Village Voice's Scores

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For 11,162 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 Hooligan Sparrow
Lowest review score: 0 Followers
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,708 out of 11162
  2. Mixed: 4,553 out of 11162
  3. Negative: 1,901 out of 11162
11162 movie reviews
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  1. Theeviravaathi: The Terrorist
    The movie's bold visual and psychological patterns, as well as its heavy immersion in the natural world, imbue Malli's journey with a folktale quality.
  2. Fastpitch
    Spear's portrait of unpaid, passionate fastpitchers could give filmmakers of all budgets a notion of how real Americans speak.
  3. Stolen
    Despite the soft-spoken Smith, a type-A British liaison self-named the Turbocharger, and the apparent involvement of the IRA, the doc prioritizes flash over facts, leaving you pining for the New Yorker exposé it could've been.
  4. Breaking the Girls
    A decently acted, often drolly funny, tautly directed thriller that proves to be a Russian doll of motivations, coincidences, and plot-twists; it would have been more satisfying if it weren't so unnecessarily convoluted.
  5. Baskin
    On the evidence of the first half of Baskin alone, Evrenol seems to be a filmmaker who understands character, tension, and terror. Now all he needs is some follow-through.
  6. SLC Punk!
    Merendino's most innovative directorial strategy is to collapse present and past by having Lillard shout Stevo's reflections about his youthful rebellion directly at the camera, while the scene he's describing in the past tense takes place behind him. I know it sounds like a Brechtian affectation, but it works.
  7. Stronger
    It’s almost as if, in their fascination with trauma, the filmmakers have forgotten entirely what everyday life looks like.
  8. Rooted in Peace
    The film is not without its trenchant moments, most rooted not in peace but in science.
  9. The Salesman
    Watching The Salesman, I can’t help but feel that this is the first time Farhadi’s mastery of the particular is undercut by the artificiality with which he’s treated the general. He remains one of the world’s foremost filmmakers, but this time around, his expertise and artistry are undone by phoniness.
  10. How to Deal
    As Mom, Allison Janney easily dominates every scene she graces, as does Morning Zoo jock papa Peter Gallagher.
  11. Okja
    There’s a lot to chew on here, but in the end, I wish Okja simply worked better as a movie.
  12. Seoul Searching
    Every character gets to learn a lesson, and while the humor is nothing new, the situations are.
  13. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
    If there’s one thing that Van Sant does very well here, it’s creating a humanizing anchor at the center of the story. Despite some distracting narrative choices and sketchy character development (especially with Mara’s character, who, of course, turns into a love interest), the film does eventually find its footing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
    Viewers may not be surprised to learn of Wal-Mart's horrific track record, but they can't deny Greenwald's airtight advocacy.
  15. Red Trees
    In the end, this relentlessly scenic travelogue/valentine is Willer literally giving her old man peace of mind.
  16. The Limey
    A jaggedly impressionistic reverie.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
    E.T. is a dog movie. Genre-wise, I mean. It's about a boy meeting a dog, naming it, taming it, learning from it, and growing up. Of course, the genre is superficially disguised as science fiction, as was the fashion at the time. [2002 re-release]
  18. People I Know
    Although a marked improvement over Algrant's nightmarishly whimsical debut, "Naked in New York," People I Know is perfumed less by the sweet smell of success than the musty aroma of the Miramax vault.
  19. Harmontown
    Berkeley includes some of the writer's unpleasant moments on the tour. But what Harmon wants, as any Community fan knows, is real connection with other human beings.
  20. Shrek 2
    Some of the buckshot hits its target: Shrek's second sidekick, assassin-turned-comrade Puss in Boots, is voiced by Antonio Banderas as an outrageously mock-dramatic Spaniard with most of the pig-pile screenplay's best toss-offs.
  21. Last Life in the Universe
    Cheeky and elusive, Last Life in the Universe inhabits a high-lonesome world unto itself, a bright daydream that dissipates in the aching gap of a missed connection.
  22. A Tale of Two Sisters
    Either way, Kim's rather clumsily acted film remains monstrously effective ookiness, with crepuscular cinematography (by the Hollywood-destined Kim Byeong-il) that suggests a nightmare endured from inside a suffocating velvet pillowcase.
  23. Killing Gunther
    It’s little more than a diverting sketch, but its characters justify its ninety minutes, and Killam’s unremitting enthusiasm is occasionally contagious.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crazy Love
    However sick this tabloid star may be, Crazy Love is a celebrity doc by definition, with all its attendant trade-offs, and even the director admits that his access wasn't free.
  25. Saving America's Horses: A Nation Betrayed
    The sublime beauty of her subject cannot fail to move; less steady is this presentation of their plight.
  26. Handsome Devil
    As the flick teeters between feel-good message movie and a burlesque of gay panic, the director scratches the surface in order to show how people rarely look beyond the surface of others.
  27. What Maisie Knew
    The film is admirably committed to simulating the messy experience of life as a real Maisie might live it. But sometimes, as she's tuckered out on her exquisite linens beneath gorgeous exposed brick and shelves of handcrafted toys, Maisie's world feels easier to admire than it is to worry over.
  28. A Good Woman
    Pleasant and undemanding, all the more so whenever Tom Wilkinson's on-screen as a possible Erlynne suitor, the movie miscasts Hunt as the pragmatic seductress.
  29. The Summit
    The Summit is at its most powerful when the filmmakers simply tell the tale, which gradually develops the unsettling suspense of a horror movie, with K2 cast as the implacable killer.
  30. Liam
    Acting is the strongest element in Stephen Frears's Liam.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White Oleander
    Ultimately sacrifices nuance to tidy epiphanies about personal growth.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Due Date
    Fast, lazy, and out of control in a manner that's basically commendable.
  33. Happiness Runs
    Loosely based on writer-director Adam Sherman's similar cult upbringing and disillusionment, the film builds on a fascinating cautionary tale, but doesn't develop its characters past whatever movie-of-the-week crisis each suffers from.
  34. The Aristocrats
    The Aristocrats is a veritable talent show itself, albeit one that feels inescapably slight. To rejigger another ancient joke: The food at this place isn't terrible. But the portions are really small.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hugo
    Perfunctorily mounted as a children's adventure, Hugo is weirdly staid in its pacing, and the screenplay, by Scorsese's "Aviator" collaborator John Logan, is full of groaners. The movie is far more successful as a barely veiled issue flick.
  36. The Black Waters of Echo's Pond
    Bloody and gory, but in a friendly way, this is a movie for old-school horror fans who understand that, sometimes, bad is good.
  37. Cold Weather
    Steadily building in intensity from sluggish interest to mild excitement, Cold Weather is a slight movie with a long, circuitous fuse-and that's the point.
  38. A Bag of Hammers
    A few striking performances - Ritter, Preston, and Canterbury are especially great - smooth out what might have been a much bumpier ride.
  39. Dark Tourist
    Cudlitz gives a haunted performance as a weathered, misogynistic, homophobic, blue-collar man roiling with demons, and Griffith can break your heart as a good woman staggering under the weight of life.
  40. Tokyo Tribe
    Tokyo Tribe is Sono cackling hysterically while smashing a keytar. Sure, there are a few sour notes, but he's made a great blast of noise.
  41. Price Check
    Mabius is understated and sympathetic as a guy who makes some dickish choices, and Susan, played by anyone else, might be a completely unrelatable force of nature. Although Posey renders Susan's instability and dominance with gusto, the character's vulnerability and pain are manifest.
  42. Without the King
    A cut above the average Quad-bound video agit-prop doc, Michael Skolnik's Without the King succeeds mostly through negative virtues.
  43. Matchstick Men
    Single-dad sitcom is not Sir Ridley's forte but, anachronistically evoking the ring-a-ding-ding ambience of "Auto Focus" and "Catch Me If You Can," his mise-en-scène is as impeccable as Roy's pad.
  44. State of Play
    An effectively involving journalism-cum-conspiracy yarn with a bang-bang opening and a frantic closer.
  45. Greetings from Tim Buckley
    The film articulates this dimension of the story, regrettably, in little more than biopic platitudes and daddy-issue clichés...But it's not all bad. Badgley delivers a nuanced performance of such ferocity he almost singlehandedly makes a conventional film seem loose and improvisatory.
  46. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
    A movie of many stupid pet tricks and one basic joke: As in the original, Elle's intelligence is consistently -- if understandably -- underestimated.
  47. Dig Two Graves
    Dig Two Graves isn't the most original horror film, nor is it the scariest, but most of its short runtime offers passable suspense and an engaging protagonist.
  48. Past Life
    Past Life does add up to more than the sum of its heavy-handed miscalculations.
  49. Llyn Foulkes One Man Band
    While his obsessiveness seems neurotic, and watching this film is not always comfortable, it also seems to be all part of the process.
  50. A Sidewalk Astronomer
    An unenlightening recitation of lay science and salad bar spirituality that could only resonate with those audiences who last year actually flocked to a movie called "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"
  51. Daylight
    Punctuating views of the bucolic countryside and sky attest to nature or God's indifference to human suffering, but such formalist touches don't overwhelm the responsive ensemble work in this resourceful, taboo-prodding sickie.
  52. Night Watch: Nochnoi Dozor
    Despite its cheesy blood and thunder and ludicrous "Sunshine Makers" metaphysics, this is the funniest apocalypse I've seen since George Romero's "Land of the Dead."
  53. A Silent Voice
    It has some interesting visuals, but A Silent Voice demands investment in the redemption of someone who’s impossible to root for.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Princesas
    De Aranoa never condescends to his subjects, and Caye's mixture of aggression and tenderness is appealingly authentic.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Everybody Says I'm Fine!
    Writer-director Bose shows depth when he deals directly with Xen's loneliness. The scenes that show him after-hours, as he gazes yearningly at the nightclub patrons across the street, are especially moving.
  56. Bitter Honey
    Lemelson's interviews can be repetitive in their direct staging, but there's inspiration in his conceit of using a shadow-puppet performance set to gamelan music as interludes.
  57. In Search of Israeli Cuisine
    History and politics are present in this film, but over at the kids table.
  58. Mad Tiger
    Yet another documentary paean to an unsung musical act whose fringe staying power is as remarkable as its lack of mainstream coverage.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Burning Man
    The high-sheen Australian drama Burning Man leans heavily on a scrambled chronology, and likewise feels tonally mixed up, but it certainly does keep you guessing.
  60. Cabin Fever: Patient Zero
    Vincent Guastini's makeup effects are the star here, a refreshing change from the inky CGI morphing of too much modern horror.
  61. Letters from Baghdad
    Unfortunately, the doc is devoid of any real context, including how work such as Bell’s helped lead to the quagmire that has unsettled the region for decades.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Take
    Combining the common-sense lucidity of Klein's "No Logo" with an undertone of melancholy doggedness, The Take follows its characters through a national election that feels like an antipodean doppelgänger of our own.
  63. Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
    She's trying to access a shared humanity, to foster an unusual intimacy with viewers - to strip herself, often literally, to a naked and undeniable truth.
  64. Found
    Writer-director Scott Schirmer eschews the ironic approach, thankfully, and instead works to pull genuine tension from his material. He does that quite well, and any unintentional laughs (or eye rolls) are icing.
  65. La Maison de la Radio
    La Maison de la Radio is the kind of film that divides its audience into two camps: those happy to observe and those impatient to be told a story.
  66. The 33
    The 33, directed by Patricia Riggen, makes a valiant effort to tell this harrowing story onscreen, and there are moments when every shifting plate clicks right into place. In the end, though, the picture stumbles, and it may not completely be the fault of the filmmakers.
  67. Chasing Great
    It’s clear where all of this is going, but McCaw surprises with his mental rigor (he excelled academically) and total commitment to his sport (he plays with a stress fracture in his foot).
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sukiyaki Western Django
    This delirious spaghetti eastern could only have come from the boiling brain of Takashi Miike, the prolific Japanese auteur whose spectacularly uneven films account for the lion's share of the past decade's most utterly batshit movie moments.
  69. 21 Jump Street
    Though these mismatched cops bounce well off each other, Tatum, in his first comedic lead role, is the better performer, both more riotous and affecting.
  70. The Seagull
    Onstage, we get to choose which face to regard, to watch each hard truth or unexamined lie crash against each character’s carefully maintained set of illusions. Here, we mostly see one face at a time. Those faces are grand enough that this Seagull still has much to recommend.
  71. Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey
    Smitten with his characters, Sanders takes the elements of teen exploitation films and fashions a simple, placid return to innocence.
  72. Salvation Boulevard
    Salvation Boulevard isn't groundbreaking or even consistently funny, but it is mildly inventive and the absurdities of its characters are tender and recognizably human. Best of all, we're encouraged to laugh with them rather than at them.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Queen of Versailles
    I've seen The Queen of Versailles twice, and both times the audience laughed frequently at the Siegel family's sheer tackiness.
  74. The End of the Affair
    About halfway through I began to imagine it as it might have been directed by Douglas Sirk as a vehicle for Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson.
  75. Beneath
    Beneath may be an earnest goof, but any intended irony is so spiked with rainy-day-matinee movie love that the result is an oddly guileless horror exercise, unscary but rather adorable.
  76. Sushi: The Global Catch
    This kaleidoscopic meticulousness proves comprehensive without ever feeling tedious, an especially impressive feat considering how quickly it becomes message-oriented.
  77. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
    A movie as laconic as its hero, Ghost Dog is nonetheless diminished by its most un-Zen-like attachment to this underlying sentimentality.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rocky Balboa
    Rocky Balboa, effortlessly reflexive and patently, even proudly, absurd, is a tough movie to dislike -- and believe me, I've tried.
  79. Matthew Barney: No Restraint
    Chernick's film traces the creation of Barney's "narrative sculpture" with open curiosity and an alert, amiable eye.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Death Wish
    An enjoyable bad movie instead of a purely offensive one. [01 Aug 1974, p.67]
    • Village Voice
  81. Ginger & Rosa
    In its closing minutes Potter restores the calmer observational tone and mood that distinguish much of Ginger & Rosa, providing a lovely summation of its main character's age-appropriate contradictions.
  82. Eros
    The omnibus film usually saves its home run for the climax, but Eros begins with the best third, Wong Kar-wai's "The Hand."
  83. Dandelion
    Atmosphere trumps plot throughout, enabling the movie to survive an unfortunate, if inevitable, final-act turn.
  84. Finding Fela!
    Once it gets going, it's fine, a somewhat scattered précis of the life and accomplishment of one of the 20th century's towering musicians, activists, and curiosities.
  85. Camp X-Ray
    For much of its running time, Camp X-Ray stands as the fullest on-screen imaginative treatment of two of the defining developments of the last 15 years of American life: the deployment of women in our volunteer army, and the indefinite detention of men we think, but can't quite prove, deserve it.
  86. Casa de mi Padre
    The humor doesn't only target south of the border. Like any good genre product, Casa also smuggles in rude social criticism.
  87. Lu Over the Wall
    Even by anime standards, Lu Over the Wall is best enjoyed by disconnecting your logic circuits and just enjoying the pretty colors and sounds.
  88. Ya lyublyu tebya
    Not without its loopy charms. Indeed, the film is most buoyant when most over-the-top.
  89. Goya in Bordeaux
    What can a movie tell us about the painter that the paintings do not? The effort has done no favors for Picasso or Rivera or Bacon.
  90. The First Basket
    The First Basket is more than a triumphalist screw-you to those who think Jews don't play sports.
  91. Mosquita y Mari
    Despite occasional lapses into showy expressionistic slo-mo, Guerrero's direction demonstrates a patience and attention to emotional detail that allows the two young leads' performances to develop naturally.
  92. Rich Hill
    Rich Hill does not add up to more than a series of vignettes. What it offers is a compassionate look at the intricacies of American poverty, where joblessness is only one factor.
  93. A Beautiful Mind
    It's doubly frustrating that after flirting with (and even upending) biopic conventions for much of its length, A Beautiful Mind finally gives in to them so readily.
  94. Japanese Story
    Totally convincing in a physically demanding role, Collette carries the movie on her shoulders -- and that weight is what it's all about.
  95. Love & Air Sex
    What's remarkable is that despite the sweaty overdetermination of the film's dude-bro interactions and the whole prefabricated concept of performance air sex, the love story has actual depth and sadness.
  96. The War Wagon
    The War Wagon is good for a few laughs and some spectacle while John Wayne and Kirk Douglas are taking Bruce Cabot and an outlandishly armored wagon apart. [14 Sep 1967, p.31]
    • Village Voice
  97. Road to Perdition
    Visually more coherent than "American Beauty," but despite the burnished mahogany of Conrad Hall's cinematography, Mendes still doesn't quite know how to fill a frame. Like the Hanks character, he's a slow study: The action is stilted and the tabloid energy embalmed.
  98. Lavender
    Gass-Donnelly (The Last Exorcism Part II) blends supernatural elements into a psychological thriller for a kind of spectral therapy, but his experimentation ultimately conforms to genre conventions.
  99. Player Hating: A Love Story
    A young boy's nonchalant attitude toward having a friend stick a loaded gun in his mouth as well as a man's numerous knife scars courtesy of his beloved wife definitely cut through the clichés about "thug life" to capture how violence is an integral, corrosive part of inner-city life.
  100. Pick of the Litter
    What are the concerns of coherent storytelling or in-depth documentation when all of these good boys and girls — yes they are! — are leaping and licking and tail-wagging and just being the best?
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