Village Voice's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Meet Me in Montenegro
    The quiet honesty of Anderson and Lina's interactions and raw, often handheld camerawork wash away the film's meandering pace and sometimes grating dialogue.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Saint Ralph
    The most blatant rip-off is of the "Rushmore" soundtrack. But Ralph Walker is no Max Fischer, and his monomania gets dull fast.
  3. DysFunktional Family
    It's nauseating, unfunny stuff, unmitigated by the revelation that Griffin's mom physically abused him.
  4. Left Luggage
    Krabbé alternates exaggeration with sentiment, but the main characters are relatively complex, and its surprise ending is genuinely affecting.
  5. What Lies Beneath
    Suggest a Clintons-at-home scenario for 2001 -- haunted by the ghosts of dalliances past.
  6. The Liberator
    Bolivar is eye-rollingly romanticized as a wonderful lover and an even better fighter in Alberto Arvelo's lushly produced, dully reverential The Liberator.
  7. Nobody Walks
    Ultimately, the director and her cinematographer, Christopher Blauvelt (Meek's Cutoff), prove to be more interested in capturing the perfection of L.A.'s perpetual sunshine and the ways in which the people beneath it seem subtly oppressed, as if the light is expecting more of them than they can possibly deliver.
  8. Casino Jack
    In the grand finale, Abramoff fantasizes about using a Senate hearing to blow the whistle on the entire corrupt establishment. His rant offers a clue to how this otherwise pointlessly manic movie might have honed its political edge.
  9. 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.
  10. In Our Nature
    By the time Savelson has hit all the obligatory checkpoints (unplanned pregnancy, dying parents, bear home invasion), the reconciliation we all saw coming has been achieved.
  11. That Demon Within
    Rock-dumb Hong Kong thriller That Demon Within is exhausting, and only sometimes batshit enough to be engaging.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Summer Storm
    One of the film's major assets is Stadlober's winningly natural performance-his moody charisma is irresistible.
  13. The Walker
    This is a serious movie and, gliding around the center of power, a stylish one. But, like its protagonist, The Walker is unable to close the deal.
  14. A Five Star Life
    Nice to look at but tedious to endure, A Five Star Life boasts a muted classiness that doesn't mitigate its phoniness.
  15. Finding Amanda
    By keeping the tone light, the players human (Steve Coogan has a nice turn as a greasy casino host), and never, ever romanticizing the addict, Finding Amanda comes by its heartbreak honestly.
  16. The Pill
    What makes Khoury's film work - at least until its cop-out ending - is the consistency of Fred's loathsomeness.
  17. 11 Minutes
    A low-bore DeLillo-ness plays at the movie's edges, but does it aggregate into a substantial something? Not really, but the traces of postmodern dread, however Haneke-lite it all may be (isn't everything Haneke-lite?), can tickle your short hairs if you're prone.
  18. Rough Night
    The movie is glazed in flop sweat, moist with the producers’ fear that if the wildness lets up for a heartbeat, we’ll be bored.
  19. Criminal Activities
    The script veers from comic, narrated episodes to surprising violence, planting early narrative seeds that yield some effective surprises later, a dynamic range that's pretty comfortable to old hands Travolta and Travolta's Chili Palmer wig after all these years.
  20. Peter Rabbit
    While the film does insist on its own irreverence a bit too much at the outset...it offers plenty of lively fun once it settles down, and wisely keeps the pandering to a minimum.
  21. Blind Date
    Stagey pacing and unnecessary magic-realist voiceover aside, the film's ultimate failure as moving melodrama is that we experience these two acting as a dance partner, a reporter--even a blind man--but we never get who they really are, beyond grieving parents.
  22. Late Phases
    The narrative ends up working in a smaller scope than one might expect given the premise of a beast plaguing a community, but the journey getting to the finish is exhilarating all the same.
  23. Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
    The doc provides plenty of backstory (meeting the comics' families offers generous context to material heard earlier in the film). But in the end, it's the bits involving Vaughn and his celeb guests that linger.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Hard Word
    Convoluted yet simple-minded, the movie frequently equates verbosity with wit.
  25. Johnny English
    Smug with timely zingers like "The only thing the French should be allowed to host is an invasion," the movie's recommended strictly for Bush advisers.
  26. Journey to Western Xia Empire
    A reticent, primarily visual experience.
  27. White Irish Drinkers
    Even though Gray is no raw-boned rookie-he has made TV movies for decades, plus, back in the day, a single Steven Seagal floater-his movie is rather inexcusably obvious, going for "troot," but recycling dese-dose-dem clichés already pressed into plastic lumber 25 years ago.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mademoiselle C
    Mademoiselle C, however, shows the reclusive style guru as the antithesis to the infamous fashion queen, and Roitfeld comes across as quite goofy and actually relatable.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Death Wish
    An enjoyable bad movie instead of a purely offensive one. [01 Aug 1974, p.67]
    • Village Voice
  30. Woman in Gold
    What Woman in Gold has over nonfiction portrayals is emotion, and director Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn) milks every scene for its heart-tugging potential.
  31. The Promotion
    As to whether a smart comedy about work and family can itself succeed in a marketplace overrun by idiot farces about reluctant bridesmaids (male and female), shotgun Vegas weddings, and finding or losing Mr./Ms. Right . . . this remains to be seen.
  32. Private Peaceful
    O'Connor tries mightily to contextualize the suffering of the Peaceful brothers at home and abroad, making a better case for the British class system's demise than for their survival.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Savage Grace
    A tawdry nighttime soap that marvels without insight at its characters' despicable behavior: It squanders a major performance by Moore.
  34. Father of the Bride
    Martin's grin-and-don't-bare-it performance lifts the picture above sitcom level. [31 Dec 1991]
    • Village Voice
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mad Cowgirl
    It's safe to say there will not be another movie this year like Mad Cowgirl. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your tolerance for copious bloodletting, hardcore pornography, and C-SPAN.
  36. Free Zone
    Oddly, in representing a private conflict as the microcosm of an unsolvable catastrophe, Free Zone only manages to miniaturize both.
  37. The Fountain
    Solemn, flashy, and flabbergasting, The Fountain--adapted by Darren Aronofsky from his own graphic novel--should really be called The Shpritz. The premise is lachrymose, the sets are clammy, and the metaphysics all wet.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Moog
    Dry interviews and soggy performances by the likes of Money Mark and Rick Wakeman of Yes don't do much to burnish Moog's legacy.
  39. 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."
  40. Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town
    The film is about being overwhelmed by Los Angeles, its sprawling indifference, but also about finding your place in it — and even, at times, its welcoming warmth.
  41. Cowboys & Angels
    Ostensibly a less colorful, feature-length "Queer Eye," the film also examines the apparent social trichotomy of modern Ireland, where you're either a fashion designer, a drug dealer, or a complete square.
  42. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
    Stunning in its guileless self-love, Smith's doodle-movie shows virtually no sign of being made for an audience. The 90-minute by-product of Smith's let's-shoot-a-movie pot party can be mystifying -- we've all stood soberly by as high friends guffaw at nothing in particular, but now we can pay for the privilege.
  43. The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
    If Markell's instincts for script exhumation are questionable, she's the victim of even worse timing: Who thought releasing her film 10 days after Liv Ullmann and Cate Blanchett's praised-to-the-high-heavens "A Streetcar Named Desire" closed was a good idea?
  44. The Accountant
    Here's two hours of grimly serious puzzle-box dramatics and beat-downs starring Ben Affleck as an Affleck-shaped void.
  45. Jim Brown: All American
    Since Lee is a sentimentalist, the film is more worshipful than your random "E! True Hollywood Story."
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Oyster Farmer
    A quirky dramedy.
  47. My Blueberry Nights
    The disappointment here doesn't have much to do with Wong doing America--he's been doing America for years, even in Chinese--but with Wong doing Wong, and not up to his own standard.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    A Letter to True
    A Letter to True could provide a corrective reminder that bad taste emerges in high-class forms as often as low. The film's failures cannot be faulted to inexperience.
  49. White Bird in a Blizzard
    If the results are occasionally broad and schematic, the actors (Woodley especially) are anything but, and Araki has an absolute field day adorning his kitschy, 1950s-ish view of suburban Los Angeles with a string of showoffy colors.
  50. St. Nick
    Like a child bluffing at knowing a secret, St. Nick teases and frustrates.
  51. Loves Her Gun
    Has a lived-in, almost documentary-like realism to it, but as drama it's occasionally inert.
  52. The Forecaster
    The story of espionage and duplicity that financial adviser Martin Armstrong relates in Marcus Vetter's documentary The Forecaster is as serpentine and fascinating as a John le Carré novel.
  53. Jane Wants a Boyfriend
    Jane Wants a Boyfriend offers a sweet but slight look at the oft-misunderstood subject of navigating relationships with a person on the autism spectrum.
  54. Naples '44
    It’s basically a high-caliber book-on-tape augmented with actual (as opposed to horror-movie fake) found footage — a missing link between full-on dramatization and simply reading the book while imagining visuals.
  55. What We Started
    What We Started is a cute roundup of how EDM came to be, but much like the DJs it shines a light on, it only scratches the surface.
  56. Broadway Idiot
    It contains more praise than insights, and, chopped into several sections, the documentary could easily become a series of featurettes in the "Extras" section of an American Idiot DVD. Yet Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong still commands the screen.
  57. Yves Saint Laurent
    Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent tries to sweep the evanescent butterfly Yves into its net: The movie isn't enough, but it's something.
  58. A Little Chaos
    Appropriately hunky but neutered of the brute sexuality he exhibited in Bullhead and Rust and Bone, Schoenaerts and his lack of bodice-busting tension with Winslet mirrors the film's transparent, often anachronistic inauthenticity.
  59. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
    The Phantom Menace is simply a billboard for itself. Anyone who sees it will be experiencing it for the second time. The hype was not about the movie, the hype was the movie.
  60. Holly
    Though the storytelling is haphazard, artistry often transcends mere good intentions. Director Guy Moshe scavenges color from the torn fringes of Phnom Penh, and the composer Tôn-Thât Tiêt provides a spare score, laying bleary sadness over the art-house muckracking.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Walk Away Renee
    Picking up where his 2003 "Tarnation" left off, Jonathan Caouette's new documentary is no less hermetic, autobiographical, messy, and ultimately touching.
  62. Just Wright
    Another movie, not as awful as this one, might one day find better use for the easygoing vibe between Queen Latifah and Common, the stars of Just Wright.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Morning Light
    Two unnerving phenomena--the popularity of reality-TV competitions and the Walt Disney Company's ability to churn out entertainment starring the most squeaky-clean humans on earth--come together in Morning Light, a nightmarishly upbeat documentary.
  64. The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy
    Bloated loquaciousness, damp self-absorption, and defensive reflexiveness on display here.
  65. 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.
  66. Captain Pantoja and the Special Services
    Sadly, most of Lombardi's movie is too doggedly mediocre to cut loose, overheated (and quite lovely) cinematography notwithstanding.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Transporter
    Kills time between car chases and martial-arts bouts with random scuba-diving footage apparently culled from producer–co-writer Luc Besson's "The Big Blue."
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    My Mother Likes Women
    Fortunately, Leonor Watling (who spent most of "Talk to Her" in a coma) plays the spectacularly neurotic middle daughter with dizzying abandon and single-handedly saves the day.
  69. Ender's Game
    Some of the movie isn't bad.
  70. Half of a Yellow Sun
    Biyi Bandele's Half of a Yellow Sun strikes an admirable balance between drama and history.
  71. Holy Rollers
    Failing to generate either excitement as a crime story or credibility as a morality play, the film ultimately confirms the traditional values that helped push its confused lead to the brink of damnation in the first place.
  72. Breakfast with Scot
    Cavanagh, best known for the TV show "Ed," is terrific--as is young Bernett, who steals the show without hogging it.
  73. Killers
    Amateurishly realized sensationalism trumps character-driven drama throughout Killers.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Macbeth
    The rush into gunfights and car chases pushes the text in all the wrong directions. As written, the 400-year-old words are still fresher than anything ripped from “Miami Vice.”
  75. The Expendables 2
    Has the parallel between the actor and the mercenary's trade ever been so overt?
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Star Trek: Nemesis
    As Shinzon, a sickly boy-emperor grown from Picard's DNA by scheming Romulans, Tom Hardy channels some of the verve of rich-Corinthian-leather-clad Khan villain Ricardo Montalban, although his real model seems to be Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator.
  77. Birth
    If Birth succeeds more as a source of visual and aural enthrallment than as supernatural narrative, it's largely because the final third hovers uncomfortably between the mystical and the earthbound.
  78. Meet Monica Velour
    The result is unbalanced by cartoonish flourishes-Ingram's performance being the chief offender-that overpower Cattrall's subtler character work.
  79. Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away
    The ravishing and kitschy Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away is the rare movie whose title serves as an accurate indicator of whether you will enjoy seeing it.
  80. The Call
    The middle third of the film comprises the phone call, a tight 40 minutes.
  81. Free the Mind
    Ambo's argument is frayed by her arbitrary recommendations of meditation as a panacea for unrelated psychological difficulties. Even more baffling, the director neglects to define this culturally and geographically variable practice with any exactitude.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Going the Distance
    Distance is rated R because everyone swears excessively for no reason, the supporting cast of smart comedians (Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis) saddled with delivering painfully dumb, often unnecessarily dirty dialogue.
  83. Lucía, Lucía
    It lacks the toughness and social insights of its Mexican new wave predecessors like "Amores Perros." And even as the story of one woman's midlife crisis, it's a bit lightweight.
  84. The Brown Bunny
    It's genuinely elemental, embarrassingly sincere. You can't accuse Gallo of pandering to anyone but himself. Not just a one-man band, he is his own entourage -- and likely to remain so. And that anguished solipsism seems to be, at least in part, the movie's subject.
  85. Union Square
    The total effect, of course, is abject sadness as we helplessly watch each enact a unique anti-success story in an inverted reality show.
  86. Ellie Parker
    A clumsy spoof of Hollywood, EP always roots for its hapless heroine. But where this trifle fascinates most is in its connections to David Lynch's masterpiece.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    A Marine Story
    The movie becomes a lesbian amalgam of "Walking Tall" and "Billy Jack." Relentlessly clumsy and predictable, A Marine Story is set in late 2008, just as a new political breeze is blowing. But its abrupt, wishful postscript is still just a fairy tale.
  88. Happy New Year
    So trite that it's unwittingly insensitive.
  89. Ana Maria in Novela Land
    Ganem and her talented co-stars work hard, but Riedel's pacing is always a beat or two behind their mad energy, making for a film that's enormously appealing, but not quite addicting.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    They Might Be Giants
    The wit turns into Christmas Card cuteness, and the film winds up, in the blinding bathos of the last scene, in a veritable miasma of mush. [24 Jun 1971, p.60]
    • Village Voice
  91. Papillon
    This new version, directed by Danish filmmaker Michael Noer, brings to the story a refreshing intensity and sweep, and even a sense of adventure.
  92. 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.
  93. Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules
    Chugs along inoffensively enough.
  94. Campfire
    The timelier elements of Campfire, which cleared house at Israel's Academy Awards this year, are too salient to dismiss.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bad Seed
    So you have here a film version of a chilling novel and interestingly repellent stage play that defeats its own purpose with a static recording of the stage business and some of the most elaborate eye-popping and facial mugging since the last effort by the Three Stooges. [12 Dec 1956, p.5]
    • Village Voice
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Night Listener
    Even when the script overstates the obvious, Stettner mines every nuance of unease from the head games between Williams and the unnerving Collette, who embodies the moment passive aggression stops being passive.
  97. The Rewrite
    Amid much talk about character, story structure, and theme, Grant delivers his usual rakish-charmer routine in a role that’s as hackneyed as the script’s portrait of women, the movie industry, and Star Wars fanatics is one-note.
  98. Lovelace
    Lovelace, ahem, blows it. The narrative rewind gives us new facts and a whole heap of crying scenes, but no added insight into Linda's mind—she's still as empty as an inflatable toy.
  99. Hardcore Henry
    You have a movie with everything it needs save one crucial element: emotion.
  100. Parkland
    It's in the film's second half that Parkland goes all Tony Romo and fumbles. Instead of becoming truly engrossing, it threatens to descend into unreserved melodrama.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »