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. Me, Too
    The film powerfully hits the note of universalism that is its goal; haven't many of us fallen for someone that we, they, and the world deem out of our league?
  2. Today's Special
    Mandvi (who co-wrote the script with Jonathan Bines) does well as the straight man, but his journey to identity (chaperoned by a magical cabbie/world-class chef played by Naseeruddin Shah) strays too far into tacky ethnic farce.
  3. Made in Dagenham
    Though nothing here is as rousing as "The Pajama Game's" raise-baiting "Seven and a Half Cents," the always-welcome Miranda Richardson steals the film in a small role as Barbara Castle, Labour P.M.
  4. The Next Three Days
    Once the second act begins with a title card announcing "The Last 3 Months"-the amount of time John spends cooking up labyrinthine plans to spring Lara-Haggis's film becomes interminably nonsensical.
  5. William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
    Leyser's collation of interviews and stock footage is polished enough to effectively perpetuate the Burroughs legend.
  6. Shake Hands with the Devil
    Though the film, based on Dallaire's memoir, can veer toward deification of the general, it's hugely effective.
  7. Eichmann
    Young's well-intentioned dramatic re-enactment of their encounters is burdened by sepia-period accessorizing, laborious flashbacks, spurious comparisons between the two men's domestic lives, and the downright bizarre casting of Franka Potente as Less's ailing wife and Stephen Fry as an Israeli pol who wants the case wrapped up in five minutes or less.
  8. Helena from the Wedding
    The group is frequently drunk, but writer-director Joseph Infantolino's handling is lucid, a necessity to keep up the sense of vague dread and walking-on-eggshell egos.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Disco and Atomic War
    If another contemporary nonfiction film makes a better case for the still-controversial tactic of blending scripted scenes into factual footage, I haven't seen it.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Morning Glory
    The only love Morning Glory truly cares about is the passionate but sexless amour fou between a girl and her work.
  11. Change Nothing (Ne Change Rien)
    Call it the Passion of Jeanne: Accompanied for much of the movie by a single reverb-heavy guitar and a snare drum, Balibar demonstrates a carefully calibrated lack of affect and a voice as smoky as a carton of Gitanes.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    A Marine Story
    The movie becomes a lesbian amalgam of "Walking Tall" and "Billy Jack." Relentlessly clumsy and predictable, A Marine Story is set in late 2008, just as a new political breeze is blowing. But its abrupt, wishful postscript is still just a fairy tale.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story
    Nevertheless, if not as stirring as the similar "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg," it remains a reasonably comprehensive tribute to athletics as the great melting pot.
  14. Red Hill
    It's clear that Hughes knows his Midnight Oil, but he's ignorant of the craft of economic action filmmaking. However arguably noble his film's intent to redress historical grievance, a poorly filmed shoot-out is never more than exactly that.
  15. Outside the Law
    The production design is nice enough, but Bouchareb's four-country co-production isn't an epic-it's just long.
  16. Fair Game
    Penn's lachrymosity and hotheaded indignity seem cartooned against Watts's contained conviction-though more incongruous couples have certainly existed-but the film's assertion of Plame and Wilson as real people rather than characters consists mostly of draining them of anything compelling.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Four Lions
    He's (Chris Morris) breaking taboos because broken taboos can be hilarious.
  18. For Colored Girls
    The greatest frustration-not just in For Colored Girls, but in Perry's entire oeuvre-is witnessing talented (and often criminally underemployed) actresses struggle with the material they've been given.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    127 Hours
    As Boyle's film flits from the real world-the heavy reality of a man in a canyon, pinned, near death-to the world of dreams and delusions, so Franco's performance transforms, encompassing both universes.
  20. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
    Spitzer, whose tireless efforts to redeem himself led to his cooperation in this doc, receives an entirely sympathetic-yet thoroughly researched-treatment from Gibney.
  21. A Small Act
    Arnold just expects her audience to accept that Mburu's doing the best he can and revere him for it.
  22. Walkaway
    Walkaway has an intimate understanding of the push-pull experienced by its gallery of twentysomethings who are comfortable with Western customs, but drawn by an ineluctable bond to a culture they can't shake.
  23. Inspector Bellamy
    It's an ostensive crime film at once symmetrical, surprising, and knowingly cinephilic.
  24. Amer
    The pleasures of this gorgeous, clever, and visceral film are almost exclusively aesthetic. Those unmoved or alienated by the porn of pain may be left flopping as nervelessly as one of the movie's severed limbs.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Jolene
    Throughout, Chastain delivers a full-bodied debut performance, but she's ultimately stuck taking her wandering-soul protagonist far more seriously than it-or the film-deserves.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Wild Target
    The whole time I was watching Wild Target, I was trying to figure out just how to explain its weirdly old-fashioned comedic tone. I could talk about its absurd plot...
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Monsters
    Director Gareth Edwards, a CGI artist by trade, has created a dystopian landscape that's so naturalistic, it's uncanny.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Kids Grow Up
    Seemingly modest but stealthily ambitious, Block's feature-length home movies have a way of spiraling outward just as he's drilling inward, of becoming profoundly universal when most nakedly personal. And despite their candor, the Blocks are less exhibitionistic than welcoming. They make for very dear company.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Waste Land
    A fascinating look at the complex intersections of art and charity, reality and perception.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Welcome to the Rileys
    Try as Stewart might, she can't turn this Manic Trixie Nightmare Girl into a real person.
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