|
A
|
90%
|
At Berkeley (2013) |
"
The fierce, questing intelligence of these students and educators is a perfect match for Wiseman's own."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 8, 2013
|
|
B+
|
82%
|
The Wind Rises (2014) |
"
The great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki has said that his new film The Wind Rises, will be his last. For all sorts of reasons, I hope this is not true."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 8, 2013
|
|
B-
|
59%
|
The Book Thief (2013) |
"
It's respectable, safe, intelligent -- and a bit dull."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 8, 2013
|
|
C+
|
66%
|
Thor: The Dark World (2013) |
"
Like so many comic book epics these days, Alan Taylor's 3-D Thor: The Dark World is both monumental and generic."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 8, 2013
|
|
A-
|
100%
|
The Square (2013) |
"
A powerhouse documentary that takes us into the eyes of several storms."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 1, 2013
|
|
B+
|
95%
|
Dallas Buyers Club (2013) |
"
The real halo here belongs to McConaughey. He does justice to Ron's story and to his own quicksilver talent."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 1, 2013
|
|
C+
|
43%
|
Last Vegas (2013) |
"
It's bad enough when Hollywood casts women over the age of 30 as grandmothers-in-waiting. Now we have to endure an onslaught of famous veteran actors complaining about their hips."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 1, 2013
|
|
C+
|
66%
|
About Time (2013) |
"
Perhaps, like me, you find the oeuvre of British writer-director Richard Curtis a bit -- how shall I put it -- twee?"
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Nov 1, 2013
|
|
B-
|
82%
|
An American Promise (2013) |
"
I'm glad I saw this movie because it allowed me to spend time with two engaging boys whose young lives are worth chronicling. But those lives can't bear the symbolic weight the filmmakers place on them. Nor should they have to. "
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 25, 2013
|
|
C+
|
74%
|
Kill Your Darlings (2013) |
"
Director and co-writer John Krokidas doesn't have a very fluent gift for period re-creation - everything seems stagy - and most of the actors, playing divas of various stripes, overact."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 25, 2013
|
|
B+
|
88%
|
Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013) |
"
The two actresses, seen up close or from far away, are extraordinary. The emotional trajectory of their passion is entirely believable and ultimately heartbreaking."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 25, 2013
|
|
C
|
37%
|
The Fifth Estate (2013) |
"
Condon and his screenwriter Josh Singer don't quite know what to make of this duo, perhaps because the men didn't quite know what to make of each other, either."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 18, 2013
|
|
B+
|
94%
|
All Is Lost (2013) |
"
Chandor, within the confines he has set for himself, has done an excellent job of locking us into his hero's predicament."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 18, 2013
|
|
B
|
97%
|
12 Years a Slave (2013) |
"
Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, written by John Ridley and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, is a necessary corrective to the antics of Django Unchained, not to mention Mandingo and its ilk."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 18, 2013
|
|
B-
|
46%
|
Carrie (2013) |
"
Peirce is gifted, but she lacks the ability of directors like DePalma to transform schlock into something deeply personal."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 18, 2013
|
|
C-
|
22%
|
Romeo and Juliet (2013) |
"
What can you say about a Romeo and Juliet that lacks heat, romance, eroticism, or lyricism? Mercifully, not much."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 11, 2013
|
|
B+
|
94%
|
Captain Phillips (2013) |
"
It's some of the most powerful acting Hanks has ever done."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 11, 2013
|
|
C+
|
65%
|
Linsanity (2013) |
"
As a piece of filmmaking, Linsanity is scattershot and too reliant on newsreels. And the interviews, most of all with the religiously devout Lin are, alas, fairly unrevealing."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
B-
|
62%
|
The Summit (2013) |
"
Nick Ryan's documentary The Summit pieces together the fateful expedition utilizing newsreel footage, new and old interviews with the climbers and their associates, and, regrettably, re-enactments."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
B+
|
97%
|
Gravity (2013) |
"
Cuarón and his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, keep the audience in weightless suspension right along with the astronauts. For most of us, Gravity is the closest we will ever get to the real deal."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Oct 4, 2013
|
|
B+
|
94%
|
Mother Of George (2013) |
"
The cinematography by Bradford Young is rich-toned and lustrous, and the film, until it bogs down in melodramatics, has a sensual ease. We are not looking at these people from the outside. Dosunmu pulls us deep inside."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
B+
|
91%
|
Inequality For All (2013) |
"
It's unseemly, I know, to praise a movie like this for the stand-up-comic affability of its host. But Reich's engagingness also gives credence to the seriousness of his message."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
C+
|
83%
|
Don Jon (2013) |
"
The movie becomes increasingly soft-edged and sappy."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 27, 2013
|
|
C-
|
53%
|
The Muslims Are Coming (2013) |
"
The comedy routines are so-so (though the falling-in-the-aisles reaction shots tell another story) and the comics' patchwork odyssey often derails into irrelevancies."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 20, 2013
|
|
B-
|
88%
|
Rush (2013) |
"
Rush isn't bad, exactly, but it's like a standard-issue male action programmer that somehow crept in from an earlier era."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 20, 2013
|
|
B-
|
81%
|
Prisoners (2013) |
"
A film that, for all its pretensions and intermittent power, is essentially high-grade claptrap."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 20, 2013
|
|
B
|
50%
|
Thanks For Sharing (2013) |
"
Most of all, there's Ruffalo, who in his scenes with a very good Gwyneth Paltrow, plays a man who, with heartbreaking vulnerability, is straining to normalize himself. It's a major performance in a minor movie."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 20, 2013
|
|
B
|
95%
|
Enough Said (2013) |
"
Best is Gandolfini's sensitive-guy-in-a-bulky-physique performance. He was a marvelously versatile actor, and, with the knowledge that he is gone, it's doubly poignant to watch him here."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 19, 2013
|
|
B-
|
95%
|
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2013) |
"
Harry Dean Stanton is a marvelous actor and, at least from a visual standpoint, a marvelous camera subject. He's not much of a talker, though."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 13, 2013
|
|
B
|
61%
|
My Father and the Man in Black (2013) |
"
You get a strong whiff of what it must have been like to be Johnny Cash, or his exasperated manager, from this film. It would make a good companion piece to "Walk the Line."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 13, 2013
|
|
B
|
34%
|
Salinger (2013) |
"
By turns fascinating and infuriating."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 6, 2013
|
|
B
|
92%
|
Our Nixon (2013) |
"
We get to see film of daughter Tricia's wedding (her father is a surprisingly agile ballroom dancer) and other oddities."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Sep 6, 2013
|
|
1.5/5
|
67%
|
Floundering (1994) |
"
All-too-aptly named."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Aug 26, 2013
|
|
C+
|
95%
|
Cutie And The Boxer (2013) |
"
Their 40-year marriage seems like more of a trial than this overweening, lightly likable movie acknowledges."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 23, 2013
|
|
B-
|
82%
|
Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) |
"
Lowery has a way with actors, though. As a local sheriff with an eye for Ruth, Ben Foster is excellent and, in a too-small role as a grizzled shopkeeper, Keith Carradine proves himself yet again to be one of our finest performers."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 23, 2013
|
|
B
|
74%
|
The Grandmaster (2013) |
"
I've never been a big fan of Wong's phantasmagoric prettiness, but at least here it provides a welcome corrective to the usual martial-arts mayhem."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 23, 2013
|
|
B
|
83%
|
The Patience Stone (2013) |
"
Amid these horrors, the young wife retains not only the frailty but also the incandescence, the sheer staying power, of beauty."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 23, 2013
|
|
B-
|
74%
|
Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013) |
"
Winfrey is good, though, demonstrating yet again that she's an actress and not just a celebrity playing an actress."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 16, 2013
|
|
C+
|
68%
|
Elysium (2013) |
"
If Elysium is an example of how recession-era Hollywood intends to dramatize the rift between the haves and the have-nots, let's hope the studios don't also bring back Smell-O-Rama."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 9, 2013
|
|
C-
|
47%
|
We're The Millers (2013) |
"
Even tastelessness needs to have some taste. The blue humor in We're the Millers is just bland."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 7, 2013
|
|
|
91%
|
Minority Report (2002) |
"
High-concept science-fiction escapades often try to impose new ways of seeing, but Spielberg seems intent on blistering our optic nerves."
—
New York Magazine
Posted Aug 5, 2013
|
|
B
|
68%
|
The Artist and the Model (2013) |
"
It's a miniature art history lesson that is also a rapt communion between two people who, at least in this moment, are joined in the ecstasy of creation."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 2, 2013
|
|
B
|
91%
|
The Spectacular Now (2013) |
"
James Ponsoldt, who directed from a script by Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter, is a bit too glib to do justice to this material, but the young actors, especially Woodley, are quite fine."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 2, 2013
|
|
C+
|
64%
|
2 Guns (2013) |
"
It's essentially a buddy-cop romp with the usual assortment pack of graphic gruesomeness."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Aug 2, 2013
|
|
3.5/5
|
93%
|
The Freshman (1990) |
"
Just when you've had it with the mistimed scenes and the clunky direction, writer-director Andrew Bergman comes through with an inspired piece of lunacy."
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Aug 1, 2013
|
|
2/5
|
83%
|
Thelma & Louise (1991) |
"
If the only way a woman can light up the screen these days is with a .38-caliber pistol, isn't that just another form of subordination?"
—
Los Angeles Times
Posted Jul 30, 2013
|
|
B
|
91%
|
Blue Jasmine (2013) |
"
Why should we care about Jasmine? For me, the best reason was Blanchett's all-out performance, which is often frighteningly vivid."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Jul 26, 2013
|
|
D
|
97%
|
The Act Of Killing (2013) |
"
Oppenheimer allows murderous thugs free rein to preen their atrocities, and then fobs it all off as some kind of exalted art thing. This is more than an aesthetic crime; it's a moral crime."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Jul 26, 2013
|
|
B
|
69%
|
The Wolverine (2013) |
"
Mangold front-loads the action, but near the end there's a first-rate fight atop a bullet train between Wolverine/Logan and some especially pesky ninjas. It puts the train fights in the recent The Lone Ranger to shame."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Jul 26, 2013
|
|
C
|
20%
|
Girl Most Likely (2013) |
"
This film suffers, as you can guess from this précis, from quirky-overload."
—
Christian Science Monitor
Posted Jul 19, 2013
|
