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
  1. The Brave One
    Taken literally, almost everything that follows in The Brave One so seriously strains credibility (even by the standards of the genre) as to enter the realm of the absurd. Taken on the level of a menacing urban fairy tale, however--something akin to what Jane Campion was aiming for with "In the Cut"--it's strangely fascinating.
  2. 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.
  3. One
    Even more than the subtlety of the writing and acting, it's this sophisticated and emotionally potent visual strategy that suggests Barbieri's promise as a filmmaker and lifts One above the low-budget indie heap.
  4. La Sapienza
    A picture that balances heart and mind with nuance.
  5. The Art of the Steal
    The Art of the Steal doesn't advance the nerdy intertextuality that has distinguished ironic crime films since Guy Ritchie, but writer-director Jonathan Sobol knows the ropes.
  6. Tahrir: Liberation Square
    The variations are many, but the theme is as consistent as the crowd that grows and strengthens throughout Savona's inside, traditional, vérité portrait of the uprising.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Music from the Inside Out
    A revealing portrait of painfully withdrawn artists navigating the tug between the divine harmony of an orchestral synthesis and the sweaty glow of individual experimentation.
  8. Why We Fight
    Jarecki's film forcefully argues that the much abused word FREEDOM cannot paper over the conflicts between capitalism and democracy.
  9. Justice
    With its unobtrusive visual style, Justice plays like a near-parody of documentary objectivity, subtly suggesting the malleable nature of "truth," both in the courtroom and the movie theater.
  10. Examined Life
    Ideas beam out from Astra Taylor's engaging new philoso-doc Examined Life; the viewer basks in the intelligence on-screen and, occasionally, soaks up the rays.
  11. William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
    Leyser's collation of interviews and stock footage is polished enough to effectively perpetuate the Burroughs legend.
  12. The Baader Meinhof Complex
    The movie is a sweeping, hectic docudrama that would have been immeasurably helped by the use of informational intertitles.
  13. Chashme Baddoor
    Chashme Baddoor's modest charms dissipate quickly, but they're certainly real.
  14. Another Road Home
    Politics hover at the edges of even the most affectionate encounters among Danae, her parents, and the Obeidallah family. Amos Elon's negativity regarding the future of the Jewish state mars the film, yet Another Road Home moves beyond dark predictions.
  15. The Land
    The violence, when it comes, is ugly and tragic, as it should be — The Land makes no promises about glory. But the hangout moments fizz with the boys' likable chemistry, and the scenes of suspense, which pick up toward the end, are always arresting and mostly understated, scored to nervous breathing and the ambient bustle of streets at night.
  16. How to Train Your Dragon 2
    The plot is needlessly busy, and much of the action is more manic and indistinct. But How to Train Your Dragon 2 cuts deeper than the first picture — it will be particularly resonant for anyone who has ever worked with or adopted rescue animals — and there are a few sequences of cartoon grandeur.
  17. The Decline of Western Civilization Part III
    Spheeris gives every indication of having gotten too close to her material, but her film's overall air of discombobulation is poignant in itself.
  18. The Paperboy
    When not contriving to get Efron out of his clothes, The Paperboy gropes for familiar movie language of its period setting: Soul music swells up excitedly over a jumble of jerky zooms, befuddling cuts, and spatial vagueness. But sometimes hot messiness has its charms.
  19. 12:08 East of Bucharest
    A casually bleak and neatly structured ensemble comedy--at once deadpan and bemused.
  20. Body
    On the surface a typical exercise in horror-film cliché, Body turns out to be a far more thought-provoking creature, a parable of adulthood and a stinging indictment of white-girl privilege.
  21. Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo
    There's enough rosy-cheeked drama, triumph, and sacrifice for a ready-made Hollywood remake.
  22. Mister Foe
    The whole thing's poised uneasily somewhere between urban fairy tale and actual human psychodrama, never really landing in one place or the other.
  23. A Haunting in Cawdor
    Although the film attempts to be both a ghastly giallo mood piece and a bloodless teen ghost story, its themes of evolving identity and mental health care elevate it past some of its shock-and-awe trappings.
  24. Massoud, the Afghan
    It's not the least of Afghan tragedies that this noble warlord would be consigned to the dustbin of history.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    New York Doll
    In the end, this is less a film about a rock and roller than a film about a Mormon. And Napoleon Dynamite it ain't.
  26. Mozart's Sister
    These subplots hint at what could have been, nudging the film toward biting rather than obvious commentary on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and creativity, and the costs of thwarting expression of any of them. But Féret barely explores this, and the film suffers for it.
  27. Goodnight Mommy
    Goodnight Mommy is a well-crafted cheat with a killer punch.
  28. Sunday in New York
    A triumph of bounce over banality. [19 Mar 1964, p.12]
    • Village Voice
  29. Mean Girls
    Director Waters and screenwriter Tina Fey (also cast as the voice-of-reason math teacher) aim less for the usual high-gloss caricature than acutely hilarious sociology, nailing the servile malice of 15-year-old girls.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    3 Idiots
    In writer-director Rajkumar Hirani's tuneful, enjoyable college comedy, 3 Idiots, Khan plays "Rancho," an engineering student so brilliant that he barely has to break a sweat to place first in his class.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »