|
78%
|
Mooz-lum (2011)
|
"I suspect the Muslim narratives of 9/11 will soon grow into its own genre, and this film is a very good start."
|
Omer Mozaffar
|
|
93%
|
Iron Man (2008)
|
"Not only is it a good comic book movie (smart and stupid, stirring and silly, intimate and spectacular), it's winning enough to engage even those who've never cared much for comic books or the movies they spawn. Like me."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
96%
|
Persepolis (2007)
|
"It's a movie that makes you glad to be alive."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
83%
|
Atonement (2007)
|
"Atonement is an intelligently, evocatively directed movie in every aspect..."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
96%
|
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)
|
"...a sharp political commentary about free-market forces in a socialist bureaucracy where nearly everything is regulated by the government."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
96%
|
Chop Shop (2008)
|
"Within the first 30 seconds or so of Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop, you know you're in good hands."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
93%
|
Secret Sunshine (2010)
|
"The film is brave and unsparing (as is Jeon's performance) and asks some challenging and disquieting questions..."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
52%
|
Margot at the Wedding (2007)
|
"Baumbach knows exactly what he's doing, and it works."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
44%
|
redacted (2007)
|
"I don't know when De Palma has ever been accused of being sincere, but Redacted feels to me as close as he's ever come."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
77%
|
I'm Not There (2007)
|
"[It] is not only a kaleidoscopic view of events in the life, music and myth of Bob Dylan, but a critical deconstruction and synthesis of Dylan's various media representations."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
82%
|
Into the Wild (2007)
|
"Penn's empathy with his driven hero is unmistakable and deeply felt."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
90%
|
Michael Clayton (2007)
|
"...the kind of smart, crisp, 'serious' mainstream entertainment that gives Hollywood (or the part of it influenced by George Clooney) a good name."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
86%
|
El Orfanato (The Orphanage) (2007)
|
"I'd venture to say there are more goosepimply moments and well-earned jolts in this picture than in your average year's worth of commercial shockers. And yet, it's also the only horror film in recent memory that brought me to tears."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
94%
|
No Country for Old Men (2007)
|
"It could serve as a model of prose-to-film adaptation, choosing exactly the right moments and movements for the picture, and leaving alone others that are better suited to literature."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
89%
|
Eastern Promises (2007)
|
"Eastern Promises is shockingly gorgeous, for all the ugliness it portrays."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
72%
|
Inland Empire (2006)
|
"Inland Empire opens and contracts in your imagination while you watch it -- and you're still watching it well after it's left the screen. It's a long but thoroughly absorbing three hours."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
88%
|
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2007)
|
"While this may be a historical piece, it's history told in the vivid present tense."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
88%
|
Red Road (2007)
|
"Red Road feels like a descent into hell."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
50%
|
Color Me Kubrick (2007)
|
"A little bit like a coloring book -- flip the pages and each is pretty much like the one before, escalating variations on the same scam, with Malkovich filling in the cartoonish shadings, and occasionally going way outside the lines."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
74%
|
Fah talai jone (Tears of the Black Tiger) (2007)
|
"The movie is a riot of tropical turquoise, magenta and pink, spiced with marigold, red and green. You'd swear it was drenched in a tangy tamarind sauce"
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
96%
|
Mafioso (1964)
|
"Nothing quite prepares you for the unique experience of this film. It's an offer that you ... well, you know. Leave the gun, take the cannolis. Mangiate bene."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
93%
|
Gwoemul (The Host) (2007)
|
"A horror thriller, a political satire, a dysfunctional family comedy and a touching melodrama, Bong Joon-ho's The Host is also one helluva monster movie."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
82%
|
Days of Glory (Indigenes) (2007)
|
"Days of Glory is a rousing, old-fashioned World War II platoon movie in the gritty tradition of combat pictures like Don Siegel's Hell is for Heroes, Sam Fuller's The Big Red One and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
93%
|
The Lives of Others (2006)
|
"Watch it, and you may get the feeling it's also watching you."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
92%
|
An Unreasonable Man (2007)
|
"The movie is lively and informative, but (in ways the old Nader might have appreciated) it made me feel like arguing with it. Frustratingly, the film avoids as many issues as it raises."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
72%
|
Climates (Iklimler) (The Climate) (2006)
|
"A stunning film to look at, and to listen to."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
33%
|
Breaking and Entering (2007)
|
"What are the meaningful connections between these people's lives? Are they real and significant, or are they just plot contrivances, the manipulation of pawns in an onscreen board game?"
|
Roger Ebert
|
|
91%
|
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
|
"In both his films, Eastwood empathizes with the 'expendable' soldier on the ground, the 'poor bastard' who is only a pawn in a war conceived by generals and politicians, some of whom have never come anywhere near a battlefield or a combat zone."
|
Roger Ebert
|
|
96%
|
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
|
"Whole worlds open before our eyes and then fold back upon themselves; dimensions of time and space are creased into shape as if the movie was an elaborate origami creation."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
54%
|
The Good Shepherd (2006)
|
"If you think George Tenet's Central Intelligence Agency was a disaster, wait until you see Robert De Niro's torpid, ineffectual movie about the history of the agency, The Good Shepherd."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
51%
|
The Fountain (2006)
|
"[The Fountain] doesn't make for smooth, comfortable viewing, but I'd much rather watch somebody shoot for the moon when the stakes are sky-high than sit back while they play it safe."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
32%
|
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)
|
"Fur is stuck with offering a reductive and unenlightening view of the real Arbus."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
51%
|
For Your Consideration (2006)
|
"Like Guest's other films, For Your Consideration is extremely funny and tinged with sadness and disappointment, the kind that accompanies all of our inevitable adjustments to dreams deferred and downsized."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
85%
|
Old Joy (2006)
|
"Like a great jazz musician, Reichart understands that striking a single, well-placed note can resonate more profoundly than playing a splashy cascade of noise just because you can."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
91%
|
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
|
"Very nice! I like Borat very much."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
67%
|
The Bridge (2006)
|
"The Bridge is brave and unflinching, unshakably haunting and deeply mysterious. I doubt I'll forget it until the day I die."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
72%
|
Infamous (2006)
|
"In the end, Infamous turns out to be the third-best movie built around the murders of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kan., in 1959."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
38%
|
2:37 (2006)
|
"The film flows naturally around its central contrivance, employing unforced performances by unprofessional actors and a visual style that uses available light to pull you into the worlds these students inhabit."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
69%
|
Babel (2006)
|
"Babel has the very best of intentions, and tries very hard, but cannot bring them to life. What I mean is, it left me cold."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
66%
|
Shortbus (2006)
|
"[Shortbus] takes place in a fantasy New York [...] between two temporal landmarks: September 11, 2001, and the blackout of 2003 [...] through brownouts and breakdowns, Mitchell posits a place of healing and humor and light and lots and lots of sex."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
92%
|
Volver (2006)
|
"Volver (roughly translated: "To Return") is a magical film, but that magic is in the filmmaking [...] itself."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
90%
|
Rescue Dawn (2007)
|
"[T]he most harrowingly realistic and unsentimentalized P.O.W. film I'd ever seen [...] Nobody will be surprised to learn that Herzog [...] refuses to let Dieter [Dengler's] story be opportunistically exploited for jingoistic propaganda."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
37%
|
Death of a President (2006)
|
"[T]his convincingly staged television "documentary" falls into a tradition of fictionalized British films... that use nonfiction techniques to explore contemporary social and political issues... Most of all, "Death of a President" is electrifying drama."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
80%
|
Little Children (2006)
|
"It's an odd film, with a wryly intrusive, deep-voiced narrator who appears to be standing just behind the screen reading excerpts from the novel."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
71%
|
The Science of Sleep (2006)
|
"Although the diminutive (5-foot-6-inch) Bernal emanates an infectiously playful and energetic charisma, there comes a point when you just want to slap him with a big hand for being such a petulant baby."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
77%
|
The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006)
|
"It's great to see a lot of this footage of Lennon -- playful, engaged, warm and spontaneous."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
90%
|
Half Nelson (2006)
|
"This movie... is concerned with an even greater achievement that is generally unacknowledged: how people -- flawed, miserable, frustrated people -- go to work every day and find a way to care about something beyond themselves, despite themselves."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
86%
|
Quincea�era (Echo Park, L.A.) (2006)
|
"The storytelling remains less than satisfying, particularly the ending."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
84%
|
This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006)
|
"While This Film Is Not Yet Rated may not present the most effective or airtight case against the MPAA, what it does dig up is damning enough."
|
Jim Emerson
|
|
24%
|
Lady in the Water (2006)
|
"[Perhaps it's] improvised and protracted, nonsensically and unnecessarily, just for the sake of stringing us along. And, maybe, putting us to sleep."
|
Roger Ebert
|
67%
38%
91%
89%
84%
84%
