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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  1. American Teacher
    What's made powerfully clear is that we've reached a dire point of crisis that, while largely rooted in economics, is about so much more than dollars and cents.
  2. Surrogate Valentine
    A rambling valentine to San Francisco musician Goh Nakamura, Surrogate Valentine is a stylish pseudo-portrait that refracts Nakamura's gently impassive persona and lilting indie pop ballads through several lenses.
  3. You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo
    You Don't Like the Truth focuses on the pathetic manipulations of Canadian intelligence officers as they interrogate Toronto-born Omar Khadr, the youngest prisoner held in Guantánamo Bay.
  4. Take Shelter
    Despite a few missteps, Take Shelter powerfully lays bare our national anxiety disorder - a pervasive dread that Curtis can define only as "something that's not right."
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    50/50
    Although it veers maudlin in its final act - 50/50 mostly succeeds as a movie about a young man fighting cancer that doesn't give in to sap or sentiment.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Sarah Palin: You Betcha!
    For all the legitimate reasons to jeer Palin, should her rightful wariness of Broomfield's camera be one of them?
  7. My Joy
    My Joy is a maddening vision and one of the year's must-see provocations.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Margaret
    It's less successful as a human drama than as a near-Brechtian exercise in what human drama looks and sounds like - a distanced but often car-crash compelling portrait of a teen as an unfinished being.
  9. Bunraku
    Insular and indulgent as it is, though, the movie is never less than a visual treat.
  10. Benda Bilili!
    But real-life hard-knock plot twists, as well as some tweaking of form (there's no narrator or voiceover of any kind; the film's subjects outline their grim realities largely through their rhythmically upbeat songs) make the film absolutely riveting, as does the fiercely rousing music.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tucker & Dale vs Evil
    Tucker & Dale piquantly tweaks every '80s ax-murderer flick you've ever seen, though it provides the same satisfaction of watching bratty undergrads perish one by one. Admittedly, the spoof loses steam in its last reel (i.e., when it runs out of frat kids to kill), but the film strikes an enjoyable tone of congenial gore.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Abduction
    A blockhead espionage thriller from director-for-hire John Singleton.
  13. Journey from Zanskar
    Although the film might be forced to rely rather heavily on Richard Gere's narration simply to situate the Western viewer, the actor does unify a bumptious collection of material that, taken together, relates what has to be admitted is a remarkable story.
  14. In Search of God
    Purportedly about a quest for spiritual enlightenment and the question of what binds global religions, In Search of God is instead defined by simplistic philosophizing and rampant narcissism.
  15. The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby
    Respectful, loving, but never lionizing, Carl's thorough investigation transcends his personal catharsis to become an enduring treatise on how character flaws affect policy.
  16. Dolphin Tale
    By the end of the movie, Winter has become a mascot for human disability, especially for children, and Dolphin Tale has enough depth and sensitivity to tap into emotion without feeling manipulative.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Whale
    If your children love animals, by all means, take them to see The Whale. If you appreciate gorgeous scenery, the movie doubles as a picture postcard for the region. If you simply want to indulge in warm-and-fuzzy scenes of whale petting, this movie is also for you. What it is not, however, is remotely new.
  18. A Bird of the Air
    The cast detracts, too: Fiona, a flighty loner in the book, is a grating twit in Nichols's hands, and Hurst, while likeable, is flat and too hunky. The bird's got more charisma, which in a better movie would've been the point.
  19. Toast
    Slater's book was evidently an ax-grinder, and the resulting film, directed with tone-deaf comic rhythm by S.J. Clarkson, shows pity and bemusement for the people raising Nigel but rarely human interest in them. More damning still, even the food looks ugly.
  20. White Wash
    Even at 78 minutes, White Wash pads its material through repetition but remains a proficient portrait of how increased social, economic, and geographic opportunity fosters diversity - in life and out on the waves.
  21. Puncture
    Puncture is proudly "Based on a True Story." As is so often the case, this means an indifference to "true" human relationships in favor of crusading self-righteousness.
  22. Machine Gun Preacher
    Machine Gun Preacher is the umpteenth onscreen iteration of a white savior aiding the most desperate in Africa.
  23. Art History
    Swanberg has discovered lighting and mood-to occasionally stunning effect. Perhaps in some future memo from the front lines of indie-sploitation, he will unite them with story and more than a superficial nod to character.
  24. Thunder Soul
    Sometimes you just can't fight the funk; as much as you might resist the film's more maudlin scenes, not succumbing to the band's signature tune, "Head Wiggle," is impossible.
  25. Killer Elite
    Killer Elite is distinguished by one no-mercy, eye-gouging, testicle-punching brawl, and one whoppingly indifferent screenplay.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Limelight
    Given all this interesting raw material, it's mildly disappointing that the filmmakers tie it together with such cheesy connective tissue.
  27. There Was Once...
    The neo-Nazi sentiment in Hungary today is touched on most acutely when it mars the memorial that finally brings the survivors home.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pearl Jam Twenty
    Perhaps Pearl Jam's arc too closely resembles Crowe's own, and he can't see what's so uniquely poignant about dimmed but enduring stars.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Weekend
    Naturalistic without being ineloquent, heartfelt yet unsentimental, Weekend is the rarest of birds: a movie romance that rings true.
  30. Moneyball
    It really happened, it's really corny, and it's really great.
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