Nationwide Releases
Ocean's Thirteen
Directed: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon
Al Pacino is a casino owner who double-crosses one of the crew, so the rest of them set out to break "the Bank" of the casino.
RT Score: 68%
RT Consensus: Ocean's Thirteen reverts to the formula of the first installment, and the result is another slick and entertaining heist film.
The movie is all heist, which Soderbergh carries off in high style.
– Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
[A] delectably elaborate and savory soufflé of a mother-of-all-scams sequel.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
Can audiences still be entertained by this baker's dozen beating unbeatable adversaries, breaking unbreakable safes, or crashing uncrashable security systems? I still am.
– Ross Anthony
Hollywood Report Card
All told, this thing has to be one of the dullest caper movies ever made.
– William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ocean's Thirteen is as lazy and laid-back as a softball game with the beer keg at second. And it's just as enjoyable.
– Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Surf's Up
Directed: Chris Buck
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Brian Benben
Mockumentary about the Penguin World Surfing Championship.
RT Score: 74%
RT Consensus: Surf's Up is a laid back, visually stunning animated movie presented in a witty mockumentary format.
Cleverly told from the perspective of a reality-show film crew on hand to tell the story behind the Penguin World Surfing Championships, the film cuts a curl of brisk family fun.
– Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star
As formulas go, the movie, team-written and -directed, sneaks in more tubular charm than the average adult ticket buyer might expect — or that very young attendees might appreciate.
– Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
Surf's Up is so ingenious and fresh, and features such truly awesome CGI, that another summer with penguins is genuinely welcomed.
– Angela Baldassarre
Sympatico.ca
The abundance of schmaltz that plagued Happy Feet is thankfully missing here, though the movie does make sure to shoehorn in the obligatory flatulence gags.
– Matt Brunson
Creative Loafing
Hollywood's latest attempt to capitalize on penguin appreciation features a forgettable plot, fountains of toilet humor and enough surfing scenarios to make a viewer seasick.
– Tyler Hanley
Palo Alto Weekly
Hostel: Part II
Directed: Eli Roth
Starring: Bijou Phillips, Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo
Americans die some more in European hostels in gross and imaginative ways.
RT Score: 54%
RT Consensus: Offering up more of the familiar sadism and gore, Hostel: Part II will surely thrill horror fans.
Eli Roth has actually improved upon the first Hostel film, delivering a higher quotient of gore, but more importantly delivering an incredibly streamlined, and dare I say, mature spin on the slasher genre.
– Spence D.
IGN Movies
Those looking for wanton gore and violence may be sated, but those expecting more from this talented filmmaker might be slightly disappointed.
– Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net
It's sick. It's twisted. Some scenes made me want to throw up. But I loved it. God help me.
– Kevin Carr
7M Pictures
Hostel: Part II has something that most bigger-budgeted and more heavily promoted sequels don't: the ambition to not only repeat the experience of its predecessor, but to expand and improve upon it.
– Jim Hemphill
Reel.com
No doubt about it: Roth is a talented guy. But it would be nice to see him use his skills in the service of something other than more sadistic, pandering, pornographic violence.
– John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press
Limited Releases
The Method
Directed: Marcelo Pineyro
Starring: Eduardo Noriega, Najwa Nimri
Seven candidates are vying for the same job, but if they want to continue they have to undertake the Gronholm Method test, which could prove very dangerous.
RT Score: 60%
Gripping but insignificant, The Method suggests Glengarry Glenn Ross with its teeth knocked out by Tony Soprano and nursed back to health by Mark Burnett.
– Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine
The film is delightful, like a quality Gilligan's Island for these nervous globalized times.
– Pam Grady
Reel.com
Ostensibly-inspired by The Apprentice, what this reality movie's missing most is a cocky host with a cotton candy-colored comb-over. How do you say, 'You're fired!' in Spanish.
– Kam Williams
NewsBlaze
Gil's screenplay doesn't do much to open up the play for film, but Piñeyro certainly does everything he can to make the audience forget they're watching a film version of a play, using constant camera movement, quick edits, and reframing to keep the audience visually engaged during extended dialogue scenes.
– Mel Valentin
eFilmCritic.com
12:08 East of Bucharest
Directed: Corneliu Porumboiu
Starring: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban, Ion Sapdaru
Seventeen years after the revolution in Romania that caused the dictator and his wife to flee, a local television station has invited two men who were around at the time to recount their histories, but the more the tell, the more people wonder if the revolution actually happened.
RT Score: 100%
Filmed in real time, the unraveling call-in program is a comedy of embarrassment (The Office, without the asides to the camera, but just as dry).
– Kent Turner
Film-Forward.com
Corneliu Porumboiu's drolly witty black comedy 12:08 East of Bucharest is an understated gem, infused with gimlet-eyed humor, weary pathos and surprising tenderness.
– Timothy Knight
Reel.com
The introductory half hour feels overly protracted, but the comedy works perfectly, mainly because of the excellent direction of the actors (who all have a faultless comic timing) and the witty script.
– Boyd van Hoeij
europeanfilms.net
The buoyant little comedy 12:08 East of Bucharest puts its finger on the problem in the best tradition of East European humor, savvy but concrete, gentle but sharp as a knife.
– Deborah Young
Variety
Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu grapples with his country's troubled recent past in this wonderfully droll, Cannes Camera d'Or winner about a local TV station owner who attempts to define the events of December 22, 1989.
– Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide
You're Gonna Miss Me
Directed: Keven McAlestar
Starring: Roger Kynard Erickson
Documentary about singer Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson who is considered to be one of pioneers of psychedelic music, but struggled with drug addiction and schizophrenia, while his mother locked him away his her house without any kind of medical treatment.
RT Score: 77%
Director Keven McAlester thinks he's making Crumb, but he doesn't give you enough of [Roky] Erickson in his glory. You're Gonna Miss Me has the taint of exploitation.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
Another dysfunctional American family gets its documentary close-up in the sad but involving You're Gonna Miss Me, the story of legendary music pioneer Roger "Roky" Erickson.
– Gary Goldstein
Reel.com
With battered archival footage and celebrity worship, [director] McAlester skimps on perspective and complexity.
– Aaron Hillis
Village Voice
You’re Gonna Miss Me is still a great meld of rock history, the sociological and familial impacts of mental disability and some courtroom intrigue.
– Don R. Lewis
Film Threat
Keven McAlester's superb documentary about Texas singer-songwriter Roky Erickson scratches the surface of an artist's life only to find a welter of insanity, secrets and family dysfunction.
– Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide
La Vie En Rose
Directed: Oliver Dahan
Starring: Gerard Depardieu, Marion Cotillard
Biopic of singer Edith Piaf.
RT Score: 92%
RT Consensus: The set design and cinematography are impressive, but the real achievement of La Vie en Rose is Marion Cotillard's mesmerizing, wholly convincing performance as Edith Pilaf.
Hurtling and impassioned, driven by some of the greatest popular music ever recorded, this wildly overripe and unkempt biopic is a true experience.
– Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
France's waiflike songbird Edith Piaf gets an involving cinematic treatment by director Oliver Dahan that resembles her messy and traumatic life.
– Angela Baldassarre
Sympatico.ca
An astonishing performance by Marion Cotillard as the legendary French chanteuse Edith Piaf whose life was a rollercoaster ride of exhilarating highs and incredibly depressing lows.
– Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice
Ms. Cotillard [is] the movie's centerpiece, and its end-all, be-all. It's a spectacular one-woman show, but not really a movie.
– Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
It's the role of an actress' lifetime, and Marion Cotillard pretty much knocks it out of the park.
– Jack Mathews
New York Daily News
Belle Toujours
Directed: Manoel DeOliveira
Starring: Bulle Ogier, Michel Piccoli
Two characters from Belle de Jour meet 38 years later where one seeks revenge on the other one.
RT Score: 63%
An ill-advised attempt to recall the wickedness of Buñuel's original by a director who is coming from a totally different perspective in his filmmaking.
– Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Drains all the mystery out of a masterpiece.
– Keith Uhlich
Slant Magazine
Toujours suggests either creative immortality of a work of cinema as it flows through the imaginative process from one director to another, or simply sexual obsession perpetually unresolved. Or perhaps even a little of both.
– Prairie Miller
WBAI Web Radio
Both performers make the most of skimpy roles, raising an eyebrow or focusing a gaze. But only those who’ve forgotten Buñuel’s psychosexual daring will find such modest achievements nourishing.
– Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out New York
The 98-year-old [director] Oliveira addresses the beauty and cruelty of aging with such subtlety that the movie is worth taking on its own terms, as the hard-earned musings of its creator.
– Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News
Your Mommy Kills Animals
Directed: Curt Johnson
Starring: Katherine Heigl, Jessica Biel
Documentary about the animal rights movement and how our current government is labeling them a terrorist group.
RT Score: 100%
A documentary that both informs and entertains, and that will invite animated debate–which is precisely what a good documentary should do.
– Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion
Your Mommy Kills Animals will more than likely still draw you in with its unbiased approach — and, no matter where you stand on the issue of animals, you will definitely learn a lot about people.
– Staci Layne Wilson
Buzzine Magazine
The most controversial, provocative, inflammatory and thought-provoking film of the year!
– Robert Roten
Laramie Movie Scope
This film shines a clear light on the dark controversy surrounding our treatment of animals.
– Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Terrific documentary on the animal rights movement that allows all sides in the debate to make their points.
– Louis Proyect
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