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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    • 22 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Black Christmas
    The product itself isn't so much afterthought as afterbirth -- a bloody mess to be dumped discreetly.
  2. The Good Shepherd
    The Good Shepherd needed to be either considerably longer -- more like 1979's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" miniseries -- or considerably shorter (word has it De Niro cut 30 minutes). Right now, it's stuck in the deadly dull middle in which everything happens but nothing matters since the filmmakers can't stick with one event or idea long enough for it to, well, stick.
  3. Night at the Museum
    The first half-hour's too slow; the last half-hour's too manic, as if to compensate. But at least it entertains, thanks in large measure to the buddy-pic relationship between Owen Wilson's miniature cowpoke and his Roman pal Steve Coogan.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    We Are Marshall
    Even by the low standards of the young-jocks-as-good-clean-soldiers movie, there's little at stake here, unless you count the kids' hunger to win one for the Gipper.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Venus
    Maurice, the protagonist of Venus, is a suit lovingly tailored to O'Toole's ravaged but commanding frame.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Curse of the Golden Flower
    Like his "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," Zhang Yimou's third global-market gigaproduction makes little sense in narrative terms even after two screenings, but the sets, costumes, and cinematography are so intoxicating that it doesn't much matter.
  7. Letters from Iwo Jima
    The special power of Eastwood's achievement is that, save for one indelible moment, the mutual recognition between sworn adversaries happens not on-screen, but later, as we piece the two films together in our minds.
  8. The Painted Veil
    Bolstered by a strong ensemble-- "Infamous's" Toby Jones as a deputy commissioner gone native, and a wonderfully wrinkled Diana Rigg as a Mother Superior, speaking up for disillusioned decency--and by the ecstatic cinematography of Stuart Dryburgh, The Painted Veil lifts Maugham's story clear of its prissy, attenuated spirituality, and into genuine passion.
    • 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.
  10. Chats perchés
    Approaching 85, cine-essayist Chris Marker remains as lively, engaged, and provocative as ever--and no less fond of indirection.
  11. Matthew Barney: No Restraint
    Chernick's film traces the creation of Barney's "narrative sculpture" with open curiosity and an alert, amiable eye.
  12. Dreamgirls
    Condon grasps what has eluded most of his contemporaries: Anyone can give us the old razzle-dazzle, but what makes a movie musical soar is nothing more or less than the quiet exhilaration of two individuals on the screen, enraptured by song.
  13. The Good German
    However flavorsome though, The Good German is seriously deficient in the stars' star power and narrative excitement. The movie is lovingly framed, carefully lit, and fatally insipid. The direction is slack; the pacing is perfunctory.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Breaking and Entering
    Forgive Minghella for taking a breather, even if Breaking and Entering exhales nothing but hot air.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Charlotte's Web
    Still, with such stellar source material, this Charlotte's Web won't disgrace your childhood memories -- or your child.
  16. The Pursuit of Happyness
    Too emotionally slick to work, too visually glib to have an impact, made by people who think grit is something that's brought in by the prop department.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Home of the Brave
    As sincere as a three-legged puppy.
  18. The Secret Life of Words
    In due course skeletons will march out of closets, but the movie yields up its secrets with slow reluctance.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
    Settles for a stilted design and mode of performance that suggests a bloodless screen adaptation of Edward Gorey illustrations.
  20. Reminiscing in Tempo
    Keys's tribute to a tribute is a charming riff on an epic figure.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Resilience
    Bojack has a talent for finding the worst possible angle from which to shoot scenes, and though he claims to want to gauge the resilience of his main character, he only succeeds at testing ours.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Automatons
    Automatons is what happens when "Eraserhead" and "Tetsuo the Iron Man" bong themselves into oblivion and collaborate on a minimalist avant-garde sci-fi cheapie shot in a toolshed.
  23. Apocalypto
    Not just a walk in the park with Mel and the guys (in this case a large cast of mainly Mexican Indians speaking present- day Yucatec), this lavishly punishing picture is the third panel in Gibson's "Ordeal" triptych. The Martyrdom of the Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ have nothing on The Misadventures of the Jaguar Paw.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blood Diamond
    De Beers can relax; the only indignation stirred up by Blood Diamond won't be among those who worry about where their jewelry came from, but with audiences incensed by facile politics and bad storytelling.
  25. The Holiday
    Meyers can write a good zinger, and she has a knack for casting actors who not only look good in bed, but are talented enough to rise above the material and, in some cases, nearly transform it (save Diaz). But make no mistake: We're a long way here from Ben Hecht and Preston Sturges.
  26. Unaccompanied Minors
    Anyone who has ever actually been stuck in a terminal with rowdy youngsters will not likely choose to pay money to revisit that experience on-screen.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Off the Black
    A disarmingly droll and insightful indie.
  28. 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.
  29. Family Law
    Like his equally father-fixated, and equally wonderful, 2003 film "Lost Embrace," Burman's beguiling tribute to his Jewish father -- or, for all I know, the one he wishes he had -- is warm and deep enough to give humanism a good name.
  30. Inland Empire
    Inland Empire is Lynch's most experimental film since "Eraserhead." But unlike that brilliant debut (or its two masterful successors, "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Dr."), it lacks concentration. It's a miasma. Cheap DV technology has opened Lynch's mental floodgates.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bergman Trilogy
    As little more than an extended interview, it remains hobbled by determinedly uninspired cinematography and a mundane televisual setup.
  32. Days of Glory
    Days of Glory is as moving as it is ingenuous, with each doomed character symbolizing a different response to the collective dilemma these men face as Arabs with divided loyalties.
  33. The Lives of Others
    A compelling thriller but an unsatisfying character drama.
  34. The Nativity Story
    There are a few quietly affecting scenes here, in which we see Mary and Joseph as the terribly frightened newlyweds they probably were, unsure of what to make of their extraordinary circumstances. But too often, the actors register as little more than set dressing and, despite Hardwicke's resolve to give us the realNativity as we've never seen it before, much of the movie smacks of convention.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    3 Needles
    In terms of simple provocation, nothing in this melodramatic mosaic of global suffering comes close to matching director Thom Fitzgerald's press kit prediction that "the AIDS pandemic will be seen in retrospect as much more significant than the ongoing jihad." A film about THAT could be compelling; this one is merely content to suggest, cleverly and often, that it recognizes far more than we ever could the pain and cruelty of disease.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    10 Items or Less
    10 Items or Less is a case study in cluelessness.
  37. The Architect
    In her (Viola Davis) umpteenth turn as a strong ghetto mother, she is the life force that lifts Matt Tauber's workaday movie The Architect into an experience to savor.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Turistas
    Turistas eventually bogs down in an underlit mess.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Four Eyed Monsters
    Fortunately, these artists know how to tap in to the universal longing for acceptance, making for a fresh, witty, and contemporary take on the perennial boy-meets-girl story.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Invisible
    When the story takes a jarring turn into horror flick territory, Invisible loses whatever rhythm it might have had. Jane and Joe's rejuvenated love can conquer many things, including mentally impaired country folk, but it just can't save this unfortunate film.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds
    As before, the fun is somewhat capped by absurdly stilted acting and daytime-soap-quality DV, but the nonstop sub-Araki glibbage is plenty peppy and so is Rebekah Kochan's ding-a-ling Tiffani, a dead ringer for 90210's Tori Spelling.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Filthy World
    Waters's best bits are nostalgic, as he remembers his late friend and frequent collaborator Divine. Part memoir, part lecture, This Filthy World reaffirms what most of us already know from "The Wire": In a town full of delightful misfits, Waters may be Baltimore's sanest citizen.
  43. 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.
  44. Deck the Halls
    Though DeVito and Chenoweth bring a rough plebeian charm to the proceedings, it's nothing short of tragic to see the great Ferris Bueller relegated to grimacing straight man.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Deja Vu
    Déjà Vu isn't as sleek a genre pleasure as "Enemy of the State," but it does have a freaky little trick up its sleeve.
  46. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
    Tenacious D is utterly harmless and totally pointless. Black and Gass have been at this so long their dirty little joke has all the punch of a Catskills routine.
  47. Backstage
    An enjoyably overwrought meditation on the consequences of celebrity and the vicissitudes of fandom, Backstage stars Le Besco as the schoolgirl acolyte of Emmanuelle Seigner's pop diva, a singer-songwriter and high priestess of cheese.
  48. Opal Dream
    Rush screaming from anything that announces itself as "a movie for children and grown-ups of all ages." Slight and shamelessly saccharine, Opal Dream is devoted to the proposition that it takes an Australian-outback village to validate the imaginary friends of a blond child who is too sensitive for this world but not, alas, for this sappy movie.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sun Kissed
    The only joy to be extracted from Sun Kissed is voyeuristic: watching Teddy and Leo's taut bodies as they frolic in the sun-drenched surf. To music you like.
  50. The History Boys
    The film version of The History Boys is a lesser thing, more fixed in space and time and rendered almost unbearably "cinematic" in patches by Hytner's gymnastic camerawork. Yet the ideas and feelings of the piece remain so rich that it almost doesn't matter.
  51. Casino Royale
    Craig, excellent in both art house endeavors (The Mother, Enduring Love) and blockbuster think pieces (Munich), has both a nasty streak and a soft side never before seen in the series; Fleming would recognize him as most like his literary creation: damaged goods in a tailored tux.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Happy Feet
    Children, innocent as they are, may not yet have grown to loathe the actor's (Robin Williams) shtick, but you might like to know that he has two--yes, two--roles in this film.
  53. Let's Go to Prison
    Much funnier and weirder than you think.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Candy
    Any drug movie's effectiveness can be measured by the strength of its detox, and Candy doesn't sweeten the cold turkey. Still, it's a downward spiral from there in more ways than one. Never mind the neo-psychedelic-pop soundtrack and occasional double-vision cinematography: Dope just can't account for the film's fried brain cells.
  55. Fast Food Nation
    A more materialist (and successful) ensemble film than the mystical "Babel," in that everyone is connected through the same economic system, Fast Food Nation is exotic for being a movie about work.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    For Your Consideration
    It's as weird and whimsical an invention as Guest's "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show," or "A Mighty Wind."
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes
    The story--is only important in that it gives the Quays a foundation for their fabulous animated tableaux.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bobby
    Bobby can be seen clearly for what it is--an "Airport" movie with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as the central calamity and an all-star cast deployed like multiple George Kennedys.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Aura
    A hypnotic unease hangs over the film.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Flannel Pajamas
    At a full two hours, Lipsky's talky movie is more compelling in its second half, when the spouses finally get around to being themselves.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dance Party, USA
    Writer-director Aaron Katz has a gift for naturalistic dialogue--that alone allows his film to transcend the micro-budget indie gabfest genre. On the other hand, there's a fine line between naturalistic and dull, and Dance Party occasionally crosses it as its young actors talk about life, or don't talk about life.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?
    Pollock drags when Horton's offscreen, and with its NPR-inflected narration and executive producer Don Hewitt, the film might have fared better as a PBS special.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Good Year
    Scott can do mayhem, dystopia, and the rampaging alien (extraterrestrial, android, Somali, Demi Moore) with the best of them, but the breezy touch is not his forte.
    • 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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Stranger Than Fiction
    Stranger Than Fiction merely layers whimsy upon whimsy. As written, Harold Crick is no more convincing a human being than he is an IRS agent; Kay Eiffel's writing, supposedly good enough to inspire the career-long devotion of a literature professor (Dustin Hoffman), sounds as dully declamatory as movie-trailer narration.
  66. Iraq in Fragments
    Whether or not James Longley's boldly stylized reportage breaches public indifference, its enduring value is assured: When the war is long gone, this deft construction will persist in relevance, if not for what it says about the mess we once made, then as a model of canny cinematic construction.
  67. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
    A misguided tribute to the woman his (Shainberg's) film identifies among "the greatest artists of the 20th century."
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Come Early Morning
    Judd's typically lived-in performance and the authentic Arkansas locations -- cramped bars, dusty roads -- help vaguely distinguish a movie that comes on like a minor-key reprise of Judd's breakthrough "Ruby in Paradise" and every other rural indie melodrama to grace Sundance since.
  69. The Cave of the Yellow Dog
    At times the film's Buddhist lessons feel a bit forced, but the naturalistic performances Davaa has coaxed from a real-life Mongolian family, and her intimate understanding of their culture and values, give this sensitive portrayal its heft.
  70. Copying Beethoven
    Screenwriters Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, best known for the two ponderous biopics "Ali" and "Nixon," deliver a film awkwardly composed.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Captive
    This intriguing debut by Argentinean writer-director Gaston Biraben sets up a lot of tough choices before finally taking the easy way out.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fuck
    Aside from the historically worthy identification of General George S. Patton as a pioneering potty mouth, the film contains little or nothing in the way of surprise.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Coffee Date
    Writer-director Stewart Wade has gracefully expanded his short film, a festival fave, into a warmhearted tale carried by genuine affection and a charming cast rather than cutting one-liners and turbo-charged plotting.
  74. The Magic Gloves
    Martin Rejtman's 1999 "Silvia Prieto" fashioned a deadpan farce from the aimless circulation of objects and identities around its unsmiling title character. The Magic Gloves, the Argentine writer-director's 2003 follow-up, is a similarly absurdist smart-com featuring another depressed protag navigating a yuppie Buenos Aires milieu.
  75. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
    Indeed, the man who invented Borat is a masterful improviser, brilliant comedian, courageous political satirist, and genuinely experimental film artist. Borat makes you laugh but Baron Cohen forces you to think.
  76. Flushed Away
    What's not to love about a movie in which thousands of rodents stand together against a Big Wave generated by TV-watching soccer fans flushing their toilets at halftime?
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Volver
    Almodóvar isn't what he used to be (who is?), but he's a master of the medium nevertheless, deploying color and light and shadow not merely to express emotions but to tap into ours, directing the blood flow of the audience as much as he directs the movie.
  78. Shottas
    Writer-director Cess Silvera claims he's trying to "show the gritty life of Jamaican immigrants," but Shottas is no more a social-issue film than "Scarface."
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wondrous Oblivion
    If writer-director Paul Morrison's film traces a predictable arc from racial unease to acceptance, it's often winning--and sometimes tough-minded--in the details.
  80. Commune
    Celebrating the desire to immerse oneself in a collective, world-changing enterprise, Commune is unavoidably nostalgic.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Unknown
    The pacing is slightly off, with the action switching between the imprisoned men and the police who are trying to find them, and what should be a mounting sense of urgency inside the warehouse (think Reservoir Dogs) falters and goes slack.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Deeper Than Y
    The interviews are lively, though not all documentary subjects are created equal.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    As the Call, So the Echo
    In the end, though, Keir can't resist glorifying his dad, with a final shot seeped in a tone of self-congratulation that the rest of the film so nimbly evades.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Romántico
    Following a hardworking, goodhearted man as life beats the hell out of him, this documentary is moving almost to the point of exploitation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Babel
    Puzzle master Arriaga may be the Will Shortz of globalized hand-wringing, but the by-now-predictable jigsawing of his scripts reeks of desperation.
  86. Catch a Fire
    In the end, Catch a Fire plays like some weird hybrid on the crazy-quilt filmography of Phillip Noyce, which includes small productions made in his native Australia and the Sharon Stone sexcapade "Sliver." What it's definitely not is the standard-issue movie about apartheid; there's no white protagonist, no pale-faced hero riding in on his high horse to save the oppressed black man.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Saw III
    This is laughably absurd, but unlike the first "Saw," the third installment gives no indication that its humor is intentional.
  88. Climates
    A terrific movie in the Antonioni tradition, Climates confirms 47-year-old Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan as one of the world's most accomplished filmmakers--handling the end of a relationship and the cloud of human confusion rising from its wreckage as if the subject had never before been attempted.
  89. Conversations with God
    It's an agreeable enough tale right up until God butts in and starts talking; even if you can swallow the premise, it isn't particularly cinematic to watch a guy endlessly scribbling on legal pads.
  90. Shut Up & Sing
    The movie's not quite the Bush bashfest its publicity might lead you to believe; it's closer to the Metallica doc "Some Kind of Monster" than to "Fahrenheit 9/11."
  91. Death of a President
    Dramatically inert but a minor techno-miracle, Range's movie is a faux documentary with fake talking heads and seamless digital effects.
  92. Cocaine Cowboys
    The story is fascinating, if a little overlong.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    20 Centimeters
    The musical numbers are dreadful and the jokes barely register, but more disappointing is how rote the exploration of the transgender dilemma is.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Absolute Wilson
    The real value of this film is its treasure trove of archival footage, rare clips that document this genius of an artist as a young man.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bridge
    Ghoulish documentary.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Wild Blue Yonder
    Though occasionally striking, the footage doesn't pack the evocative punch Herzog intends, and segments that should be lyrical mind trips only result in overstretched longueurs.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
    Although technically impressive, the remake is dramatically inert, as the set becomes a motionless backdrop to theatrical line readings instead of a pulsing manifestation of diseased minds. It's Caligari embalmed.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Exit: The Right to Die
    Filmed and edited with near anesthetic calm, Fernand Melgar's documentary meditation on the work of Swiss euthanasia outfit Exit ADMD doesn't so much argue for the legalization of assisted suicide as recline comfortably in the knowledge that this firm's devoted "escorts" are here to direct terminal patients toward that shining light down the hall.
  99. Marie Antoinette
    A graceful, charming, and sometimes witty confection -- at least for its first hour.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Running with Scissors
    Like the book, this deadpan celebration of neurosis makes a valiant effort to repress its comedy--which of course makes it funnier.
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