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 7.6 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. Patrik Age 1.5
    One is never bored, thanks to the innate charms of Skarsgård and young Ljungman.
  2. The Winning Season
    Writer-director James C. Strouse's The Winning Season respects its misfits (and its audience) by not stripping away their foibles in the service of sports-movie clichés.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Shaolin Soccer
    Crammed with wild action, obvious but well-mounted gags, and playful effects, the film is refreshingly silly.
  4. Fatal Promises
    Outlines a culture of cross-border corruption that preys on poverty and has become so widespread that it can now be mentioned in the same breath as the drug trade. The film also critiques the willful ignorance of law-making bodies that turn a blind eye to these atrocities.
  5. Beast
    Revisiting Beast may prove more satisfying than just visiting once. The first time through, the film simply proves too successful at capturing the listless ennui it’s depicting.
  6. Donkey Skin (re-release)
    Seasonally it's more appropriate as a May Day bacchanal, but in any month Demy's movie makes for an evocative globe-paperweight tableau of its place and time, and a concise demonstration of the disquietude inherent in classic fairy tales.
  7. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
    When it slows down, when it gives you time to think, Popstar reveals its weaknesses.
  8. G-Dog
    Once the stakes are raised in the final third, Mock allows her camera to roam over its subjects’ faces and let their story tell itself—a wise choice, made not a moment too soon.
  9. Est - Ouest
    Wargnier has assembled a stellar French and Russian cast, but all that talent can't overcome his heavy-handed screenplay.
  10. Herbie Hancock: Possibilities
    This is primarily a film for fans of all involved.
  11. Shockproof
    For a disposable entertainment, Shockproof has an intensity that sticks to the mind--yours, mine, or Richard Hamilton's.
  12. Syndromes and a Century
    Syndromes and a Century, which was commissioned by the New Crowned Hope festival to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, is a movie of long serene takes and gentle absurdities.
  13. The Girl in the Book
    Cohn is clearly on the right track toward making the kind of nuanced grown-up dramas that sadly are no longer in vogue.
  14. The Forbidden Kingdom
    Taken as a whole, though, it's an amiable lost-and-found of epic-adventure tropes. As I still illogically treasure "Willow," many a 10-year-old who sees Forbidden Kingdom will remember it fondly in spite of its flaws.
  15. Speed-Dating
    Likable enough to wear you down with its eager-to-please capering.
  16. Cecil B. DeMented
    Has the grace to send the audience out with a piece of Waters-written rap.
  17. The Notebook
    Amid the sticky-sweet swamp of Jeremy Leven's script, Rowlands and Garner emerge spotless and beatific, lending a magnanimous credibility to their scenes together. These two old pros slice cleanly through the thicket of sap-weeping dialogue and contrivance, locating the terror and desolation wrought by the cruel betrayals of a failing mind.
  18. How I Ended This Summer
    Playing an ignoble protagonist, Dobrygin keeps his motives always quietly evident; later, lost in a fog painted red by an emergency flare, he's an abject vision of man in a hell of his own making.
  19. Snow on Tha Bluff
    Bluff's portrait of street life has a grungy off-the-cuff realism that's only compromised by some obviously staged incidents.
  20. Dr T and the Women
    A flabby farce in which everyone seems to be making it up as they go along.
  21. Fonzy
    The comic plot of Fonzy is outrageous, but to writer-director Isabelle Doval, it's just an armature that supports its gently funny characters and its themes of emotional and filial connections.
  22. Punching the Clown
    Punching the Clown mirrors Henry's act: a minor triumph whose cult following doesn't yet know it exists.
  23. Collateral Damages
    The film's real flaw is its limited focus.
  24. The Bourne Supremacy
    The loss of the first film's hurtling who-am-I? story engine is keenly felt, and too much time is spent observing the characters get on and off planes, trains, and automobiles.
  25. Applause
    Usually an enervating process to witness onscreen, Steen's subtle calibrations of self-hatred and raging narcissism exhilarate.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    L'amour fou
    It plays like an extended auction catalog with commentary. Thematically recalling Olivier Assayas's "Summer Hours"-another film dealing with objects in a French art collection as receptacles for memory and personal biography-it sorely lacks that drama's tension between insular nostalgia and the wider, rapidly evolving outside world.
  27. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation
    For all its frantic eager-to-please-ness, Hotel Transylvania 3 doesn’t quite achieve the blissfully reliable drumbeat of hilarious throwaway gags that the earlier films managed.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Anna
    Taissa Farmiga (sister of Vera) is a marvel in the title role.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Harry and Tonto
    Mazursky's difficulty in making the transition from dramatic middle-shots to long shots, with the accompanying impulse to "universalize" his theme, indicates that he has not yet learned to trust his material, or appreciate his own sublime gift of being able to approach the secret of life through comic misunderstanding rather than cosmic understanding. [15 Aug 1974, p.63]
    • Village Voice
  30. Canopy
    Despite Wilson’s early control and aesthetic confidence, there isn’t a single scripted idea of weight or emotionality that pays off.
  31. You've Been Trumped Too
    If you don't know who to vote for by now, whatever you do, don't see this movie. It's only going to tell you bad things. We're having fun here, right?
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
    Shallower than the level of vermouth in a Claude Rains Martini, FMBD nonetheless has a wonderful breadth of characterization, delightful thrills, and philosophical speculations to boot. [30 Apr 1970, p.60]
    • Village Voice
  33. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    The longer versions of all Jackson's Middle-earth films have played better (and made more sense) than their theatrical cuts, but this time he's trimmed out something absolutely vital, the one element that, besides his mad gore-minded grandiloquence, has kept everything together five films running: an attention to the emotional lives of his hobbits.
  34. Blue Car
    Blue Car gets so much of the hard stuff (including Meg's Plath-via-Tori poetry) that it assumes the easy stuff will take care of itself. It doesn't.
  35. The Incredible Hulk
    Cheers to lower expectations, then, because The Incredible Hulk is The Pretty Good Hulk. All things considered, of course.
  36. For My Father
    While films like “The Band's Visit,” “Jellyfish,” and “Waltz With Bashir” suggest a subtler, more psychologically directed path for Israeli film, Dror Zahavi's For My Father is old-school social melodrama (plus bombs), all the way.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    4:44 Last Day on Earth
    The use of stock footage eventually approaches overkill in the montage-heavy climax. Much more impressive is the way Ferrara uses his own "documentary" footage of the city.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Reivers
    A slight, sentimental movie that is clearly to be enjoyed rather than respected. [29 Jan 1970, p.54]
    • Village Voice
  39. Saudate for the Future
    Infectious city symphony.
  40. The Beauty Academy of Kabul
    The idea isn't as odd as it might first appear, since running a salon is one of the few socially acceptable means for a woman in Afghanistan to earn an income. The execution, however, evokes a particularly outlandish Christopher Guest mockumentary.
  41. Mad Dog and Glory
    Murray's performance is successfully skewed, but in the De Niro oeuvre, Mad Dog is one more doughy characterization flecked with raisins. [16 Mar 1993]
    • Village Voice
  42. Zombeavers
    Director Jordan Rubin and the cast know the material is ridiculous, but calibrate the tone so that the dangers still feel dangerous.
  43. Sparks
    This comic noir is best when it's more comic, in both senses of the word.
  44. Soundtrack for a Revolution
    More often than not, these musical interludes are more like distractions aimed only to entice younger audiences (not a terrible thing).
  45. Moscow Never Sleeps
    Moscow Never Sleeps is ambitious to a fault. While O’Reilly flexes an ability to tie together several narratives, he introduces so many characters that some of their stories must fall by the wayside. It’s a shame, because that muddles the more interesting vignettes.
  46. Yes
    Potter's anachronistic rhyme schemes tumble forth with an out-damned-spot verve that rages against irrelevance.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Decent Factory
    A Decent Factory is just as much about the motives of the people asking the questions as those of the people avoiding the answers.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Civic Duty
    Expected ironies about homeland security, racial profiling, and fears of the Other land like a rain of anvils, and director Renfroe matches Krause's worked-up performance with a jiggly, flashy approximation of off-brand Tony Scott.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Primo Levi's Journey
    Primo Levi's Journey is almost willfully opaque about the actual circumstances of Primo Levi's journey. Who exactly was this man we're meant to be paying homage to, and why did it take him so long to get home?
  50. Shorts
    A cute and mildly clever fantasy.
  51. Our Little Sister
    Our Little Sister often vibrates with such tenderness of feeling that it’s difficult to dismiss outright. The excellent performances from the four lead actresses help offset the occasional heavy-handedness of the script, with Kore-eda alive to their distinctive tics and gestures.
  52. Batman Begins
    Nolan and his co-screenwriter David Goyer can only press the big buttons so hard—it's still an old-school superhero summer movie, the plotting tortuous, the characters relegated to one-scene-one-emotion simplicity, the digitized action a never ending club mix of chases and mano a manos.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Future of Food
    Wisely eschews standard anti-corporate bombast for measured tones.
  54. Racing Extinction
    When they devote most of their film to the horrors wrought by humanity and barely ten minutes to their solutions, and when those solutions are all about mitigating problems, it's hard to feel anything but despondent.
  55. Lion
    Commercial filmmaking still fumbles interiority and moral complexity. So it’s fortunate for the filmmakers that Brierley's book also is thick with the kinds of things that crowdpleasers ace.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's Always Fair Weather
    Kelly, Dailey, and Michael Kidd are good as the three returning veterans, but their abilities are no match for an unbelievable script and that good old MGM realism. [02 Nov 1955, p.6]
    • Village Voice
  57. Lila & Eve
    The movie, directed by Charles Stone III — who gave us 2002's likable Drumline — runs hot and cold, suspenseful and well observed, well acted and often affecting, but somewhat tiresome and implausible by the end.
  58. The Anthropologist
    The film is saved by its illuminating — if heartbreaking — examination of isolated locales rarely seen on film.
  59. Four Moons
    The film is earnest and nobly intentioned, though its execution doesn't measure up.
  60. Yogi Bear
    Adults will be thrilled to see Anna Faris as nature documentarian Rachel. Greeting Yogi by speaking in "brown bear," the actress never fails to be seriously goofy.
  61. 13 Sins
    [Webber's] performance is crazy good, and so emotionally charged that viewers may be forgiving of a finale overloaded with silly twists.
  62. Under the Electric Sky
    Under the Electric Sky manages to be amusing even while it’s annoying you.
  63. Maps to the Stars
    The fact that Cronenberg directed almost works against Maps to the Stars: We expect greatness from him, not just proficiency, and he doesn't exactly have a gift for comedy, not even the black kind. But the movie still has the darkly glittering Cronenberg touch, even if it's just a light brushing.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Trouble with Bliss
    The tiredness of its conceit aside, the film manages to ingratiate thanks to a script that pleasantly ping-pongs from one digressive dialogue to another and a persuasive performance by Hall.
  65. The Tribe
    It's a staggering film, but not a brilliant one — a superior version would have played more with the gulf between our senses and theirs.
  66. The Vertical Ray of the Sun
    Filled with bird sounds, Vertical Ray is almost surreal in its paradise imagery -- the movie is a sultry, harmoniously expressionistic riot of pale greens and deep yellows.
  67. All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone
    All Governments Lie is worthy testimony that many journalists are in it for the truth.
  68. The Empire in Africa
    Cannily timed by lefty distributor Cinema Libre Studio to coincide with the release of Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond, Philippe Diaz's documentary claims to present Sierra Leone's civil war in a radically different light. More accurately, it shifts the emphasis and fills out the picture.
  69. Tracktown
    Although Tracktown presents itself as adorably, harmlessly twee, I wished Pappas had tapped deeper into the dark side she hints at — the side that makes her protagonist more concerned about being a winner than about being a person.
  70. Battlefield America
    Although it's grotesque to see pre-teens stomping in underground warehouse-battle settings, at least Battlefield America's racial politics are interesting.
  71. Heart of a Dog
    Her documentary sporadically locates profound truth amid its myriad musings about the momentous and the everyday. Often, however, Anderson's hushed-tone articulations of her thoughts on these subjects prove affected, and her stream-of-consciousness style, though acutely constructed, is more alienating than inviting.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Star Trek: Insurrection
    The latest Star Trek flick, Insurrection, is the 9th, and although it doesn't suck as completely as some ignoble odd-numbered low points, it doesn't exactly boldly go where no one has gone before.
  73. Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
    Despite Herrington's skill at capturing the physicality of the game, Stroke is strictly for golf nuts and masochists--assuming there's a difference.
  74. Folk Hero & Funny Guy
    Well-written and inoffensively directed by Jeff Grace, the film suffers from an overall brown color.
  75. Troubadours
    The film is entertaining but hardly penetrating.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lustre
    The film is marred by a reliance on cheap DV effects, but authenticity strains through in the performances.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Illuminata
    For all its ambitions, Illuminata sheds only murky light on what separates theater from life.
  78. Storks
    In between Storks' bumptious best and worst are its uncertain quiet patches.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers
    For those who have let the war drift into the background noise of talking heads, Iraq for Sale is a much needed reminder of the criminal negligence of those who led the troops into this mess and those who have gotten rich off of it.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Down to Earth
    There is a lot of electricity running in these cables, and directors Chris and Paul Weitz, responsible for "American Pie," know how to tap enough of it that almost every minute of Down to Earth is entertaining. But not quite surprising.
  81. Paradise Lost 2: Revelations
    As documentary filmmaking, it's cheap and suspect. As advocacy, it's necessary.
  82. The Tracker
    A decent little exercise in nativist outrage, Rolf de Heer's The Tracker, with its dynamic between indigene and colonial oppressor, could've easily been a western.
  83. The Returned
    The film suffers from a series of unsatisfying endings, but it's nonetheless refreshing to see a zombie movie with brains behind the camera instead of on the menu.
  84. Take the Lead
    It's no surprise to anyone who's seen his Robert Rodriguez films that Banderas works well with kids. But it may surprise those who saw "Evita" that he can make a music-and-dance movie that doesn't suck.
  85. The Last Shaman
    On occasion, director Degan attempts to capture the plant's power via psychedelic montage, layering colors over jungle footage and Freeman's home movies, but more fascinating are the details of the rituals, the river-trek photography, Freeman's frankness about his struggles with depression, and Degan's quick portraits of the people Freeman meets along his way — none of whom gets enough screen time.
  86. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
    Broomfield's investigatory technique remains a frustrating pileup of unfocused Q&As and misplaced credulity. But when Broomfield travels to her Michigan hometown, he pieces together a life blighted at breech-birth: a grotesque of abandonment, incest, physical and sexual abuse, pregnancy at 13, and homelessness.
  87. Julia
    Tilda Swinton doesn't merely act the title role in French director Erick Zonca's Julia--she devours it, spits it back up, dances giddily upon it, twirls it in the air.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Mudge Boy
    Despite its chic pedigree, the film projects a shy modesty, a virtue largely attributable to Emile Hirsch's unflashy performance.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Broken Embraces
    Indeed, three decades into his career as a name-brand fashioner of zesty soapers, Spanish cinema's most beloved export could direct un film de Almodóvar with his eyes shut and still get a rise out of his fans. So who could blame the matador for letting the bull run the show this time?
  90. Going Down in LA-LA Land
    A lo-fi feature blend of "True West Hollywood Story" and a gay fairy tale.
  91. America America
    The director's deepest instincts are less epic than dramatic, with the result that he gets sidetracked more often than his errant hero. The picturesque is gained too often at the expense of the picaresque, and the contour of a legend is obscured time and again by the pointless intimacy of a close-up. [09 Jan 1964, p.12]
    • Village Voice
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football
    Thankfully, the kids' complicated impulses resist such packaging, whether they're catcalling head-scarved co-eds outside the local gas station or channeling racial resentments into extra hard hits.
  93. Anger Management
    Consistently wacky and sometimes nearly surreal.
  94. Run Lola Run
    An enjoyably glib and refreshingly terse exercise in big beat and constant motion.
  95. Out of the Furnace
    Cooper may have gone overboard in delineating the hardships of blue-collar life in Out of the Furnace. But he has a gift for getting actors to put some muscle into their work, and enough finesse to make sure the sweat doesn't show.
  96. That's What I Am
    The writing hits the weeds on occasion, but Pavone evokes with feeling adolescence as a series of outlandish physical punishments and sweetly remembered firsts.
  97. The Legend of Tarzan
    The fights are quick and brutal and bloodless, with too much slo-mo and sped-up stuff, and some clever camera angles that get cut from before you can work out what you're looking at.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Instinct
    Instinct moves along at a competent clip, but it's mostly a tease.
  99. Convento
    Alterman's camerawork, panning and zooming about Christiaan's ants, rabbits, birds, and other assorted mecha creatures, conveys a sense of ominous religious awe.
  100. A Dirty Shame
    Waters's far-from-phallocratic sexual democracy is not so much hilarious as goofy and more rousing than arousing.
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