control 2009 For the impatient viewer, Jarmusch's pulpy, poetic exercise will probably feel hopelessly, unintentionally parodic, prompting disdain and derision. Consider yourself warned -- not everyone's going to go for this business. But I did. full review
81. Ondine 2009 Full of melancholy and blarney... full review
82. The Secret of Kells 2009 The Secret of Kells is gorgeous work, and its imagery and themes dovetail perfectly: a story about creating art, artfully created. full review
83. Soul Kitchen 2009 Zany screwball farce. full review
84. Survival of the Dead 2009 Like the literary monster mash-ups that have invaded the best-seller lists, Survival of the Dead mixes genres and milieus with absurdist glee. full review
85. Vincere 2009 With wild collages of newsreel footage, swirling newspaper headlines, text, and music, Bellocchio fashions a melodrama of epic proportions. full review
86. When You're Strange 2009 When You're Strange offers a worshipful but insightful portrait of the group... full review
87. White Material 2009 A mournful, frightening, powerful film. full review
88. Wild Target 2009 The film has to fly by its wits -- and its witty lines -- and by the charm of its stars. This it does, just barely. full review
89. American Violet 2008 A torn-from-the-headlines tale of institutional racism and injustice in the Lone Star State of not-so-long-ago, American Violet might not be subtle, but it's certainly powerful. full review
90. Happy-Go-Lucky 2008 Oddball and ingenious. full review
91. Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 2008 Not just a great sports movie, Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 captures a pivotal moment in recent history. full review
92. I.O.U.S.A. 2008 There's no quick fix for a culture 'addicted to debt,' as one wag puts it in the film. But watching I.O.U.S.A. is a good place to start. full review
93. Let the Right One In 2008 Funny, fear-inducing, with periods of voyeuristic gore and an undercurrent of anxiety and dread, Let the Right One In is up there with the bloodsucking classics. full review
94. Shrink 2008 A pity-party of Hollywood narcissism. full review
95. The Square 2008 It's as if filmmaking brothers Joel and Nash Edgerton (Joel cowrote, produced and costars, Nash directed) sat down and said, "Let's watch these suckers wreck their lives, and the lives of everyone around them." full review
96. The Tale of Despereaux 2008 Despereaux is a little too desperate to be loved. full review
97. What Just Happened? 2008 There are cutting laughs along the way, and Keener plays the hard-nosed studio chief with an insider's acumen, but, really, Entourage is better than this. full review
98. The Yellow Handkerchief 2008 The Yellow Handkerchief is a surprisingly moving drama -- a throwback to the small, character-driven indies of yesteryear. full review
99. Before the Rains 2007 Before the Rains is never less than compelling, but never more than adequately realized. full review
100. Black Snake Moan 2007 Humid and overwrought, with Ricci working at fever pitch and Jackson bringing fire, brimstone and some passable blues licks to the equation, Black Snake Moan is no polite little indie thing, and certainly no formulaic studio exercise.
101. Chop Shop 2007 Beautifully observed, and beautifully acted by the novice thespian Polanco (culled from a New York City public school), Chop Shop is at once a heartbreaker and a story of hope and the American Dream. full review
102. Day Watch 2007 Day Watch deploys head-spinning cinematography and cool special effects. It's a trippy affair, even if it's just about impossible to track. full review
103. Eagle vs. Shark 2007 The tone and tenor of Waititi's effort are quieter, gentler [than Napoleon Dynamite]. This is low-key stuff, but strangely, goofily endearing. full review
104. The Hunting Party 2007 ...The Hunting Party derives much of its tension from watching seemingly 'normal' people doing seriously insane stuff. full review
105. Never Forever 2007 Never Forever has the steaminess of pulp and the stateliness of art. full review
106. Puccini for Beginners 2007 It may not be the real world of New York, or even of most relationships, but it's worth a visit.
107. Shooter 2007 A chase movie and a pretty crafty thriller, Shooter owes a lot to Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor. full review
108. Cashback 2006 A sleek little meditation on beauty, desire, love and time. Now and then, it's fairly sophisticated stuff. full review
109. Deep Water 2006 Remarkable. full review
110. Failure to Launch 2006 Apart from its name (easily the front-runner for worst of the year), Failure to Launch represents a failure in every way: of ideas, of inspiration, of casting.
111. Fay Grim 2006 Where Henry Fool was a resonant study of friendship, art, trust and politics, Fay Grim is just a throwaway joke. full review
112. Golden Door 2006 There's an old Zen saying, 'It's the journey, not the destination.' The Golden Door offers an extraordinary journey of its own. full review
113. Heading South 2006 Boasts another formidable and fine-tuned performance from the great Charlotte Rampling.
114. Lady Chatterley 2006 A long, but never lazy, celebration of the natural world, of sexual desire and discovery, and of the peculiar social order of early-20th-century Britain, Lady Chatterley is also a heartbreaking story of true love. full review
115. Nacho Libre 2006 The beautifully shot Nacho Libre presents its improbable hero -- doughy, boyish and speaking in a dubious accent -- as someone utterly confident of his abilities, and his place in the world.
116. Severance 2006 Severance will have you laughing one minute and feeling terribly unsettled the next. full review
117. Slither 2006 Like Tremors, only ickier, Slither is a tongue-in-cheek horror flick that skewers the genre while delivering seat-squirming scares.
118. United 93 2006 There's no way to watch United 93, Paul Greengrass' heartbreaking, pulse-pounding drama about the lone hijacked commercial airliner that failed to reach its target on Sept. 11, 2001, and not anticipate the dreadful outcome.
119. The Wind That Shakes the Barley 2006 Gripping, powerful, heart-breaking. full review
120. Taxidermia 2005 Visually dazzling and outlandishly obscene. full review
121. Brick 2005 Alas, Brick, from writer-director Rian Johnson, isn't as clever as its conceit.
122. Casanova 2005 One would expect Casanova, a movie about the storied loverboy of 18th-century Venice, to be wicked, ribald fun. One would be wrong.
123. The Constant Gardener 2005 The filmmaker's assurance and vision in reimagining the novel are downright inspiring.
124. End of the Spear 2005 This is a movie -- albeit one with a great, gripping story -- shot through with meaningful glances, middling performances and melodramatic music cues. Pity.
125. Into Great Silence 2005 A transcendental piece of filmmaking. full review
126. Jarhead 2005 Although the picture suffers a narrative letdown in the third act that leaves its central characters -- and, alas, its audience -- in the muck of anticlimax, Jarhead has moments of real glory.
127. My Summer of Love 2005 An exquisite exploration into the realms of seduction, obsession, deception and disillusionment.
128. Old Joy 2005 Old Joy's not-going- anywhere-ness is a big part of its charm.
129. The Producers 2005 The jokes are in its tackiness, and gauchery, and raspberry-inducing send-up of Broadway traditions. On that level, the movie works fine -- and is a whole lot cheaper for the ticket buyer.
130. Inside Deep Throat 2004 Offers a diverting tale of erstwhile indie filmmaking and the power of porn to generate change -- both at the box office and in the bedroom.
131. Me and You and Everyone We Know 2004 Although Me and You and Everyone We Know requires patience on the part of the viewer -- to get past the faux naivete of its grown-up characters, to get past its deadpan arty tone -- Miranda July's feature debut is worth the time.
132. 21 Grams 2003 Challenges and provokes in unexpected ways.
133. Bad Boys II 2003 Despite some awesomely choreographed stunts and the two stars' pedal-to -the-metal appeal, the movie seems endless.
134. Darkness Falls 2003 Stephen King without the snap, David Lynch without the kink, teen horror without the teen hormones, Darkness Falls falls apart in a crescendo of creepy-crawly hoo-ha.
135. The Good Thief 2003 Blurry, opiated, jagged with melancholy and stone cold beautiful.
136. The Hunted 2003 The Hunted isn't exactly fraught with psychological depth and nuance, but as a stalker-stalkee suspenser, the pic has some nice things going for it.
137. Primer 2003 A brilliant little indie thriller.
138. Swimming Pool 2003 Rampling and Sagnier are very good in roles that demand very different things of them, and Ozon's mix of peril and playfulness make for a seductive cinematic diversion.
139. Tears of the Sun 2003 Tears of the Sun has a title that makes no sense whatsoever. The film's message, on the other hand, makes too much sense -- it's simplistic and reactionary and designed to get hearts pumping but not minds thinking.
140. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress 2002 A funny, sad and absolutely lovely film.
141. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys 2002 A fine, inventive '70s period piece about friendship, first love, and growing up to face the hard lessons of life.
142. Irreversible 2002 Excruciating exercise in voyeurism, provocation and pretentiousness.
143. Lost in La Mancha 2002 One hopes that some day Gilliam gets to realize his dream, but in the meantime, in Lost In La Mancha, the shards of that dream offer tantalizing -- and tear-inducing -- glimpses of what might have been.
144. The Master of Disguise 2002 Cruelly and brutally unfunny.
145. The New Guy 2002 Every so often a movie comes along that confirms one's worse fears about civilization as we know it. The New Guy is one of them.
146. Treasure Planet 2002 Sci-fi meets sea-faring fantasy, and the mix isn't half bad.
147. XX/XY 2002 Although the script, by Chick (a Sarah Lawrence alumnus), can be painfully old hat, this little indie's cast goes a long way toward making the story interesting, even compelling.
148. The Fluffer 2001 Several notches above the usual gay-themed indie.
149. Tape 2001 Steeped in venom, deception, and manipulation, Tape is a three-way volley of mind games in which an adolescent grudge assumes the complexion of a festering wound.
150. Beautiful Creatures 2000 Emits an aura of contrived cool.
151. Billy Elliot 2000 One of those movies where it's impossible not to find yourself cheering for the scruffy underdog hero.
152. The Gift 2000 At its best The Gift evokes some of the creepy chills of To Kill a Mockingbird. And at its heart, there's Blanchett, an actress whose instincts are unerring, and dead-on.
153. Memento 2000 Terrifically satisfying film.
154. Traffic 2000 A huge canvas of a movie that nonetheless brings the various facets of drug trafficking -- and drug-taking -- down to human scale.
155. True Grit 1969 full review