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. Diary of a Chambermaid
    Star Léa Seydoux — in her second collaboration with Jacquot (the first being 2012's Farewell, My Queen, in which she plays an adoring reader to Marie Antoinette) — further demonstrates, with each sly, gap-toothed grin, a keen understanding of power and impotence.
  2. Dark Blue World
    Dark Blue World and Sverak's previous "Kolya" were each written by the director's father, Zdenek, and both films betray a weakness for the symmetrical and sentimental.
  3. Breaking Upwards
    A low-budget romantic comedy that's smart and lively and, in the end, quite affecting.
  4. Citizen Gangster
    First-time writer-director Nathan Morlando shows commendable focus (even Cox dials it down), and his movie's modest aspirations nicely reflect the condition in which Boyd, his damaged charisma spent, finally thrives.
  5. Take Me to the River
    Take Me to the River takes a while to find its groove and capture what Charlie Musselwhite calls "that secret, Southern, Memphis ingredient."
  6. An Everlasting Piece
    It's a sprightly, low-fiber comedy while the comedy lasts.
  7. Scream 3
    Logic, motivation, suspense -- anything that might make the film frightening or resonant -- is buried under Dolby blams, medulla-shaming dialogue, and a rain of overdubbed hunting-knife schwings that grate like a 3 a.m. car alarm.
  8. Concussion
    Its characters are all too easily determined but never specific—or memorable.
  9. Escobar: Paradise Lost
    This is one of the greatest missed opportunities in recent cinema history: Del Toro looms more impressively on camera than he does in the marketing material, embodying a wicked man's perverse sense of family, honor, and self-interest.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Game 6
    Despite a late-inning swoon of pat emotional generosity, Game Six is a gratifying playground of high-wire language.
  11. Fever Pitch
    But the ickiest thing about Fever Pitch is its reverential Field of Dreams music.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    In the Land of Blood and Honey
    The denouement that sorts it all out moves from predictable tragedy to ludicrous redemption; closing titles confirm that the motivating intent in making In the Land of Blood and Honey was activist rather than artistic.
  13. The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger
    A warm and heartfelt but too often desultory and disorganized tribute to the down-to-earth intellectual.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Earthquake
    Halfway between a movie and a carnival huckster's gimmick, with the gimmick a great deal less interesting than the movie itself. [23 Dec 1974, p.89]
    • Village Voice
  15. Down a Dark Hall
    Ultimately, Down a Dark Hall falls victim to familiar teen horror tropes: a brooding lead with a heart of gold, predictable jump scares, wincingly bad romantic tension, and obvious villains.
  16. Winter Passing
    The film is so grindingly predictable that I was writing out a full plot synopsis in my notebook before it was half over, though the thick grains of Terry Stacey's photography and Deschanel's understated performance add a little kick to the family-dysfunction paces, and Ferrell's dive-bar rendition of the Eagles' "I Can't Tell You Why" is positively riveting. Winter Passing should have been a musical.
  17. Tag
    No matter how much they remind us that this is all based on a true story, at heart Tag is still a dumb, goofy Hollywood comedy with big stars running around making glorious asses of themselves. It’d be a pretty good one, too, were it not so afraid to embrace its essence.
  18. Turtle: The Incredible Journey
    Turtle still has cinematographer Rory McGuinness's remarkable visuals in its favor, though, and reveals how even innocuous human activites curtail the loggerheads' centuries-in-the-making migration with refreshing subtlty.
  19. Hank: 5 Years from the Brink
    Joe Berlinger's Hank: 5 Years From the Brink is more workaday and less transfixing than projects of his like "Brother's Keeper" or "Paradise Lost."
  20. Across the Universe
    Across the Universe, which filters the cultural revolt through a blizzard of early Beatles songs, ends up both reductive and smugly condescending to a presumptively know-nothing audience.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Harsh Times
    Whatever political statement Ayer intended to make with his Gulf War veteran turned human time bomb is swamped by the movie's obnoxious badass envy, and Bale's gloating display of American-psycho fireworks, the kind of vein-popping show-boating that might as well be performed in a mirror.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jackass 3-D
    Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jackass is only Jackass when all is going to shit.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    A Knight's Tale
    At best harmless, if not quite fun.
  24. Human Nature
    An overemphatic, would-be wacky, ultimately tedious sex farce.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    How Stella Got Her Groove Back
    It's not a very well-made movie, but Stella's many limitations will probably be a side issue among its target audience, irrelevant next to those repeating images of Angela being so rich and beautiful and black.
  26. A Dirty Shame
    Waters's far-from-phallocratic sexual democracy is not so much hilarious as goofy and more rousing than arousing.
  27. Unscrewed
    Even if actorliness sometimes invades the tired faux-doc form, Unscrewed is, in the end, a likable, wrinkly taint of a movie.
  28. Guilty of Romance
    Mostly, Guilty of Romance seems content allowing characters to verbally abuse each other before eventually reaching the inevitable conclusion that life is a burden and all love is illusory.
  29. For Here or to Go?
    It's enjoyable spending some time with dreamy Vivek and Shveta (Melanie Kannokada, also known as Melanie Chandra), who are lovely together despite their clumsy communication.
  30. Capital
    A tacky corporate noir that makes you long for the leanness of Margin Call, or even the clumsy theatrics of Arbitrage.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Transporter 2
    Choreographer Corey Yuen's use of a fire hose is far more creative than anything in the stale kidnapper plot.
  32. Million Dollar Arm
    If the filmmakers had been more daring with perspectives and narrative structure, and afforded their Indian characters the screentime and agency JB enjoys on his adventure, Million Dollar Arm might have distinguished itself.
  33. Us and Them
    As sleek and polished as Us and Them looks, it finds Martin not only biting from more established filmmakers, but biting off more than he can chew.
  34. American Violet
    A docudrama with a good heart but a heavy hand.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    What's the Matter with Kansas?
    Paradoxically, the movie feels dated in the sense that it pre-dates both the recession and Obama's campaign, yet prescient in illuminating a crisis that plagues us today.
  36. God Bless America
    The interplay between Murray and Barr is closely and carefully handled, but when the monotonous squib-popping subsides, the movie is often static and talky, lapsing into criticism-hedging qualifications and anti-everything speechifying.
  37. Three Stars
    Hachmeister's understatement results in a narrative plateau somewhere in the last third of the film, and viewers who showed up hungry may become impatient.
  38. L for Leisure
    What makes L for Leisure more than just a collection of clever, well-photographed jokes is the utter sincerity embedded within the constant sarcasm.
  39. Tiger Eyes
    An engaging (if somewhat slender) portrait of the violence of adolescent maturation.
  40. Religulous
    Bill Maher's one-man stand-up attack on religious fundamentalism is a dog that has more bark than bite--a skeptical, secular-humanist hounding of the hypocrites, amusingly annotated with sarcastic subtitles and clips from cheesy biblical spectacles.
  41. Jumping the Broom
    A late-act crisis precipitated by scandalous maternity news is straight out of the Tyler Perry Academy of Plotting, and all the beseeching of the Lord sounds like little more than product placement.
  42. The Family Stone
    It's hard to fathom why anyone would voluntarily endure a holiday family reunion movie -- a genre devised solely to demonstrate how grotesque and how heartwarming families can be--when actual holiday family reunions already exist for those very reasons.
  43. The Glass Castle
    Destin Daniel Cretton’s adaptation of Walls’s book of the same name just often enough bursts to raucous life.
  44. Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish
    Annenberg's attitudinous Shakespeare riff is a unique blend of psychodrama, ethnographic experimentation, and high-concept hustle.
  45. West of the Jordan River
    The maddeningly unfocused Israeli documentary West of the Jordan River doesn’t reveal anything insightful about Gaza settlers’ reasons for either supporting or rejecting a two-state solution.
  46. Adam
    Other than Rose Byrne's on-screen radiance and a soothingly warm palette lit by cinematographer Seamus Tierney, there's not much to get passionate about in this amiable chamberpiece from theater director Max Mayer.
  47. The Unknown Woman
    Repellent piece of garbage.
  48. Eleven Minutes
    Charming and unexpectedly perceptive portrait cum procedural proves the DIY-authentic corrective to Unzipped, a warts-and-all chronicle of McCarroll’s yearlong preparation for his inaugural show at New York Fashion Week.
  49. Moon Shadow
    If Moon Shadow does sometimes overcome its sentimentalism and faulty parallels, it's because the film is altogether unburdened by cynicism.
  50. Claire Dolan
    Less awful than inert, Claire Dolan comes across as a willfully bad movie.
  51. Cabin Fever
    Roth never fully exploits the woods around him, and the homes of the locals are far too middle-class, but because so many clichés are discarded amid the flesh rot, even the patented "Night of the Living Dead" coda feels sharp-edged and genuine.
  52. A Chronicle of Corpses
    McElhinney may have made the ultimate anti-calling card, a movie bold and deranged enough to tip its hat to Edgar Ulmer and Barry Lyndon.
  53. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
    Wallows in the same affected retro stylishness as the earlier film (Croupier), suffers from the same lack of narrative focus, and is just as choked with clichés.
  54. Santa Smokes
    Overall the acting is sound, the missteps few, and the murky digicam smash-and-grab sheen entirely apt for the cacophonous Christmas crush.
  55. Greedy Lying Bastards
    It’s too bad that Rosebraugh himself can be so off-putting. The data presented is horrifying enough without sarcastic narration, or his Roger & Me–style pursuit of an interview with ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
  56. The Cut
    Ultimately, the film's wearying qualities pay off both as verisimilitude — you do feel like you've been through something — and as awe-inspiring history, making visceral art out of a global migration.
  57. Race
    Were it not so committed to telling the official story in bullet points, Race might have found a more provocative angle about athletes and artists who work through and around the powers that be.
  58. The End of Love
    It's the kind of indie in which shrugging naturalism means nobody has a distinctive personality or energy, and the claustrophobic sense of young Industry workers collarbone-deep into their own navels is hard to shake.
  59. Midnight's Children
    Even if you've read the novel, and are prepared for the long running time and haphazard structure, this isn't a movie you should expect to feel or even closely follow. See it if Midnight's Children is a novel you always wanted the gist of.
  60. The Human Surge
    Surreal and wordlessly unsettling, Eduardo Williams’ globe-crossing feature The Human Surge is intimate and pleasurably inscrutable.
  61. On the Road
    Here is one glimmer of truth in what's otherwise a deliberately unfinished fraud - another "primitive" postwar antique repurposed for boutique sale.
  62. You're Not You
    The most interesting aspects of the film — the real pressures felt by caregivers; popular perception of the severely disabled — are obliterated by the heavy-handed script and Swank’s inspirational bromides.
  63. 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.
  64. The Details
    Top-shelf cast, headed by Tobey Maguire, slips into familiar grooves of adultery, lies, blackmail, and pet poisoning, it's the spectacular blow-ups and dressing-downs that make this such a nervy pleasure.
  65. In the Land of Pomegranates
    The film is a jumble, with no sense of meaningful interaction.
  66. Watchmen
    Watchmen is neither desecratory disaster nor total triumph. In filming David Hayter and Alex Tse's adaptation of the most ambitious superhero comic book ever written, director Zack Snyder has managed to address the cult while pandering to the masses.
  67. Boy Culture
    All told, this is a harmless, well-packaged bit of overly familiar fluff.
  68. Saints and Soldiers
    The thin backstory hints at a conflict between the religious convictions of the hero (helpfully named Deacon) and the demands of combat, but it never fully materializes; as it is, we mainly know that he's a Mormon because he doesn't smoke or drink coffee.
  69. The Chorus
    The cinematic equivalent of filtered water, The Chorus is all smooth, nutrient-free clichés. This shamelessly globalized French Oscar submission even opens with a shot of an American flag--perhaps an unconscious declaration of defeat for importable Gallic cinema.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lords of Dogtown
    Hardwicke's pop-Cassavetes melodrama nevertheless rides as smoothly as a big-budget after-school special, capturing youth struggles from an appropriately blown-out teen's-eye perspective.
  71. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
    Sweet and funny at either end, but in between, it sags with endless repetition of gross bodily functions.
  72. Focus
    There's no honor among thieves, but there is dignity in Focus's ambition. And if the final film is more vodka ad than all-time classic, there's still no shame in pouring another cocktail and rewinding the tape.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
    Here, Coco's cast as a femme fatale who preys on a helpless nebbish--the Audrey Tautou--starring "Coco Avant Chanel" was much more fun.
  74. Miami Connection (1987)
    Absurd, yes, but director Richard Park and his game and guileless cast have the highest of spirits, and the nonsense bubbles like a bottle uncorked.
  75. Live Cargo
    The need to tell a story and the desire not to collide in Live Cargo, the narratively uneven but visually exquisite debut feature from writer-director Logan Sandler.
  76. Leatherheads
    For its entire two hours, Leatherheads is rarely less than very promising--and also rarely more.
  77. Tom of Finland
    The film is jammed with incident and detail but there’s little flow to the storytelling.
  78. The Cherry Orchard
    Allegiance to Chekhov, which director Michael Cacoyannis displays with somber earnestness in the new adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, is a particularly vexing handicap.
  79. The Five Senses
    Beautifully shot and littered with disquieting character business, the film is hog-tied by its own bad Big Idea.
  80. Cruel Intentions
    A "guilty pleasure" -- only it's the sort of film that would mock anyone who felt guilt in pleasure.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Speaking in Strings
    A clumsy labor of love with unforgivable lapses...key footage is missing, and it fails to show why Salerno-Sonnenberg's controversial interpretations are so original and valid.
  82. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
    Having already looted the Peckinpah and spaghetti-western archives, the director now quotes his own quotations, in service of not a sequel but a vociferous reiteration.
  83. Hyena
    The film's convoluted moral trajectory to hell may be as unoriginal as quoting Taxi Driver, and the pervasive violent menace can be needlessly punishing (including a drugged sexual assault), but as stylish, scorched-earth entertainment, it'll get you in its teeth.
  84. Making Grace
    Real, dramatic tension erupts as the strains placed on the women's relationship surface, offering a candid look at what the stresses of parenthood can do to any couple.
  85. Me, Too
    The film powerfully hits the note of universalism that is its goal; haven't many of us fallen for someone that we, they, and the world deem out of our league?
  86. The Fate of the Furious
    The biggest show is, naturally, saved for last.... Nothing in all of the Fast & Furious movies has ever felt bigger or more ridiculous — two things F8 rightfully thrives on. It’s exhilarating. Now how will they top this one?
  87. It's All Gone Pete Tong
    Lots of Dowse's ideas work well--the ringing tinnitus, the conversion of sound to visible waves, the trimming of treble and bass for underwatery effect, the removal of ambient noise entirely. But as the humor flags, It's All Gone Pete Tong starts to feel more like an exercise.
  88. Non-Stop
    In the end, Non-Stop is a waste of a perfectly good Neeson, and of our time and goodwill. Please make it stop.
  89. Coastlines
    For some fans, the taste of on-location color matters most, but Nuñez's idea of the characters' ordinariness translates to flavorlessness.
  90. Support Your Local Sheriff!
    Unfortunately, Support Your Local Sheriff is basically serial material that in straining to be something more ends up being something less. [08 May 1969, p.47]
    • Village Voice
  91. Little Accidents
    All the secrets, lies, and consequences feel as authentic as the Appalachian milieu, but the film lacks the memorable idiosyncrasy of a River's Edge, or more fittingly, the myth-making lyricism of Matewan.
  92. Decoding Annie Parker
    Decoding Annie Parker is a better living-with-disease drama than medical mystery.
  93. Storks
    In between Storks' bumptious best and worst are its uncertain quiet patches.
  94. Valkyrie
    Valkyrie feels like another installment in the never-ending franchise -- not just the action-movie one, but the Tom Cruise one. Like the operation itself, it's a good idea -- just not well-executed.
  95. Douchebag
    In its rushed, implausible moment of reckoning, Douchebag ends up validating the frat-boy credo: Bros before hos.
  96. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
    If the grand finale isn't as resonantly scary as the original's, maybe that's just because, try though we might, we're no longer impressionable kids.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Date Night
    A jumble of genres, tones, and styles, Date Night ultimately strains to be a serious movie about marriage, with one joke: that, even when surrounded by excitement, Claire and Phil revert to being dull. But in practice, their dullness is just dull.
  98. Driving Lessons
    The sentiment's a bit thick sometimes, but Walters remains sharp, and is sure to inspire drag queens everywhere.
  99. The DUFF
    There's freedom in facing the truth. There would be even more freedom in a heroine finishing the film in her favorite ugly overalls, but we haven't gotten there yet.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Stupid Boy
    The result is a better-late-than-never coming-of-age tale that is by turns earnest and corny, though never stupide.
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