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Heading into the third Hangover's Memorial Day weekend release, the proposition of reviewing such a ridiculous film set off a competition of sorts between critics who have each tried their hardest to criticize the movie in the most excoriating way possible. Let's award some prizes.
Oblivion is sleek and gorgeous, smooth and matte-finish, full of watery grays and cool blues. The movie looks and sounds great. So why is it such a disappointment?
I've been something of a Terrence Malick apologist in the past, explaining to detractors why the plodding pace of The New World is just right, why the long origins-of-the-universe segment of Tree of Life is a vital burst of genius, but I'm afraid I'm out of excuses with To the Wonder.
Danny Boyle's new art heist/hypnotism picture Trance can't help but ooze a sense of dreamy soulfulness.
Unfolding like a juicy, sprawling novel, Derek Cianfrance's expertly pitched melodrama trades in a haunted feeling of inexorability and the regret that follows. A deeply felt, classically tinged saga, The Place Beyond the Pines is, for my money, so far the best film of 2013.
Today we review the new Tina Fey movie Admission, an odd balancing act between a college admissions comedy (with a hint of drama) and a parenting drama (with some comedy).
Spring Breakers, writer/director Harmony Korine's lurid and violent fever dream, is grotesque in a way, but it's also alluring; if not exactly sexy, it's certainly an effectively tantalizing image of youthful indulgence.
When I say that Oz the Great and Powerful is all downhill from the opening credits, don't take that to be too harsh a criticism.
Today we review a perfectly bouncy little adventure Jack the Giant Slayer.
Today we review the new artsy thriller Stoker, from acclaimed director Park Chan-wook.
Today we review the new comedy Identity Thief.
Two brain activity-crossed lovers are worth rooting for in a sweet zombie romance that's just darkly clever enough to glide over its rather sizable plot holes.
Oscar contender Jessica Chastain has a new ghost movie, Mama, out this weekend, and we have so many questions.
Gangster Squad, the new film from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, got some undue attention this summer when it hastily moved off its original September release date. It really wasn't worth all the fuss.
The highly anticipated version of the blockbuster musical is imperfect and silly, sure, but it is also something of a must-see in its show-stopping earnestness.
A meandering, overindulgent tale of revenge that plays like an homage to a genre that never existed, Quentin Tarantino's latest feels more bound-up than any of his movies before it.
So much of this movie is real, and in new and surprising ways, which makes it newsy and relevant here and now, three weeks before its release. A review of Kathryn Bigelow's thorough and satisfying depiction of the most famous manhunt of our time.
Andrew Dominik's heavy-handed caper tries to make a lot of very important points, including maybe that there is no point, which is ultimately kind of pointless. Or at least disappointing.
In one of the riskier studio gambles of the year, 20th Century Fox is hoping you'll want to spend your Thanksgiving movie time this year contemplating the nature of god.
Today we review Joe Wright and Tom Stoppard's new adaptation of Anna Karenina, a pretty package with very little inside.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is the final film in the franchise and the only one that really entertains.
A review of Silver Linings Playbook, the movie where Bradley Cooper finally shows us what he can do.
Today we review two new films about famous men, the Abraham Lincoln biopic Lincoln and the new James Bond caper, Skyfall.
There is no more ambitious, well-intentioned, or wider-reaching movie this season than Cloud Atlas. There is also no more bumbling, frequently inept, and downright bizarre movie this season than Cloud Atlas.
Today we review two new movies about losing one's virginity, the drama The Sessions and the teen comedy The First Time.
Today we review two new movies, the sci-fi actioner Looper and the college a cappella comedy Pitch Perfect
If you're lucky, there was a moment or two in your otherwise turbulent or tedious teen years that felt magical. Yet in the new film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, nearly every frame is imbued with the hush and wonder of a Big Moment.
Today we review Paul Thomas Anderson's highly anticipated new film, The Master, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Today we review the surprisingly likable new bike messenger thriller, Premium Rush.
Today we review the new sci-fi remake Total Recall.
The summer's most beguiling mystery isn't what those curious Prometheus aliens are up to, it's not Bane's plans for Gotham City. No, the most intriguing question of the season is what happened in a town outside of San Antonio back in the mid-1990s, when a thirteen-year-old boy went missing, only to astonishingly reappear in Europe four years later.
With Savages Oliver Stone returns to the scuzzy, saturated, chaotic aesthetic of 1997's U Turn, a nihilistic clutter of screwball violence and effortful seediness.
Today we review two new films, the musical Rock of Ages and Adam Sandler's comedy That's My Boy.
There are two scenes in Prometheus, Ridley Scott's new hotly anticipated sci-fi thriller set in the same universe as Alien, that are so masterfully choreographed and so terrifically unnerving that I'm tempted to declare the film a rousing success based on them alone and be done with it.
There is at least this to be said for Snow White and the Huntsman: In a summer of sequels and mashups and reboots of recent films, this dark and serious take on the classic witchy, dwarfy tale feels refreshingly original, ambitious, and earnest.
Moonrise Kingdom isn't the only blue rumination on age and time opening in theaters this weekend. No, there's also Men in Black III, an ostensible sci-fi comedy caper that is actually a sighing contemplation of regret and the random bits of chance that shape our lives. Honestly!
After five long years since Wes Anderson gifted a live-action film unto the world, Moonrise Kingdom (opening in New York and Los Angeles this Friday), is such a welcome relief.
Today we review two contenders for our Most Cynical Movies Ever Made list. One's big, giddy fun, one's a tedious endurance contest. It's not what you're expecting.
Today we review the new supernatural comedy Dark Shadows.
Since the olden days of 2008, Marvel Studios has been laying the big, heavy groundwork for what comes blasting into American movie houses today.
Today we review two contrasting films, The Raven and The Five-Year Engagement.
Today we review two movies about romance, The Lucky One and Goodbye First Love.
Today we review two new movies based on faded youth, the American Pie gang getting back together for American Reunion and Whit Stillman's revisiting college life with Damsels in Distress.
Oh the agony of being a fan! Specifically a fan of those gotta-read serial books that recapture a youthful ardor for deep, long reading that we’d mostly thought gone in these quick-burst internet times.
This morning we released our ranking of America's most cantankerous film critics, and since then, several people, including winner Kyle Smith of the New York Post, have asked why longtime New York City critic Armond White was left out of our contest.
Call it brash independence, a unique way of seeing, or simple cantankerousness, but it's often struck us while reading film reviews that some critics enjoy going against the grain. We crunched some numbers to crown America's most cantankerous film critic.
Today we review two new supernatural movies, Chronicle and The Woman in Black.
Today we review two new thrillers: The Grey and Man on a Ledge.
Today we review two new animal-themed movies, War Horse and We Bought a Zoo.
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