Lisa Schwarzbaum

Select another critic »
Entertainment Weekly
For 1,979 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 70% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 28% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Lisa Schwarzbaum's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Big Night
Lowest review score: 0 Valentine's Day
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,280 out of 1979
  2. Mixed: 520 out of 1979
  3. Negative: 179 out of 1979
1979 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 33 Metascore
    • 25 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Sucker Punch
    The music screeches, the actors vamp, the knives and weapons and bombs and fireballs fly around the screen. Meanwhile, the well-prepared moviegoer slips into her or his own private fantasy of a world in which movie effects are themselves locked away in an institution for the criminally insane until such time as those effects are really, truly necessary for the story.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Potiche
    An Orson Welles-size Gérard Depardieu does gallant work as the town's leftist mayor.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Lord of the Dance in 3D
    The best stuff: Wow, can those kids hoof - and so, even past his half-century mark, can the preening, Chicago-born Mr. F.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    The Lincoln Lawyer
    Plot leaps that are fun on paper look generic on screen; here's another lawyer movie in which the characters are only as interesting as the actors playing them.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 83 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Paul
    Graeme and Clive, representatives of a nation of nonbelievers in UFOs and big dinner portions, come to the psychic capital of a country that wants to believe, and they're transformed. In Paul, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost do likewise, in celebration of what the Spielbergian cosmos is all about.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 33 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Red Riding Hood
    Red Riding Hood goes from trite to triter, a plot collapse that overtakes any of the visual prettiness from cinematographer Mandy Walker (Beastly).
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Monogamy
    Irksome dither of an indie drama.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    I Am
    An earnest, lumpy macramé of a personal nonfiction project.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Kill the Irishman
    The cast is tasty, including Vincent D'Onofrio as a friendly fellow Mob guy, Val Kilmer as the head of the Cleveland PD, Christopher Walken as an underworld power broker, and a bunch of character actors hoping for a remake of "The Sopranos."
    • 49 Metascore
    • 91 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Mars Needs Moms
    The movie is also visually magnificent - modestly so. Plus, it's half the length of "Avatar."
    • 45 Metascore
    • 58 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Happythankyoumoreplease
    With very little modification, the relationship woes of the six chirpy young New Yorkers in this self-absorbed indie could be reworked into episodes of TV's "How I Met Your Mother."
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
    Spirit, animal, and human worlds coexist in dreamy harmony in this remarkable drama.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    I Saw the Devil
    Somewhere in all the blood (sickening realism is a selling point), a question is posed: When does the one fighting a monster become a monster himself?
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Rango
    The biggest strike against Rango, though - for both the movie and the hero - is that the lizard is so damn ugly.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Heartbeats
    Xavier Dolan is back with another madly stylish Montreal-made delight.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Of Gods and Men
    It is their shared strength as a band of brothers humble before their Christian God - and indeed before the God of Islam - that may stir viewers to an awe that transcends skeptical opinions about religion or politics.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 16 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    I Am Number Four
    Witless, insultingly derivative, muddy-looking, and edited in the hammering epileptic style that marks so many films produced, as this one is, by Michael Bay.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Poetry
    Facing a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, the older woman enrolls in a poetry class, desperate to find the words to describe beauty before language fails her. She does even better: She herself becomes a kind of poem about what it means to really see the world.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    The Last Lions
    The footage, by Dereck and Beverly Joubert, is stunning.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Unknown
    The movie whips up a big old puree of ingredients borrowed from other cinematic recipes.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 25 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Just Go with It
    A bummer - slack rather than loose, tired rather than fun.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Cedar Rapids
    Sweetness makes the raunch in this honestly funny movie even funnier.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    The Eagle
    The story and setting may be ancient, but under the direction of Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), and with a nicely textured screenplay by Macdonald's Scotland coscreenwriter Jeremy Brock, the vigor is fully modern.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    The Other Woman
    Opportunities for bad behavior abound in Waldman's novel - the author's prerogative. Roos, though, hasn't cracked the puzzle of how to explore that behavior on screen in such a way that the characters behave badly in interesting, rather than arbitrary, ways.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune
    At once an unsentimental portrait of the ambitious singer who thought himself bound for glory, and an affecting elegy for a time when song was a form of revolution.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    A Somewhat Gentle Man
    Skarsgard's utter finesse in the role provides a satisfying warmth.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    The Housemaid
    The class warfare in The Housemade feels dated, but there's something nicely kinky in this lusciously photographed erotic Korean thriller by Im Sang-soo.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Applause
    In his debut feature, the director is wise enough to move his hand-held camera wherever Steen wants to go.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    The Way Back
    It's also filled with scenes of extraordinary survival challenges. But the result is oddly impersonal and undifferentiated.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 58 Lisa Schwarzbaum
    No Strings Attached
    Adam is cute and all, but the real strings worth tying are those that bind this sisterhood of sharp, interesting, sexually active women together. Where's THEIR starring movie?
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »