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. On a Clear Day
    Gaby Dellal's cynically mushy film, like "The Full Monty" and its ilk, is best savored only by its target demo: middle-classers who see one imported film a year, the selection in question requiring working-stiff melodrama and leprechaun burrs gently and lovably mangling the English dialogue.
  2. 4
    Although Khrzhanovsky has several tricks up his sleeve, 4's most provocative quality is its ironic surplus of beauty.
  3. Free Zone
    Oddly, in representing a private conflict as the microcosm of an unsolvable catastrophe, Free Zone only manages to miniaturize both.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sir! No Sir!
    As it is, this one is compelling enough, a potent mix of outrage, residual anger, and sorrow that speaks not just to the legacy of our misadventures in Vietnam, but to the entire uncertain future of a nation at war.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    Nicholas Jarecki's The Outsider is among the great docs about moviemaking.
  6. Quality of Life
    Establishes a strong sense of milieu in these street scenes, and while the movie's not without its flaws--much of the dialogue is colorless and Lisa seems a bit too together to be hanging out with Curtis--it's never less than credible.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Am a Sex Addict
    Caveh Zahedi's one-of-a-kind movie--a funny, inventive, ground-shifting hybrid of essay film, mea culpa, and pathological real-life romantic farce--aims for truth by wrecking its own verisimilitude.
  8. Basic Instinct 2
    Not content simply to examine the relationship between sex and death, BI2 ponderously blurs the boundaries between art and life, and the plot, already mired in nonsensical backstory, collapses with the late-inning introduction of a tired metafictional device (not to mention a wildly lunging "Usual Suspects" twist).
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    ATL
    It's entertainment with ambition, but I can't front though; the soundtrack is pretty fly too.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ice Age: The Meltdown
    A romantic subplot about a possum-raised mammoth (Queen Latifah!) tries to put the warm in global warming, but the unappealing character designs, incessant celebrity-voice chatter, and slickly inexpressive 3-D animation thwart any emotional pull.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Slither
    Gunn doesn't reinvent the wheel but he does tighten its spokes a bit with some terrifying sequences and a witty, deadpan screenplay, and he leaves the audience hungry--for "Slither 2."
  12. Brick
    The hair may thin considerably under Brick's hat after a while, and Hammett redone remains Hammett half done, but while the plates are in the air, it's a spectacle of nerve.
  13. Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!
    With Awesome's insistence on professional sound--only a few times do we get sonically dropped into the cavernous, thumping Garden--and cuts to pristine close-ups of things like Mixmaster Mike's admittedly sick scratch detail work, it plays like a hype victory lap rather than a boundary-smashing study of fan curiosity or pathology.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Adam & Steve
    Lighthearted and funny, it falters only in the rare moments when it takes itself too seriously.
  15. The Devil and Daniel Johnston
    Jeff Feuerzeig's tremendous documentary runs on the motive force of intelligent fandom and radiates an ineffable grace.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
    This flat-footed male weepie musters an insurance ad's worth of clichés about the importance of busting a move in middle age-and it strains so hard to do so that it's almost perversely compelling.
  17. Iowa
    Farnsworth brings a smidgen of scary energy to the social hellfire, and his newbie cast often out-act the pros.
  18. Iron Island
    Depending on one's mood, the movie might seem boldly simplified and poetic--or boringly simpleminded and prosaic.
  19. Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy
    As the monks themselves threaten to nod off, the film's impressive narcotic effect enters the bloodstream-or so it may seem only for the unenlightened like me.
  20. Toro negro
    As his story emerges-rape, assault, manslaughter, prison, and torrential self- destruction-it becomes clear that Pacheco is some kind of sociopath, and the movie evolves into a monstrous portrait of economic annihilation on the outskirts of the global village.
  21. Yang Ban Xi: The 8 Modelworks
    Both frustrating and fascinating, Yuen's documentary is something of a stray footnote. It requires not only the context of the yang ban xi but the perspective of other movies on the subject of entertainment and utopia.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Drawing Restraint 9
    Those who fear that the mainstream of contemporary art has become little more than an extension of fashion will find no comfort in Drawing Restraint 9, Matthew Barney's latest big-budget ejaculation of ritual self-involvement and superficial foofery.
  23. Inside Man
    Inside Man certainly functions as a genre film, but the backbeat of inane banter and schoolyard trash-talking serves to promote an infectious sense of levity.
  24. The Beauty Academy of Kabul
    The idea isn't as odd as it might first appear, since running a salon is one of the few socially acceptable means for a woman in Afghanistan to earn an income. The execution, however, evokes a particularly outlandish Christopher Guest mockumentary.
  25. Lonesome Jim
    Lonesome Jim has the import of a deliberately squelched sitcom, or a home movie that's poisoned by unhappiness but shown anyway for stray laughs.
  26. Mardi Gras: Made in China
    This sly, engrossing doc is an expert riposte to smug proponents of the fetterless free market.
  27. L'Enfant (The Child)
    Above all, this is an action film--or, better, a transaction film. It's not just that the Dardennes orchestrate an exciting motor scooter purse-snatching and a prolonged hot pursuit. L'Enfant is an action film because every act that happens is shown to have a consequence.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch
    They gloss over concerns that mainstream Busch isn't as funny or as daring as cult Busch. Still, I'd kill for more footage of his less famous plays, like the intriguingly titled "Pardon My Inquisition," or "Kiss the Blood Off My Castanets."
  29. Stoned
    The rock hero starts out dead and so does the movie.
  30. Puzzlehead
    By far the most independent independent-genre flick to grift screen space in Manhattan since Douglas Buck's "Family Portraits," James Bai's Puzzlehead has only its ideas and speculative frisson to sell it.
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