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. The Girl Next Door
    Occasionally smirky.
  2. Love, etc.
    The admirable Gainsbourg refrains from overacting, but her leading men never quite transcend the emptiness and inanity of their characters' dilemma.
  3. Pop & Me
    The most revelatory moment is provided not by the spectacle of the Roes clinging to each other on a bungee cord, but by Julian Lennon, who pops up on the beach in Monaco to give a terse evaluation of his father.
  4. Auggie Rose
    Amid the awkward pacing and gaping plot holes, the film's chief point of interest is Goldblum's morbidly fascinating performance: equal parts Walter Neff and Captain Kirk.
  5. BookWars
    Artless but seductive.
  6. I Remember Me
    Some of the testimonials are underedited, but as a work of passionate advocacy, I Remember Me can't be faulted.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    In July
    A nimbler approach to border crossing, German-born director Fatih Akin's In July resembles a shaggier "Serendipity," with a similar moony conflation of coincidence and destiny.
  8. Luminarias
    Chock-full of feisty-frank go-girl sextalk speculating on white guys' underplayable size.
  9. Secret Society
    There's a certain gutsy allure to the wildly improbable proceedings.
  10. Lovely & Amazing
    Everyone in this chintz-covered world is a little creepy.
  11. Lan Yu
    For all of its careful realism, Lan Yu is constructed around clichés, plummeting toward a modestly heroic sacrifice and a tearjerking act of fate. But Kwan is a master of shadow, quietude, and room noise, and Lan Yu is a disarmingly lived-in movie.
  12. Cleopatra's Second Husband
    An engagingly grim psychological thriller.
  13. Devils on the Doorstep
    By the final shot, which assumes the viewpoint of a decapitated head, its appalled comedy has swelled, beyond outrage, to a pitch of punch-drunk hysteria.
  14. Bugs!
    As with the more glamorously photographed "MicroCosmos," the climbing, scurrying, and munching eventually grows tiresome, but the film is not without its highlights.
  15. Winter Sleepers
    Unfolds in a shroud of nonspecific suggestiveness but never emerges from under it.
  16. Murder by Numbers
    But owing no doubt to the requirements of Sandra Bullock, the movie's above-the-line star, executive producer, and worst enemy, this potboiling procedural never stands a chance of disproving its title.
  17. Judy Berlin
    A bit precious, ultimately wearisome.
  18. Restless
    Relying on rote culture-clash pratfalls, Gilfillan belabors the symmetries.
  19. Santitos
    There's no gold dust to be found here, just an awful lot of stick-on glitter.
  20. Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember
    Even Mastroianni cannot hold our attention for over three hours.
  21. Two Women
    Its awkward mix of polemic and melodramatics probably won't travel very well.
  22. Made
    Handheld sprinting and swish-pans try to enliven the duo's shenanigans: undermotivated fisticuffs, fun with the nutty controls on their limousine (the roof slides open!), Vaughn's endless yapping.
  23. Greenfingers
    Owen and Mirren are fun to watch, but the film, despite the many shots of gardens in full bloom, lacks visual distinction.
  24. A Matter of Taste
    A Matter of Taste's largest handicap is restraint: It's too tasteful. The climactic crisis is a broken leg, and the off-screen denouement is unimaginative.
  25. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
    In the absence of any greater cultural context, the ritual reiteration of Greenberg's greatness grows wearisome.
  26. Novocaine
    Martin seems uncomfortable and oddly waxen (the orange Al Gore makeup doesn't help), injecting Frank with neither restless anger nor wry humor.
  27. Waydowntown
    With wit and empathy to spare, waydowntown acknowledges the silent screams of workaday inertia but stops short of indulging its characters' striving solipsism.
  28. Flawless
    Flawless never approaches the rancid bluster of "8MM," but it's an equally dishonest piece of manipulative hackwork.
  29. CyberWorld
    A techno-happy bumrush screaming the joy of never thinking twice about repeating things ad nauseam, and as loud as possible.
  30. The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein
    Mad Songs saves its most memorable image for its hard-earned climax, which molds the ambiguous, hallucinatory spectacle of a combusting effigy into a viewer-implicating demonstration of crowd psychology and a harrowing cri de coeur.
  31. Money Buys Happiness
    At best, plays like an attenuated "Seinfeld" episode.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Notorious C.H.O.
    All stand-up comedy is oral aggression, but Cho's is an especially fascinating strain.
  33. What to Do in Case of Fire
    A blitz of anti-authoritarian poses so feel-good you'd think someone was selling you sneakers.
  34. The Three Marias
    He's (director Abranches) so focused on creating a strikingly mannerist visual style that he forgets to flesh out his plot and characters.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mansfield Park
    In trying so hard to entertain, ends up sabotaging itself.
  36. Shaft
    As an action flick, Shaft is clumsy out of the gate and overfond of hurtling stuntmen through windows.
  37. Little Otik
    This comic horror story rivals A.I. as the year's creepiest representation of maternal love -- partly because it naturalizes the Frankenstein story in terms of human procreation.
  38. Sonny
    Amid the cliché and foreshadowing, Cage manages a degree of casual realism.
  39. Quitting
    Alternately grueling and soporific, Quitting is a movie about addiction that demands the viewer also give something up.
  40. Interview with the Assassin
    Pitched somewhere between Oliver Stone's "JFK" and the Seinfeld parody thereof, Neil Burger's debut never quite transcends jokester status -- it's a veritable menagerie of shaggy dogs, red herrings, and wild geese -- and the punchline doesn't live up to Barry's dead-eyed, perfectly chilled delivery.
  41. Kaaterskill Falls
    The filmmakers skillfully evoke the sense of menace that nature holds for many urban dwellers. -- Sometimes, though, the editing is choppy, and the film could use more of a script.
  42. The Four Feathers
    Feels both tiresomely old-fashioned and disturbingly topical.
  43. The Trials of Henry Kissinger
    Circumspect documentary.
  44. WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3
    A competent if overlong blend of policier, sci-fi conspiracy thriller, daikaiju eiga (giant monster) stompfest, and tragic romance. It's also anime (short for "cheaper than live-action").
  45. The Red Stuff
    Evocative but ahistorical.
  46. Deterrence
    Begins and ends with footage of FDR intoning "I hate war," something the film takes two interminable hours to say.
  47. The Visit
    The last scenes contain so many moral and spiritual turnarounds that Alex (Harper) -- and the film -- are all but buried in the uplift. Harper, in a fierce, nuanced performance, deserves better.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Simian Line
    The film tries hard to avoid cliché but doesn't get very far.
  49. Coming Soon
    Refreshingly direct and even courageous in its confrontation of female pleasure -- specifically orgasms and masturbation, the staple of teen-boy comedies, but hitherto off-limits for girls.
  50. Me & Isaac Newton
    It's a TV show and a facile one at that.
  51. Sade
    Too bland and fustily tasteful to be truly prurient, Sade moves along at a reasonable clip, goosed by claps of gothic lighting, solemn chords, and amplified sound effects.
  52. ZigZag
    Kid-pulp screenwriter Goyer (Dark City, Blade I and II) manages some mature textures but his movie never surmounts its manipulative ideas.
  53. The Tavern
    Though rife with incidental plot holes, Foote's movie feels right even when nothing important is happening...which is much of the time.
  54. Trapped
    Luis Mandoki's brisk hack job pushes no more buttons than Connie Chung Tonight -- though, for better or worse, it's perverse enough to stage the traumatic event as a spouse swap.
  55. Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
    Quek is compelling not for her ideas but the tangled path by which she came to them.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Basket
    Combines the wholesomeness of "Old Yeller" with the moral and physical claustrophobia of "The Waltons."
  57. Mumford
    Mumford is good for a few chuckles and not nearly as egregious or cloying as it might have been.
  58. Lucie Aubrac
    This extraordinary story still sparks controversy in France, but in Berri's hands, it never comes alive...a shadow play of historical icons, rather than a portrait of people in love.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Short Eyes (re-release)
    Confrontational for its time yet paltry next to any episode of "Oz," Piñero's slim moral quandary is stocked with glib sermonizing and unfocused characterizations, but Robert M. Young's firmly anchored direction creates an appropriate chamber ambience.
  60. Sasayaki
    This dreamy, languorous farce offers a manageable strawberry-flavored alternative, a mildly kinky Hello Kitty sadomasochism.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Samehada otoko to momojiri onna
    Falls into the clotheshorse cliché: all dressed up and no place to go.
  62. I'm the One That I Want
    The time-outs from wisecracking -- invariably, to impart a simplistic self-esteem lesson or two -- feature the most awkward silences you're likely to endure in a comedy routine.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Janice Beard
    Playful and sentimental, with comic-book characterization and a half-orphaned, filially righteous head case, Janice Beard resembles a British "Amélie."
  64. The Big Carnival
    Ace in the Hole is a movie about the fascination of disaster that is itself a fascinating disaster.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Amati Girls
    An earnest ensemble weeper I'd at least feel comfortable seeing with my grandmother.
  66. City of Ghosts
    Musters gobs of atmosphere and touristy menace without attending much to story or character.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!
    Intermittently engaging and moving, P.S. has gathered a bit of dust over the years. Still, it's nicely acted by the small cast.
  68. Dust
    Manchevski has a rare visual intelligence, whether filming the face of a dying woman or Times Square's reflection in a windshield. But in reaching for a cubist style of storytelling, he sacrifices character and motivation.
  69. Amores Perros
    Undeniably high-powered. At 153 minutes, it's also punishingly overlong.
  70. Vatel
    Vatel is dull and silly, but the holiday season doesn't offer a better sets-and-costumes workshop.
  71. Stevie
    Foreigners often comment on the peculiar American combination of superficial friendliness and profound indifference. Stevie epitomizes a related national trait -- the belief in the curative powers of publicity.
  72. Assassination Tango
    Dramatically lopsided, Assassination Tango is a spontaneous life-slice in which John J. (standing in for Duvall) fumbles like a besotted granddad toward empathic connections. That it doesn't "work" is a measure of its sincerity.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    American Adobo
    Adobo doesn't exoticize the culture so much as leaven it with a sense of ordinariness.
  74. Cookie's Fortune
    Long before it ends, its leisurely immersion in the Mississippi Delta has turned downright lukewarm and even chilly.
  75. B. Monkey
    B. Monkey is crawling with smart actors saying things they don't quite mean.
  76. The Ballad of Bering Strait
    Echoes the trajectory of the post-Communist-bloc region itself, unmoored and at the mercy of pitiless capitalist forces.
  77. Waking Ned Devine
    It's instructive that Waking Ned Devine is being so aggressively sold as a feel-good comedy; the "good" feeling in question is called condescension.
  78. Two Ninas
    Manages to gracefully step out of the way of its own referential overload.
  79. The World Is Not Enough
    Makes the strongest case for retirement since late-period Roger Moore.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blast from the Past
    Most fun when it's locked up with daddy.
  81. The Third Miracle
    The first half has a nifty B-movie feel--it's a canny little movie with a big, big theme.
  82. Thomas in Love
    It's squeamish about sex but not, unfortunately, sentiment.
  83. Legally Blonde
    A junk-food movie striving to be nutritious -- it's one of your racier Be Yourself after-school specials crossed with 'Who Moved My Cheese?" for Cosmo girls.
  84. Charlotte Gray
    The narrative is unexpectedly sleepy, excepting the occasional flashy set piece.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cuba feliz
    Frustratingly, Dridi tells us nothing about El Gallo other than what emerges through his music.
  86. The Shipping News
    In lieu of vaporous message-mongering, the languid, episodic narrative -- centering on hapless sadsack Quoyle (Spacey) -- streams along by the gentle force of a convincing melancholic undertow, a dejection and longing that's not so much surmounted as sustained.
  87. Godzilla 2000
    Offers some interesting twists for connoisseurs.
  88. The Heart of Me
    Madeleine's such a cold bitch that the adulterous lovers' anguished scruples scan like inert masochism.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Just an American Boy
    Looking puffier than he did in New York last month, Earle gets his band together, rewrites his play about executed Christian Karla Faye Tucker on the eve of opening night, defends his patriotism (and yours), and flogs the current LP. And then he rocks some more.
  90. Km. 0 - Kilometer Zero
    Aiming for Almodóvar lite, the flick is more reminiscent of "The Love Boat" -- drenched this time in cheery polysexuality. Everyone is an angel (and a horny little devil) in this breezy earthly trifle, even if the zaniness never quite takes wing.
  91. 200 Cigarettes
    Nothing much happens, and that's the point, but all this wheel spinning could have used more grease.
  92. Analyze This
    Enjoyable but slight— an intermittently funny, one-joke vaudeville.
  93. Dark Blue
    However misjudged and evidently cobbled together in the editing room, Dark Blue does have the nerve to drive right through the riots with Russell's saber-toothed bigot, implicitly linking the two phenomena and not being shy about the suffering on either side of the combat.
  94. Rana's Wedding
    It's tempting to read Abu-Assad's view of his ostentatiously wealthy heroine and her debutante narcissism as satirical of a certain cross-section of modernized Palestinians amid the occupation, but the placid, earnest way her dilemma takes up emotional space in his film suggests half-bakery.
  95. 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.
  96. Ghost River
    The only conceivable reason to immerse oneself in this inexplicable release is, of course, Huppert. Gravely, she accepts the challenge of delivering a coherent performance in a wildly incoherent role.
  97. Phone Booth
    Best appreciated as hilarious pulp metaphor, which, not coincidentally, happens to be one of the screenwriter's specialties.
  98. Bittersweet Motel
    As homey as old sweats.
  99. Little Secrets
    The film's broad performances and heavy-handed moralizing strike a note of condescension sure to be heard by the alienated teenager within us all.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    My Life Without Me
    What's annoying and eventually absurd is writer-director Isabel Coixet's decision to have her heroine keep the diagnosis a secret.
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