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. Matthew Barney: No Restraint
    Chernick's film traces the creation of Barney's "narrative sculpture" with open curiosity and an alert, amiable eye.
  2. Dreamgirls
    Condon grasps what has eluded most of his contemporaries: Anyone can give us the old razzle-dazzle, but what makes a movie musical soar is nothing more or less than the quiet exhilaration of two individuals on the screen, enraptured by song.
  3. The Good German
    However flavorsome though, The Good German is seriously deficient in the stars' star power and narrative excitement. The movie is lovingly framed, carefully lit, and fatally insipid. The direction is slack; the pacing is perfunctory.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Breaking and Entering
    Forgive Minghella for taking a breather, even if Breaking and Entering exhales nothing but hot air.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Charlotte's Web
    Still, with such stellar source material, this Charlotte's Web won't disgrace your childhood memories -- or your child.
  6. The Pursuit of Happyness
    Too emotionally slick to work, too visually glib to have an impact, made by people who think grit is something that's brought in by the prop department.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Home of the Brave
    As sincere as a three-legged puppy.
  8. The Secret Life of Words
    In due course skeletons will march out of closets, but the movie yields up its secrets with slow reluctance.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
    Settles for a stilted design and mode of performance that suggests a bloodless screen adaptation of Edward Gorey illustrations.
  10. Reminiscing in Tempo
    Keys's tribute to a tribute is a charming riff on an epic figure.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Resilience
    Bojack has a talent for finding the worst possible angle from which to shoot scenes, and though he claims to want to gauge the resilience of his main character, he only succeeds at testing ours.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Automatons
    Automatons is what happens when "Eraserhead" and "Tetsuo the Iron Man" bong themselves into oblivion and collaborate on a minimalist avant-garde sci-fi cheapie shot in a toolshed.
  13. Apocalypto
    Not just a walk in the park with Mel and the guys (in this case a large cast of mainly Mexican Indians speaking present- day Yucatec), this lavishly punishing picture is the third panel in Gibson's "Ordeal" triptych. The Martyrdom of the Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ have nothing on The Misadventures of the Jaguar Paw.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blood Diamond
    De Beers can relax; the only indignation stirred up by Blood Diamond won't be among those who worry about where their jewelry came from, but with audiences incensed by facile politics and bad storytelling.
  15. The Holiday
    Meyers can write a good zinger, and she has a knack for casting actors who not only look good in bed, but are talented enough to rise above the material and, in some cases, nearly transform it (save Diaz). But make no mistake: We're a long way here from Ben Hecht and Preston Sturges.
  16. Unaccompanied Minors
    Anyone who has ever actually been stuck in a terminal with rowdy youngsters will not likely choose to pay money to revisit that experience on-screen.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Off the Black
    A disarmingly droll and insightful indie.
  18. The Empire in Africa
    Cannily timed by lefty distributor Cinema Libre Studio to coincide with the release of Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond, Philippe Diaz's documentary claims to present Sierra Leone's civil war in a radically different light. More accurately, it shifts the emphasis and fills out the picture.
  19. Family Law
    Like his equally father-fixated, and equally wonderful, 2003 film "Lost Embrace," Burman's beguiling tribute to his Jewish father -- or, for all I know, the one he wishes he had -- is warm and deep enough to give humanism a good name.
  20. Inland Empire
    Inland Empire is Lynch's most experimental film since "Eraserhead." But unlike that brilliant debut (or its two masterful successors, "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Dr."), it lacks concentration. It's a miasma. Cheap DV technology has opened Lynch's mental floodgates.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bergman Trilogy
    As little more than an extended interview, it remains hobbled by determinedly uninspired cinematography and a mundane televisual setup.
  22. Days of Glory
    Days of Glory is as moving as it is ingenuous, with each doomed character symbolizing a different response to the collective dilemma these men face as Arabs with divided loyalties.
  23. The Lives of Others
    A compelling thriller but an unsatisfying character drama.
  24. The Nativity Story
    There are a few quietly affecting scenes here, in which we see Mary and Joseph as the terribly frightened newlyweds they probably were, unsure of what to make of their extraordinary circumstances. But too often, the actors register as little more than set dressing and, despite Hardwicke's resolve to give us the realNativity as we've never seen it before, much of the movie smacks of convention.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    3 Needles
    In terms of simple provocation, nothing in this melodramatic mosaic of global suffering comes close to matching director Thom Fitzgerald's press kit prediction that "the AIDS pandemic will be seen in retrospect as much more significant than the ongoing jihad." A film about THAT could be compelling; this one is merely content to suggest, cleverly and often, that it recognizes far more than we ever could the pain and cruelty of disease.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    10 Items or Less
    10 Items or Less is a case study in cluelessness.
  27. The Architect
    In her (Viola Davis) umpteenth turn as a strong ghetto mother, she is the life force that lifts Matt Tauber's workaday movie The Architect into an experience to savor.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Turistas
    Turistas eventually bogs down in an underlit mess.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Four Eyed Monsters
    Fortunately, these artists know how to tap in to the universal longing for acceptance, making for a fresh, witty, and contemporary take on the perennial boy-meets-girl story.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Invisible
    When the story takes a jarring turn into horror flick territory, Invisible loses whatever rhythm it might have had. Jane and Joe's rejuvenated love can conquer many things, including mentally impaired country folk, but it just can't save this unfortunate film.
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