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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    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Tollbooth
    How is czarist Russia like modern-day Brooklyn? Touché, but let's say this time the answer's not Brighton Beach. It's not The Tollbooth either, but what with the movie's dramatization of the opposition between tradition and individualism for a Jewish family's three "marrying age" daughters, "Fiddler on the Roof" parallels will inevitably be drawn.
  2. What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole
    The movie is a sloppy amalgamation of animated instruction, dramatic vignettes (starring actualization-starved single gal Marlee Matlin), and talking-heads interviews.
  3. Desert Wind
    Nicely rendered moments of casual intimacy between the men attest to the trip's therapeutic value, but very little of it transfers to the audience. The dull large-group scenes consist mostly of old standbys like writing problems on slips of paper and burning them.
  4. Toro negro
    As his story emerges-rape, assault, manslaughter, prison, and torrential self- destruction-it becomes clear that Pacheco is some kind of sociopath, and the movie evolves into a monstrous portrait of economic annihilation on the outskirts of the global village.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Slow Jam King
    More fun to listen to than watch -- though this still leaves the problem of dialogue.
  6. Guernsey
    Leopold's movie is superbly shot and restrained, but not economical; the brooding and introversions profitlessly pad out what might've been a leveling featurette.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Satellite
    Nice low-budget cinematography and authentic New York City locations aside, there's little to engage viewers over the course of 100 wandering minutes.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Rittenhouse Square
    With just enough art-lack and speak-for-itself whiz (call me cheesy), this doc understands the famoustorical Philly park's appeal: Hot girls sunbathe there, and the bums are ka-razy.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Room 314
    Writer-director Michael Knowles is interested in what happens when you shove people into the anonymous space of a hotel room, but these mostly unconnected short cuts are neither unusual nor substantial.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    In the Pit
    In the Pit's empathy feels strictly skin-deep, its insight even shallower.
  11. Severance
    When Smith's Grand Guignol tableaux are strung together, they lack any forward momentum. Some take inspired comic flight. The rest crash to the ground and, like so much else in Severance, go splat.
  12. Fay Grim
    As "Henry Fool's" belated sequel, Fay Grim seems nearly an act of desperation.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lights in the Dusk
    Lights in the Dusk derives scant excitement from its melodramatic plot, which satisfies a dismal, ineluctable formula with stultifying efficiency. Nor is it enlivened by the airless performances.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Closing Escrow
    Closing Escrow can't even execute the bare-bones requirements of mediocre mockumentaries, as its unbelievably quirky characters' not-funny behavior is punctuated with awkward silences and L.A. clichés.
  15. Self Medicated
    Self-Medicated reveals itself as a narcissistic fantasy about the misunderstood kid with a heart of gold who finally figures out how to get his shit together: "Good Will Hunting" with a side of Capracorn.
  16. House
    The central problem here is one common to faith-based films: The heroes (Reynaldo Rosales and Heidi Dippold) are both overly bland and poorly cast.
  17. Khadak
    Khadak recedes deeper and deeper into esoterica as it progresses.
  18. Man in the Chair
    Walsh and Plummer are obviously pros, and they hustle to put across some patently ridiculous business, but, well, it's true about the polishing thing.
  19. Girls Rock!
    While the camp is all about liberation, the film hews to a predictable doc template and comes off as a drag.
  20. Boarding Gate
    There's basically only one reason to see Olivier Assayas's self-consciously hypermodern, meta-sleazy, English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller Boarding Gate, and her name is Asia Argento.
  21. Smart People
    It's like the entire season of a sitcom whittled down to a single episode. There's no time for characterization, no room for emotion, no interest in anything other than moving the story forward. It's all action, no reaction. One minute they're miserable; 90 minutes later, aww better.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Full Grown Men
    For better and for worse (at least for a story about a man struggling to behave like an adult), Full Grown Men feels and thinks with the heart and mind of a child.
  23. Canary
    Writer-director Akihiko Shiota's dramatic strategies are limited to the point of monotony.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Patti Smith: Dream of Life
    109 mostly black-and-white minutes of punk's wet nurse floating through the modern world while endlessly ruminating on mortality, art, and the occasional bodily function. Problem is, there's nary a hint of context, even with biographic essentials.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    My Mexican Shivah
    Kvetches its way through an insipid vision of cross-cultural conflict.
  26. Nights and Weekends
    Very often, the "rawness" here seems like an inability to distinguish the essential from the banal (or elevate the banal to the essential). A good eye might help, but Swanberg and Gerwig's filmmaking is stubbornly disheveled.
  27. The Caller
    The Caller begins as a multinational corporate thriller more ambiguous and geopolitically senseless than "Demonlover."
  28. An American Affair
    Only Noah Wyle, as Adam's unreadable dad, rises above the muck; he deserves his Tarantino-aided resurrection sooner rather than later.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Skeptic
    Though a few scary skeletons (and one doll) rattle in and out of the film's closet, Bardwell is a slave to television lexicon, allowing Bryan and his lawyer buddy (Tom Arnold) to brave the banter of shrill detective comedies, and framing his images with all the brio of your average "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" episode.
  30. Wolke Neun
    Besides the frank, blithe sex scenes, a melodramatic ending aims to banish any last hope of gemütlichkeit, but the film comes to feel curiously incomplete, like one long fretful afternoon.
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