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. The Guardian
    The Guardian is neither serious enough to take seriously nor flashy enough to get by on thrills alone. Jerry Bruckheimer, where art thou?
  2. School for Scoundrels
    Dr. P (Billy Bob Thornton) is a classy, cool brand of vile--the demented drill sergeant in a designer suit. And Heder, cast in the role of the invisible man, is fine too. The movie wouldn't work without someone as nondescript as Heder.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
    Whatever the first-time filmmaker lacks in subtlety and finesse--not even the snow-white Sundance Screenwriters Lab could bleach Montiel's script of its corner-deli grit--he recoups by other, more playfully attitudinal means.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies
    The entire affair looks and feels like a reality television show minus the cheap drama.
  5. Be with Me
    Sometimes clumsy and dry, always sympathetic, and wryly interested in the impact food has on social intercourse, Be With Me is eventually affecting once its elliptical shape becomes clear.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Broken Sky
    That's the movie--desperate grasps, huffy affronts, gulping kisses, and one juicy (if silent) sex scene, early in the film, before our senses have been deadened by boredom. Without dialogue, we don't know who the characters are, so we can't care about what they do.
  7. The Last King of Scotland
    An adequate thriller redeemed by Forest Whitaker's sensational turn as Idi Amin.
  8. All the King's Men
    Penn goes for larger-than-life, wrapping his pinched frown around an unintelligible Louisiana drawl and swinging his arms like an autistic evangelist... Law is no asset--looking rather sadly like John Ireland (the actor who played the 1949 Jack Burden), he has little control over his accent and zero energy.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Flyboys
    Here is the War to End All Wars seen from on high--as it was way back when, in "Wings" or the Howard Hughes "Hell's Angels"--a world apart from the grim, futile slaughterhouses of Verdun and the Marne. Among these combatants, you won't find much "All Quiet on the Western Front"–style despair, and the paths of glory are unsullied by doubt or disillusionment.
  10. Fearless
    This is an action movie, and people don't come to be preached to; the "Terminator" flicks also favored world peace but didn't pause the action for nearly an hour to rub it in.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Jesus Camp
    The doc these kids would make with flea market camcorders couldn't possibly be as ugly as this absurdly hypocritical critique of the far right's role in escalating the culture war. The classier indoctrination to which Gap-shopping urban Democrats subject their kids might look damn spooky, too, but it probably wouldn't sell.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    American Hardcore
    The story of American punk rock (1980–1986) isn't a lot easier to summarize than that of any other major war, but it's quite a bit funnier, as this belated documentary overview--based on Steven Blush's like-titled tome--proves in each of its 90 exuberantly irritable minutes.
  13. The Science of Sleep
    Sweet, crazy, and tinged with sadness, Michel Gondry's new feature The Science of Sleep is a wondrous concoction.
  14. Renaissance
    For a little while, the film is dazzling. Then it's dizzying. Then it's just kind of . . . wearying. That's not because it's in black-and-white; so was "Sin City". There's just something terribly, tragically dull about Renaissance.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Blackout
    This passionate polemic follows Democratic representative Cynthia McKinney, of Georgia, as she campaigns to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of black voters in the 2000 and 2004 elections.
  16. The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros
    In much the same fashion as Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin", Auraeus Solito's feature debut confronts the taboo of pre-teen sexuality with a startling mix of openness and sensitivity. No less than precocious Maxi, the film is alarming, endearing, and utterly unflappable.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Train Man
    Adapted from a Japanese bestseller that's apparently based on true events, Train Man: Densha Otoko is a lot like its protagonist: sweet, weird, and likable despite some irritating quirks.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    They're Just My Friends
    For such a poorly made autobiopic to earn a theatrical release, Nwamu must have some friends in high places.
  19. The Decay of Fiction
    The Decay of Fiction is less a narrative than a monument. In its abstract movie-ness, this 74-minute carnival of souls exudes a wistful longing to connect, not so much with Hollywood history as with the history of that history.
  20. Old Joy
    If Old Joy is more laid-back and contemplative than "Mutual Appreciation," it's because the characters are more weathered. Open-ended as it may appear, it has a crushing finality. For all the wool-gathering and guitar-noodling, this road movie is at least as tender as it is ironic.
  21. Sólo con tu pareja
    The film is more stale than crisp, with dialogue that is at least 50 percent old aphorisms, homilies, and clichés.
  22. Home
    Warmhearted but never sentimental or condescending, Home finally proves most affecting as an unsparing glimpse into the psychology of poverty.
  23. The Black Dahlia
    Although the action set pieces are impressive, the exposition is sluggish. For all the posh dollies, high angles, and Venetian-blind crisscross patterns, The Black Dahlia rarely achieves the rhapsodic (let alone the delirious).
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gridiron Gang
    Never mind the obvious parallels to "The Longest Yard" and "Remember the Titans"; what we get here is one huge, indigestible sports movie platitude.
  25. The Last Kiss
    The Last Kiss isn't terrible, but if you're strapped for a night out it can easily wait till DVD. Better yet, it may be time to revisit "Diner."
  26. Aurora Borealis
    Aurora Borealisulth -- yes, that title eventually comes home to roost -- doesn't offend in any way, but it's so self-consciously quaint, so unwaveringly "nice," that you nearly wish it did.
  27. Confetti
    If nothing else, this affectionately off-the-wall confection offers exuberant confirmation of every suspicion you might ever have had that the English are charmingly eccentric. They're barking mad.
  28. The Ground Truth
    The details are eye-opening (or ear-opening, in the case of marching songs taught to the new Marines about slaughtering Arab schoolchildren), but soon Foulkrod's film backs itself into a Support Our Troops corner.
  29. The U.S. vs. John Lennon
    Snazzy, mawkish, and practically Pavlovian in recycling all requisite late-'60s images. Given its subject, though, this David Leaf–John Scheinfeld production is not only poignant but even topical.
  30. Keeping Mum
    Obvious, simplistic, and never funny, Johnson's movie may be useful only as real estate porn--Cornwall and the Isle of Man never looked so super cute.
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