Nationwide Releases
The Lookout
Directed: Scott Frank
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Isla Fisher, Jeff Daniels
A star high school athlete losing his dreams when a car accident leaves him with certain mental deficiencies. He's working as a janitor at a bank when he gets pulled into a robbery scheme.
RT Score: 87%
RT Consensus: The Lookout is a genuinely suspenseful and affecting noir due to the great ensemble cast and their complex, realistic characters.
It's the characters and what they say and think that matter. The job is only an afterthought.
– Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star
Tight, taut noirish thriller also creates some memorable characters.
– Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)
In a knockout directing debut, Frank cooks up his own mischief. The web he spins will pull you in. Guaranteed.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
A lean, to-the-bone, expertly acted small-town noir that takes unusual care to cast the moral compass of its characters in various shades of gray. There's just no fat on it.
– Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as a fellow who has suffered serious head trauma, comes up with such a moody Method assemblage of twitches, tics, and guilty Memento mannerisms that he's not much fun to watch.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
Blades of Glory
Directed: Will Speck
Starring: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder
Will Ferrell and Jon Heder get into a fight after an ice skating competition, so they are banned from mens' single competition. They decide to join forces in the couple's skating arena just so they can compete again.
RT Score: 69%
RT Consensus: With a talented cast, Blades of Glory successfully milks its one-joke premise into a feature-length comedy.
The directors make bold choices that keep the audience guessing. For instance, there's no groin-punch joke until 40 minutes in. For a Will Ferrell movie, that's a record.
– Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star
Blades of Glory has funny moves even when its characters can barely move, but the film seldom gets past its one basic laugh: that a real man figure-skating is a contradiction in terms.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
As silly as would be expected, but, as usual, from this comedy machine, some good laughs along the way.
– Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)
Blades takes a hard fall long before it can even nab a medal for fluff.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
The filmmakers wisely surrounded themselves with people who know how to wring solid belly laughs out of a paper-thin premise.
– Ethan Alter
Film Journal International
Meet the Robinsons
Directed: Stephen J. Anderson
Starring: Angela Bassett, Spencer Fox
A boy gets sent to the future and has to find his way back home.
RT Score: 66%
RT Consensus: Meet the Robinsons is a visually impressive children's animated film marked by a story of considerable depth.
For the beleaguered Disney Animation unit, Meet the Robinsons is indeed a step forward, a step in the right direction.
– Glenn Whipp
Los Angeles Daily News
Though state-of-the-art technically, I think you'll find there's a healthy, old-fashioned feel to this movie — one that will make you walk out of the theater feeling satisfied, and all warm 'n fuzzy inside.
– Bill Zwecker
Chicago Sun-Times
A rock-solid piece of animated sci-fi comedy that'll tickle the kids, amuse the parents, and leave everyone walking out of the theater on a sweet little flick-buzz.
– Scott Weinberg
Cinematical
It's certainly one of the more imaginative-looking Disney cartoons in recent memory. It also has one of the better stories for a Disney-released cartoon produced by Pixar, even if portions seem ripped off from the Back to the Future movies.
– Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Most of Meet the Robinsons plays like a movie made by ADD adults for ADD children.
– Lawrence Toppman
Charlotte Observer
Limited Releases
After the Wedding
Directed: Susanne Bier
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen
A Danish man who is called back home in order to get a donation for his Indian orphanage, but runs into his past at a wedding.
RT Score: 84%
RT Consensus: The cast brings After the Wedding's melodramatic script to life, creating a movie that is emotionally raw and satisfying.
Talented filmmaker Susanne Bier, armed with an outstanding compositional sense, keeps control over the storms of melodrama that swirl in this rich weepie.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
The storyline is a highly melodramatic, but some solid performances and the relentless intimacy of the camerawork give this a Dogme sense of significance.
– Patrick Peters
Empire Magazine
A paradoxical, if ultimately plausible portrait of a fractured family which deals with baby-daddy drama in a way which puts similar, relatively-flip Hollywood fare to shame.
– Kam Williams
EURWeb
Dark secrets eat away from within, but after 120 minutes of self-loathing this soapy tale fails to engage with either genuine mystery or genuine reconciliation.
– Ron Wilkinson
Monsters and Critics
The filmmakers pile on a heap of life's complications but for all the recriminations, the movie remains involving because of its convincing compassion for its characters.
– Glenn Whipp
Los Angeles Daily News
The Hawk is Dying
Directed: Julian Goldberger
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Michele Williams
A guy becomes obsessed with training a hawk, and it unnerves his friends and family.
RT Score: 32%
Giamatti, as always, is great. He brings George to life, which isn't all that difficult for one of the few dumpy, balding actors getting leading man roles in Hollywood.
– Pete Vonder Haar
Film Threat
Isn't anywhere close to perfect, but giving yourself over to its performances is wonderfully rewarding.
– James Emanuel Shapiro
Reel.com
Ultimately, this inscrutable film is just an exercise in self-indulgence.
– Doris Toumarkine
Film Journal International
The film is draining.
– Audrey Rock-Richardson
Tooele Transcript-Bulletin (Utah)
The Hawk Is Dying is a fragile little movie, occasionally ridiculous, but with M. Night Shyamalan's Lady In The Water, Giamatti proved that he can make even the weirdest material believable.
– Noel Murray
Onion AV Club
Race You To the Bottom
Directed: Russell Brown
Starring: Amber Benson, Cole Williams
A couple having an affair go on a road trip where they might figure out that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.
RT Score: 57%
While clocking in at a relatively painless 75 minutes, Brown fails to come up with anything so fresh and bold in his approach as to make a single one of those worth watching.
– Jay Antani
Boxoffice Magazine
Brown's screenplay and direction, both economical and unshowy, sketch character dynamics in crisp terms that resist the temptation to explain all, beg sympathy or – heighten drama for purely histrionic purposes.
Dennis Harvey
Variety
An illuminating glimpse into some of the more challenging complications that contemporary relationships can present.
– Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
While the filmmaking shows natural skill, the movie lacks the energy and passion needed to really engage the audience.
– Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
A wisp of a film, dramatically threadbare, and saddled with a brittle and affected performance by Williams.
– Timothy Knight
Reel.com
Live Free or Die
Directed: Andy Robin
Starring: Aaron Standord, Paul Schneider
A small-time crook has dreams of being a notorious bad guy except he really sucks at pulling off crimes.
RT Score: 33%
There are many small laughs, two or three big ones, and a lot of wide open space in between where the film ambles along unremarkably.
– Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com
Live Free or Die — opens and closes zippily, but in between frequently stalls out, and the wannabe-hoodlum antics of Rugged and LaGrand — play with diminishing returns.
– Kimberly Jones
Austin Chronicle
Very much like its hapless lead character, a small-town, small-time hustler who yearns to present himself as a dangerous outlaw, Live Free or Die tries too hard, to little effect.
– Joe Leydon
Variety
It just feels contrived when a good comedy like this should feel clever.
– Don R. Lewis
Film Threat
[Live Free or Die] is a mildly entertaining little flick but a slight effort.
– Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews
