VH Corner

Nationwide Releases

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Directed: Lee Tamahori
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel

Based on a Philip K. Dick story about a man that can see the future, but only his future.

RT Score: 29%

Straddles a fence between adequately clever and surprisingly stupid … but most of it is still fun anyway.
– Scott Weinberg
FEARnet

Think of Groundhog Day with guns and car chases. And without humour.
– Brian Webster
Apollo Guide

Jessica Biel puts in an Oscar worthy performance to make us believe a hot babe like her would be interested in a balding, creepy guy twice her age like Nic Cage, so give her some props.
– Willie Waffle
WaffleMovies.com

Who are these terrorists, aside from an unexplained coalition of French, Germans and Asians? Why are they trying to destroy Los Angeles? Was it because of X-Men 3?
– Gary Thompson
Philadelphia Daily News

It doesn't have the momentum, the quick-wittedness, to keep us wondering what's going to happen next.
– Stephanie Zacharek
Salon.com

The Invisible
Directed: David S. Goyer
Starring: Maggie Ma, Michelle Harrison

A kid is killed or not, but no one can see him. He tries to solve his own murder so that he can be alive again. What?

RT Score: 20%

There's nothing awful about The Invisible, there's just nothing memorable either.
– Brian Tallerico
UnderGround Online

The Invisible contains the kernel of an engaging story, but the movie has such a pervading pensive tone throughout, that it becomes an unrelenting drag to endure for anyone who's not already on heavy-duty antidepressant medication.
– Staci Layne Wilson
About.com

Despite fine acting by Justin Chatwin and Margarita Levieva, 'The Invisible' ends up making no sense at all.
– Betty Jo Tucker
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

This goes on the ever-growing list of films I cite as reasons why being a movie critic may, in fact, not be the coolest job in the world.
– Kevin Carr
7M Pictures

Without guidance behind the camera and raw talent in front, the film becomes quite a compelling tug of war between snores and unintentional laughs.
– Brian Orndorf
eFilmCritic.com

The Condemned
Directed: Scott Wiper
Starring: Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones

Ten people on death row get dumped on a remote island for a reality show. Only one will survive and the rest die.

RT Score: 14%
RT Consensus: The Condemned is a morally ambiguous, exceedingly violent and mostly forgettable action film.

… a sloppy, indifferent action movie with a sadistic edge and a sour hypocrisy.
– Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

All about the cheesy dialogue, loud pounding music, and Stone Cold Steve Austin growling, scowling and looking mean, while the women in the movie run around in tight tank tops designed to show off their decolletage.
– Willie Waffle
WaffleMovies.com

The Condemned has a nasty mean streak toward its female characters — a real no-no that prevents it from being simple, dumb fun.
– Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

"The Condemned" poses a question about why the word "whore" is considered equal to or greater than "murderer."
– Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

A near-lunatic combination of a movie that's basically wall-to-wall violence–not especially well-executed, at that–with a warning about the effects of violent entertainment.
– Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

Kickin' It Old Skool
Directed: Harvey Glazer
Starring: Jamie Kennedy, Christopher McDonald

A 12-year-old puts himself into a coma during a break dancing contest in 1986. Twenty years later, he wakes up, finds his girlfriend is about to get married, but he can win her back and help his parents with his medical costs by winning a break dancing contest.

RT Score: 0%

It's horrific to watch Kennedy and his cast not even care about what they're putting out into the world. People, we're getting closer to Ow! My Balls! every day.
– Brian Orndorf
OhmyNews.com

If you know Jamie Kennedy's work then you know what to expect – a half assed, earnest effort that will trot out some tired jokes and eventually run out of steam.
– Michelle Alexandria
Eclipse Magazine

Jamie Kennedy may be becoming the new Pauly Shore…ineptitude marks every aspect of the writing and execution.
– Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

Each lame-duck gag hits the screen with an audible thud before the director decides to point his camera at something even less amusing.
– Scott Weinberg
Cinematical

Kennedy seems to think that simply showing up in Hammer pants is enough to make the movie work.
– Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com

Limited Releases

Diggers
Directed: Katherine Kieckmann
Starring: Paul Rudd, Lauren Ambrose, Ron Eldard

During the 1970s in the Hamptons, before the rich folks moved in, a group of clam diggers try to keep their livelihood while things are changing around them.

RT Score: 69%

A movie doesn't have to be unique in order for it to work, and Diggers provides just enough wit, warmth and insight to warrant a visit.
– Scott Weinberg
Cinematical

Manages to be entertaining while still engaging in an awful lot of soul searching.
– Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com

Diggers isn't a bad film, but the underlying premise — the longing one feels to escape from a dead-end, small town life — has been so beaten to death in the movies.
– Pete Vonder Haar
Film Threat

Diggers is not a film you watch — it’s a movie you live in, and when time’s up you feel the same elegiac sense of loss as do those who realize they have no choice but to move on.
– Ella Taylor
L.A. Weekly

The best thing in Diggers, besides the close-up of the back end of the Vista Cruiser, is the interplay between Rudd and Tierney.
– Michael Phillips
Chicago Tribune

Snow Cake
Directed: Marc Evans
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman

A man picks up a hitchhiker and then gets into a car accident, leaving his passenger dead. He seeks out her mother, who is autistic.

RT Score: 63%

Ultimately, [Snow Cake] is the sort of film that creeps up on you and you don't realise how much it has affected you till you find yourself still thinking about it days later.
– Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

Snowcake features one smart, pared-down performance. Unfortunately it's trapped in a stupid, overcrowded story.
– Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger

[The] arthouse variety of a bittersweet crowd-pleaser, complete with a finale that neatly ties up all the loose ends as the umpteenth pop song announces the arrival of the end credits.
– Boyd van Hoeij
europeanfilms.net

Marc Evans’ indie drama, from a script by Angels Pell (who has an autistic son), keeps sidling up to the brink of mawkishness, then pulling back so nicely into Weaver’s rich, hard-headed evocation of Linda’s limitations.
– Ella Taylor
L.A. Weekly

If Rickman these indignities like a man with his mind on other things, he's probably just shell-shocked by the antics of his co-star. Weaver's performance is so extravagantly awful, you can't take your eyes off it.
– Xan Brooks
Observer [UK]

Jindabyne
Directed: Ray Lawrence
Starring: Laura Linney, Gabriel Byrne

On an annual fishing trip, a group of men find a girl's dead body and don't react to it like they expected they would.

RT Score: 59%

Murder isn't allowed to become a distraction. Consequently, with all its haunting moodiness, moral alarm bells and relational issues, the film isn't much more than the unexpanded short story it derives from.
– Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals

A sobering and serious Australian movie that touches the deep places in us that are haunted and colored by love, loss, community, and grief.
– Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

The director too often errs on the side of embellishing details that didn't need to be expanded upon.
– Ethan Alter
Premiere Magazine

Could have been tightened up and shortened to be a much stronger film, and it's surprisingly unsatisfying as a whole.
– Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

Lawrence shows the ways in which such deep and often barely concealed gulfs between seemingly peacefully cohabitating peoples can suddenly reveal themselves during moments of public crisis.
– Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Wind Chill
Directed: Greg Jacobs
Starring: Emily Blunt, Ashton Holmes

Two college students drive home during winter break on a secluded ice-packed road and get stranded after a car accident.

RT Score: 43%

Though the oblique and confused storytelling saps the heat out of Wind Chill, the picture still boasts a game performance from Emily Blunt.
– Jay Antani
Boxoffice Magazine

Wind Chill doesn't advance the mechanics of the horror genre, but it gives audiences fed up with the Michael Bay School of Horror something of a breather.
– Ed Gonzalez
Los Angeles Times

All surface and no depth, with an incongruous ending that makes for an unsatisfying ending to an indecisive movie.
– Edward Havens
FilmJerk.com

Obviously meant to chill us to the bone, but it barely registers on the cinematic thermometer.
– Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

 

Sing Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
Directed: Bruce Leddy
Starring: David Alan Basche, Alexander Chaplin

A group of former college friends reunite for wedding.

RT Score: 17%

It's pretty insubstantial stuff.
– Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Do we really need another movie with thirtysomethings who ache to re-live their college years? C'mon, guys, grow up!
– Phil Hall
Film Threat

As for the singing, it's pleasant but unctuous and, frankly, made me squirm.
– Gary Goldstein
Reel.com

Another one of those horrendous high concept vanity projects that thinks it's way funnier than it actually is.
– Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

One desperately wishes they'd take their signature greeting literally: "Shut up!"
– Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

Nationwide Releases

Hot Fuzz
Directed: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost

The best cop in London has such a great arrest record that he is moved to a small, crime-free town so he won't embarrass all the city cops.

RT Score: 89%
RT Consensus: Hot Fuzz is a bitingly satiric and hugely entertaining take on the buddy cop genre.

Funnier than "Shaun," and with a more prestigous cast.
– Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)

Wright brings you close to the characters as well as to the action. It makes all the difference, as the dream team of Pegg and Frost lace the mayhem with mirth. It's a blast.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

[A] very funny cop comedy.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

A bit of a disappointment … if only in the sense that it should have been even better. Chop out 20 minutes or so, and this thing would be blinding.
– Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

Since Hot Fuzz is from the guys who brought us Shaun of the Dead, you can expect more of the same attention to detail, heartfelt homages to the genre, elaborate set pieces, flawless comedic timing, and ace acting augmented by top-notch writing.
– Staci Layne Wilson
About.com

Fracture
Directed: Gregory Hoblit
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling,David Strathairn

Ryan Gosling is a young district attorney trying to prosecute Anthony Hopkins for killing his wife, except all the evidence proves his innocence.

RT Score: 70%
RT Consensus: Though Fracture's plot is somewhat implausible, the onscreen face-off between Gosling and Hopkins overshadows any faults.

Tight and lean, "Fracture" plays out with the vigor of a John Grisham novel and the suspense of a slasher flick. There's hardly a crack in this case.
– Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

Just because a movie is freakin' preposterous doesn't mean it can't be diabolical fun. Case in point: Fracture.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

It may be obvious that Fracture is working on us, playing us, but that's its pleasure. It makes overwrought manipulation seem more than a basic instinct.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

This legal thriller pits these two brilliant actors against one another in a sustained battle of wills that has enough sizzle to keep us rapt even when the storyline sags and zags.
– Marjorie Baumgarten
Austin Chronicle

Sometimes when you figure out a twist ending in advance, you feel smart. But sometimes instead of feeling good about yourself, you feel scornful of the onscreen victim of the story's trap door: How'd he fall for something so obvious?
– John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

In the Land of Women
Directed: Jon Kasdan
Starring: Adam Brody, Kristen Stewart, Meg Ryan

A young guy gets dumped by his movie star girlfriend, so he goes to visit his grandmother in the midwest and finds love with a real girl.

RT Score: 46%
RT Consensus: While pleasantly acted, In the Land of Women is a dramatically stilted film with underdeveloped characters.

As Phyllis, Dukakis is every bit as effervescent as she was in her Oscar-winning supporting role in "Moonstruck" (1987).
– Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

In the Land of Women combines hugs and ''pain'' and dialogue so fakey-cute it makes your ears hurt.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

A decent film that doesn't occupy a single neat genre category, and often doesn't seem able to decide who it's trying to speak to.
– Brian Webster
Apollo Guide

As a portrait of a young man's rather late coming-of-emotional-age, it's pleasant but unexceptional…firmly situated in the mediocre middle.
– Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

A lot of pop-music montages–great soundtrack, by the way–stand in for actual acting or directing, and there's not a single thing here that hasn't been done better before.
– Katey Rich
Film Journal International

Vacancy
Directed: Nimrod Antal
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson

A couple breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They stay at a hotel which appears to make its own snuff films with the hotel guests.

RT Score: 53%
RT Consensus: Vacancy's restraint with gore is commendable, the thin characters and B-movie cliches less so.

Vacancy is a schlock surprise: a no-frills motel-hell slasher film — with a bit of soul.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

A quick and dirty job, a mean little movie ripping off the atmosphere and decorations of Psycho and a half-dozen other horror-thriller classics.
– Michael Booth
Denver Post

If Psycho and Peeping Tom are the seminal killer-as-voyeur movies, Vacancy is the nasty little runt offspring with no other purpose in life but to gnaw on you. This it does uncommonly well.
– David Edelstein
New York Magazine

You start to think you're going to get a first-rate psychological thriller and instead you get third-rate schlock, with some legitimate scary moments but no insight into the motivation behind [Frank Whaley's character's] psychosis.
– Teresa Budasi
Chicago Sun-Times

The point of Vacancy is the terror, not the torture. Horror is vastly more effective when left to the mind's eye and it is what we can't see in Vacancy that truly frightens.
– Peter Howell
Toronto Star

Limited Releases

Severance
Directed: Christopher Smith
Starring: Danny Dyer, Laura Harris

A company retreat meant for team building goes horribly wrong with crazies in the woods.

RT Score: 80%
RT Consensus: A twisted and bloody spoof on office life, Severance perfectly balances comedy and nasty horror.

Director and co-writer Christopher Smith, mischievously blending The Office with Friday the 13th, keeps things fierce and funny enough to give Steve Carell ideas.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

Severance is how Office Space would’ve turned out had Michael Bolton and Samir not been able to take their frustrations out on the office printer.
– Pete Vonder Haar
Film Threat

A motley group of employees from an international weapons company find themselves hilariously at the business end of their own products in Christopher Smith's razor-sharp comedy horror film.
– Ray Bennett
Hollywood Reporter

A long way from formula slasher fare.
– Derek Elley
Variety

[Director Christopher Smith] describes the film as The Office meets Deliverance and as such, he gets the tone exactly right, balancing some genuinely nasty and shocking scenes with moments of black humour.
– Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

The Valet
Directed: Francis Veber
Starring: Gad Elmaleh, Daniel Auteuil

A rich guy gets a picture taken next to his girlfriend, but plays it off to his wife that she is with the guy standing next to her in the picture. The make it real, he pays the valet to live with his supermodel girlfriend to convince his wife and the paparazzi.

RT Score: 74%
RT Consensus: Like much of director Francis Veber's work, The Valet is a witty, madcap farce with memorably zany characters.

Resistance to The Valet is futile: The tumblers of this well-oiled entertainment machine make satisfying clicks as the pieces lock merrily into place.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Another well-oiled piece of comic machinery from Francis Veber.
– Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

This latest French farce from Oscar-nominee Francis Veber (La Cage aux Folles) is another sophisticated screwball comedy right up there with the best of Billy Wilder.
– Kam Williams
NewsBlaze

This isn't to diminish The Valet's good times, only to admit that it'll inevitably wind up with an English-language makeover and an 8 p.m. slot on ABC.
– Robert Wilonsky
Village Voice

The films of writer/director Francis Veber are a bracing reminder that French comedies can be every bit as broad, unsophisticated and cliched as their American counterparts.
– Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Stephanie Daley
Directed: Hilary Brougher
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn

A forensic psychologist is hired to see if a girl's claims that she gave birth to a stillborn child and she didn't know she was pregnant are true.

RT Score: 87%
RT Consensus: The premise has all the trappings of melodrama, but the excellent performances give the characters complexity and empathy.

This lacerating drama from writer-director Hilary Brougher shines a piercing light onto some of the hidden terrors of women, especially in an era when abstinence can shade into ignorance.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Brougher brings a particularly female sensibility to her work. I think most male writer-directors would structure this story around choices and actions. Will Stephanie accept a plea bargain? Will Lydie push her patient into facing the truth? But Brougher wants to peer into subtler, more nuanced forms of consciousness and awareness.
– Harry Chotiner
culturevulture.net

Tells a distinctly (sometimes wrenching) feminine tale without making it only relative to Oprah watchers and talk-show bingers.
– Jason Clark
Slant Magazine

A ripped-from-the-headlines premise — a teenage mother accused of killing her newborn — provides the catalyst for a taut, provocative, sometimes overreaching but always absorbing thriller.
– Scott Foundas
Variety

What begins as after-school special about teenage pregnancy gradually becomes a more provocative chronicle of two different women who nonethelss go through personal crises at the same time; the acting, particularly by Amber Tmblyn in the lead, is superb.
– Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Smiley Face
Directed: Gregg Araki
Starring: Anna Faris, Adam Brody

A unemployed actress eats her roommate's funny cupcakes by mistake, which is just the start of a very bad day for her.

RT Score: 67%

A decent diversion for those who are into comedies that are different than your standard fare. The visuals are great, the comedy is new and refreshing.
– Zack Haddad
Film Threat

The jokes have been done before and better. It's incredibly tedious.
– Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com

Gregg Araki's latest foray into the slacker underbelly of suburban L.A., Smiley Face, has a wonderful performance by Anna Faris and one of the all-time great stoner monologues in movie history.
– Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com

In Faris, pic has a comedienne with the ability to wring endless variations on a limited theme (the 'I'm-so-baked' one) and she pretty much single-handedly compensates for anything lacking.
– Dennis Harvey
Variety

This is a full-force, all-purpose performance by Anna Faris with the kind of grace that would get winks from the likes of silent screen greats.
– Erik Childress
eFilmCritic.com

The Tripper
Directed: David Arquette
Starring: Lukas Haas, Balthazar Getty

A serial killer hates hippies so he decides to rid the world of them during a Woodstock-type festival.

RT Score: 29%

It's sort of fun — at least if you're someone who has a taste for gory slasher flicks.
– Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

Much like David Arquette's acting career, the film is often unbearable and rarely shows competence, but still remains an antagonistic curiosity that can't be easily denied.
– Brian Orndorf
eFilmCritic.com

Ineptly written by Arquette and Joe Harris, The Tripper is a carnival of cretins doing and saying one ass-headed thing after another.
– Jay Antani
Boxoffice Magazine

The rambling story attempts to turn the genre on its head, but it ends up giving in to every slasher cliché (Arquette himself plays a backwoods redneck). The acting ranges from abysmal to barely adequate.
– Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News

A mostly dull-blade exercise that offers little to think or scream about.
– Justin Chang
Variety

Nationwide Releases

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters
Directed: Matt Maiellero, Dave Willis
Starring: Matt Maiellero, Dave Willis

Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad have some kind of adventure with three new backgrounds, five new characters and a flaming chicken.

RT Score: 48%
RT Consensus: The non sequitur humor of Aqua Teen Hunger Force will surely appeal to its built-in fanbase, but for the uninitiated, the premise wears thin.

Succeed[s] enough of the time to make a perversely entertaining movie.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

The plot can't be summarized: Let's just say that crazy s— happens, and occasionally, you laugh.
– Scott Brown
Entertainment Weekly

Crudely animated, tasteless, and totally pointless, which I'm sure the filmmakers would say is the point.
– M. K. Terrell
Christian Science Monitor

Works wonderfully when taking potshots at pop culture and not so well when it tries to make sense. Luckily, it doesn't try do that very often.
– Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com

At one point there is a live chicken on fire, running around the room like, well, a chicken on fire, and that's when I thought: They have no idea what they're doing here.
– Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com

Disturbia
Directed: D.J. Caruso
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, David Morse

A kid is on house arrest for three months so he starts to watch his neighbors and finds that one seems to be doing gruesome things to young women.

RT Score: 67%
RT Consensus: Aside from its clichéd resolution, Disturbia is a tense, subtle thriller with a noteworthy performance from Shia LaBeouf.

"Disturbia" is like "Rear Window," only if "Rear Window" had been written and directed by morons and James Stewart had been replaced by a kid from the Disney Channel.
– Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

No sense kicking this thriller for plot holes and lapses in logic when the action, suspense and flirty sex come at such a lively clip.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

Disturbia, unlike Hitchcock's masterpiece of urban-courtyard fishbowl voyeurism, is a Rear Window that never bothers to peer into more than one window.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

LeBeouf makes for a likeable, ankle-bracelet-saddled sleuth, while Caruso confidently ratchets the suspense. Even the romantic subplot — never advised in a taut thriller such as this — is winning enough to make it a welcome distraction.
– Kevin Williamson
Jam! Movies

This by-the-numbers teen thriller is so formulaic that it makes a good date movie. You can predict what happens and devote half your time to snogging, say.
– Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile

Perfect Stranger
Directed: James Foley
Starring: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis

After her friend goes missing while having an affair with a high-powered businessman, a reporter goes undercover as a new temp in his office to find out the truth.

RT Score: 11%
RT Consensus: Perfect Stranger is too convoluted to work and with a twist ending that’s irritating and superfluous.

Much of the film takes place in computer chats, with an instant-message box taking up most of the screen, and Berry and Willis reading every line for those of us who are illiterate.
– Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

Perfect Stranger is spam — not only commercially generated, but irritating in the faith that buyers will be as dumb about Internet-based thrillers as the sellers are. My advice is to delete without opening.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Complex and convoluted, to say the least.
– Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)

That's right, it's a techno thriller that treats the already clichéd topic of Web abuse with an idiotic sense of discovery.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

You don't see this ending coming because it is absurd, ridiculous, moronic, preposterous, ludicrous, foolish, stupid, and outrageous (I love my thesaurus), none of which is thrilling or satisfying.
– Willie Waffle
WaffleMovies.com

Pathfinder
Directed: Marcus Nispel
Starring: Karl Urban, Jay Tavare

When Vikings arrived in America, they slaughtered many, but left one of their own boys behind. He was raised by Native Americans and grows up to fight his own kind when they return for more bloodshed.

RT Score: 12%
RT Consensus: A few rousing action sequences can't make up for Pathfinder's non-existent plot and silly dialogue.

Pathfinder's moody, muddy look is courtesy of music-video director Marcus Nispel, who doesn't distinguish between people and tree trunks when it comes to emotional content.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

It's a tedious experience in almost every way: The acting is numbingly one-note, the CGI work is unconvincing and often downright shoddy, and the action is poorly staged and framed so close you can never tell for sure who is lopping off whose head.
– William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

at times hallucinatory but ultimately, utterly forgettable
– Keith Breese
filmcritic.com

Once the actual fighting begins, the film turns dull and lifeless. From beginning to end, the film plods when it should pulse.
– Peter T. Chattaway
Christianity Today

Blood flows freely here, but the movie never creates a keen sense of involvement or mystery. Even a major cliffhanging (literally) set piece winds up blurred by the addition of a blinding snowstorm.
– Robert Denerstein
Denver Rocky Mountain News

Slow Burn
Directed: Wayne Beach
Starring: Ray Liotta, Jolene Blalock, LL Cool J, Mekhi Phifer

A district attorney who is running for mayor hits a snag when one of his assistant district attorneys confesses to killing a man in self-defense, but not everything is as it appears.

RT Score: 11%

When a movie has been sitting around since 2003, why wouldn't you just throw it at the DVD shelf rather than subjecting big-screen audiences to it?
– Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

Has direct-to-video etched all over it.
– Eddie Cockrell
Variety

Slow Burn is a wooden police thriller that is as dull as it is impenetrable and ultimately beyond ludicrous.
– Stephen Holden
New York Times

The theme of racial confusion that attempts to underlie this would-be noirish murder mystery becomes just one more unintentionally hilarious aspect…
– MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

A lesson in how not to make a multiple-viewpoint mystery.
– Michelle Kung
Boston Globe

Redline
Directed: Andy Cheng
Starring: Angus MacFadyen, Nathan Phillips

Pretty people get caught up in illegal drag racing put on by bored rich people.

RT Score: 0%

You could watch it with the sound off and the plot wouldn't make any less sense than it does with it on.
– Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com

Although the movie's artistic merits are virtually nonexistent, Sadek does understand his audience, most of whom are unlikely to be acquainted yet with two key aspects of the film: driver's licenses and women.
– Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News

Redline is the kind of movie where they spent so much on the fast cars they forgot to save any for acting lessons or screenplay rewrites.
– Brian Tallerico
UnderGround Online

Well…at least you can look at the cars.
– Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

Everything you'd expect it to be, and yet so much less: less character development, less believability, and most unforgivably, less escapist entertainment.
– Jonathan Perry
Boston Globe

Limited Releases

Year of the Dog
Directed: Mike White
Starring: Molly Shannon, Peter Sarsgaard

A woman has never been married since she seems to relate to dogs more than people until she meets a guy who is the same way.

RT Score: 73%
RT Consensus: Year of the Dog is a warm and quirky comedy that never condescends to its eccentric characters.

I mean no impertinence when I say that as a portrait of love and grief, writer-director Mike White's exceptional film Year of the Dog deserves the same admiration accorded Joan Didion's exceptional memoir The Year of Magical Thinking.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Molly Shannon tones down her live-wire antics to play her first "normal" person", to be more accurate, White's version of a "normal" person.
– Ethan Alter
Premiere Magazine

At his best, [Mike] White's writing straddles the line between the comedy and the cruelty of emotional pain…
– Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

White is a clever writer, and many of his best lines will sneak up on you long after you leave the theater. There's a stealthy sweetness to the movie, a desire to understand those who go their own way, that would seem to be his ultimate aim.
– Kevin Crust
Los Angeles Times

has good intentions and a golden heart, but that doesn't take you that far
– Chris Cabin
filmcritic.com

The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai
Directed: Mitsuru Meike
Starring: Kyoko Hayami, Yukijiro Hotaru

A Japanese call girl gets caught up in an International terrorist incident.

RT Score: 57%

An obscene, elaborate joke at the expense of the Bush Administration…. It's the trashy midnight weird-out that Grindhouse could have been.
– Jurgen Fauth
About.com

Is this sleaze dressed up as art, or vice-versa? As more and more daring directors opt to push the envelope with similar conversation-provoking pictures, we'll have to let the debate about what could be an emerging cinematic trend continue.
– Kam Williams
NewsBlaze

An apocalyptic political satire.
– Aaron Hollis
Village Voice

Uninspired staging and pacing manage the near-impossible feat of rendering such lunatic concepts dull.
– Dennis Harvey
Variety

The overripe morsel who gets batted around in the Japanese absurdithon The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai looks like she was conjured up by a teenage boy in dangerous hormonal overdrive.
– Manohla Dargis
New York Times

Everything's Gone Green
Directed: Paul Fox
Starring: Paulo Costanzo, Peter Kelamis

A slacker gets caught up in a money-laundering scheme while trying to woo a girl away from the schemer.

RT Score: 79%

The story — a guy (Paulo Costanzo) who works for the lottery gets mixed up in money laundering — is slight, but an appealing cast and lots of scenic leafery make Green feel fresh.
– Gregory Kirschling
Entertainment Weekly

In trying to mock the yuppie subculture by poking fun at people who become obsessed with grass grow-ops and pyramid schemes, Fox shoehorns Coupland's generalizations into a lame character comedy.
– Kevin Courrier
Boxoffice Magazine

Layered with odd ideas, cultural references, snappy dialogue, dreamy visuals and charming characters, all of which add to up a refreshingly unironic look at love, life and the desire to just be.
– Glenn Gaslin
E! Online

A gorgeous location, involving characters, and stellar wit add up to one crackerjack comedy.
– Pam Grady
Reel.com

The blandness of director Paul Fox's execution leaves much to be desired.
– Edward Havens
FilmJerk.com

Private Fears in Public Places
Directed: Alain Resnais
Starring: Sabine Azema, Lambert Wilson

French people lives interconnecting along with their relationship problems.

RT Score: 77%
RT Consensus: The premise isn't anything new, but director Alain Resnais' attention to detail and smooth camerawork gives this movie a delicate edge.

[A] mature adaptation of a dramatic daisy chain by veteran British playwright Alan Ayckbourn.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

An eminently peaceful portrait of love and loss inviting the audience into the emotional inner workings of a snowy and somber Paris.
– Ron Wilkinson
Monsters and Critics

Despite a perfect cast of Resnais regulars plus the master's own impeccable crafting, the characters fail to grip, and with approximately 50 short scenes, development comes in fits and starts.
– Jay Weissberg
Variety

At 84, Mr. Resnais has lost none of the fatalistic cutting edge he first displayed almost 60 years ago. His films are never to be missed.
– Andrew Sarris
New York Observer

Who in their right mind would want to see a thing that makes you want to kill yourself at the end?
– Eric Lurio
Entertainment Insiders

Rock the Bells
Directed: Denis Hennelly, Casey Suchan
Starring: Method Man, RZA

Behind the scenes look at bringing the Wu-Tang Clan back together for their final performance.

RT Score: 89%

Outright exhilarating… Rock the Bells doesn't just delve behind the scenes; it makes a showstopping guest-MC out of each crazy new obstacle.
– Aaron Hillis
Premiere Magazine

Hip-hop's irreverent answer to Woodstock!
– Kam Williams
AALBC.com

While "much ado about nothing" might be overstating things, after more than an hour and a half of buildup, it would have been nice to see Wu-Tang perform.
– Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide

This nerve-racking knockout of a film pays testament to the passion of the Tang, and to the memory of the loose-cannon lyricist who never lived to see his lyrics born.
– Nathan Lee
Village Voice

The lively hip-hop documentary Rock the Bells demands neither familiarity with the music nor a hankering for rhyme.
– Jeannette Catsoulis
New York Times

Good week for movies. We have three Certified Fresh ones: Grindhouse, The Hoax and Black Book. I guess spring time isn’t a dumping ground for crap movies any more.

Nationwide Releases

Grindhouse
Directed: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Zoe Bell

Double-feature in the style of the 70′s grindhouse flicks. Planet Terror is about biochemical zombies and Death Proof is a car-chase, slasher film.

RT Score: 81%
RT Consensus: Grindhouse delivers exhilarating exploitation fare with wit and panache, improving upon its source material with feral intelligence.

Their pastiches take the best of their nostalgic 1960s and ’70s trash heap and reshape it into kitschy action comedies that stand as adoring monuments to the films that shaped their demented worldviews.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

It summons the most crackerjack pop charge of any movie with Tarantino’s name on it since Pulp Fiction.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

By stooping low without selling out, this babes-and-bullets tour de force gets you high on movies again.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

It makes going to the movies an event.
- Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

An ungainly creature that alternates moments of sheer brilliance with moments of stunning banality. Fortunately, the former end up outnumbering the latter.
- Ethan Alter
Film Journal International

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