Village Voice's Scores

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:
11162 movie reviews
  1. Like "Chuck & Buck," The Good Girl is a droll, well-acted, character-driven comedy with unexpected deposits of feeling.
  2. What's not recognized enough is the indelible, self-sickened performance of William Holden as Desmond's boy-toy/hired hack.
  3. The film’s fast-slow-fast pacing not only gives psychological weight to Benson’s unabashedly pulpy scenario but also constantly keeps viewers on their toes.
  4. Revanche gets its hooks into you early and leaves them there.
  5. Good Night, and Good Luck's primary handicap is history itself -- the toe-to-toe televised dialogue between McCarthy and Murrow was, however arguably vital to the Wisconsin senator's eventual retreat, brief and less than epochal. Even so, the wonderfully mustered context wins out.
  6. Yes, Coco thrills with its of-the-moment visual invention, but its core elements — dead relatives, family photos, the power of loving memory — couldn’t be more timeless. When Pixar made me cry this time, it wasn’t just for the characters on the screen. It was for the people I remember, and the ones I hope will remember me.
  7. Because stateside newspapers aren't enough, "The Battle of Chile" (possibly the most riveting and vital historical document ever put on celluloid) should be a prerequisite to Guzmán's new doc, The Pinochet Case.
  8. Spike Lee has given the world the first tribute that fully measures up to Jackson the artist. Come on get your sham on.
  9. Moshe relates his tale of can-do vengeance with an unfussy clarity and an obvious fondness for the oaters of yesterday’s Hollywood — an affection that, as in Burden, imparts a winning sincerity.
  10. Potter isn’t what you’d call subtle, but she also knows not to overstay her welcome, and this pithy comedy is a masterclass in all that a filmmaker can squeeze from the most basic theatrical concept: Put a bunch of characters with opposing motivations in a room and see what happens.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wolfe's anecdotal musicology succeeds precisely because of its bare-bones, bawdy yet beautiful approach--just like the music Vargas makes.
  11. The film is a haunting, damning unpacking of history that also reminds us how little progress we’ve made.
  12. Don’t let the beauty of its images fool you; it’s a supremely confrontational, even infuriating work. It’s hard to know what to make of Trophy, and something tells me the filmmakers wouldn’t want it any other way.
  13. It can feel a bit slight and, given the epic sweep of its subject's life, somewhat underplotted. But there's no denying the incendiary power of Ramos's performance -- he's present in nearly every scene. The movie is as much the story of his transformation into Madame Satã as it is João Francisco's.
  14. Psychologically rich, unobtrusively minimalist, at once admirably straightforward and slyly comic, Catherine Breillat's Bluebeard is a lucid retelling and simultaneous explanation of Charles Perrault's nastiest, most un-Disneyfiable nursery story.
  15. Tim DeChristopher, proves a fascinating subject for Beth and George Gage's new documentary.
  16. Opens cute and poignant, turns wildly visceral, and ends in a burst of magical realism.
  17. The closest thing Gray's done to a commercial actioner, the film also applies his genius for tone (aided by superlative sound work) to set pieces that throb with trauma: a tinnitus-soundtracked shoot-out and a rain-slick car chase set to the tempo of windshield wipers.
  18. The movie is a superb riff with a boffo finale, a terrific, cynical punch line, and a crazy closing image of Bob's Plymouth on an empty beach.
  19. [A] heartbreaking doc.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At times, the film plays like an extended infomercial for John's new company, Angelic Organics, but the agrarian fantasy is so compelling here that the revitalization of the American family farm begins to seem not just possible, but probable.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tony Goldwyn, making his directorial debut, lets his cast do the work for him, and they hold up well.
  20. Most hilarious is the revelation that the first director assigned to the film Lumet eventually made, the manic John G. Avildsen, wanted the eccentric, bearded hipster ex-cop to play himself. On the basis of this exceptional portrait, he very well could have.
  21. A fascinating and painful account of an entertainer trapped not only by his Jewishness but by his overwhelming need to make theater.
  22. As dense and fluid as Martel's movie is, the viewer--like the protagonist--is compelled to live in the moment. And a rich moment it is.
  23. Ought to look pretty dated. Instead, Sidney Lumet's biopic of Frank Serpico, the virtuous cop who exposed a network of graft in the NYPD, feels depressingly relevant.
  24. John Sayles's Amigo aspires more to educate than entertain, but it's no less engrossing for that.
  25. As with Altman's best movies, Gosford Park is above all an entrancing hum of atmosphere and texture.
  26. Sampled old newsreel and security-camera footage flesh out the narrative, and the film's visually arresting, but it's the performances that hold it all together.
  27. Its title an acknowledgment of the reality of evil, Shake Hands With the Devil touches on the unanswerable hows and whys, but its ultimate subject is the terrible burden of command.

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