Stop Smiling

Michael Joshua Rowin Stop Smiling Feb 28, 2022 A strong candidate for one of the greatest films of all time. Go to Full Review Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964) 93% 88%

Nick Pinkerton Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 If much of what I dislike in Bujalski's filmmaking must be accounted for by my objection to the milieu his films travel in, this shouldn't suggest that the filmmaking itself is anything close to competent. Go to Full Review Mutual Appreciation (2005) 87% 72%

Michael Joshua Rowin Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 Be Kind Rewind, while erring just this side of too adorable for its own good - it's nothing if not enjoyable for once again showcasing Gondry's ingenious guerilla filmmaking tactics - is still a bit of a setback. Go to Full Review Be Kind Rewind (2008) 64% 56%

Mark Asch Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 Knight throws in a twist that scrambles the movie's moral compass so late in the game, so perfunctorily and so pointlessly, as to render any final reckoning incoherent. Go to Full Review Eastern Promises (2007) 89% 83%

Michael Joshua Rowin Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 The final cut seems to simply be an enhanced version of the 1992 director's cut, a technically perfected (Dolby remastered, special effects streamlined) fulfillment of the project Ridley oversaw but admits to rushing. Go to Full Review Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982) 94% 90%

Michael Joshua Rowin Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 [Sunshine] delivers the visually incarnate truth of the universe's mysticism. Go to Full Review Sunshine (2007) 77% 73%

Michael Joshua Rowin Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 If The Boss of It All is forgettable, it's not for its airiness, but for its failed artiness, and for von Trier's failure to be true to his art. Go to Full Review The Boss of It All (2006) 75% 70%

Michael Joshua Rowin Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 Defenders of Funny Games repeatedly point out that it shouldn't be fun. But if it isn't, then it should at least be subversive. Go to Full Review Funny Games (2007) 53% 54%

Justin Stewart Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 Too brief and good-looking to actively dislike, Paranoid Park is still uninspiringly repetitive. If you're going to play the same riff over and over again, at least lower it an octave. Go to Full Review Paranoid Park (2007) 76% 65%

Michael Joshua Rowin Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 In many ways [Shine a Light is] an unintentional funeral dance commemorating the vanished vitality and subversive potential of mainstream rock 'n' roll and celebrating its current utility as a nostalgic anodyne. Go to Full Review Shine a Light (2008) 85% 74%

James Hughes Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 Neville's film shows, in effect, how deliberate the founding of an art movement can be. But also how thrilling it is for those at the eye of the storm. Go to Full Review The Cool School (2008) 92% 63%

Justin Stewart Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 It's a bit disappointing that Redbelt doesn't go much beyond a redux of the same-old. Go to Full Review Redbelt (2008) 70% 65%

Mark Asch Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 What, really, is so progressive about jockish games of yeah-dude-I-just-went-there - especially as played by guys whose views of women are stuck in high school gym class? Go to Full Review Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (2008) 53% 60%

Patrick Z. McGavin Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 [Red Balloon] takes the ineffable and makes it concrete and visible. Go to Full Review Flight of the Red Balloon (2007) 81% 60%

Justin Stewart Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 It's easy to overstate the varied accomplishments here because of how badly it might have gone. That it landed somewhere between adequate and excellent is satisfying enough. Go to Full Review Brideshead Revisited (2008) 61% 52%

Mark Asch Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 The party got out of hand towards the end, and we probably should have booked out before we got too tired. Go to Full Review Pineapple Express (2008) 68% 73%

Eric Hynes Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 Problematic as portrait, the film fascinates as a mess of artistic choices - some bold, some easy, many good in theory if not in effect. Go to Full Review Che Guevara (2005) - - 35%

Eric Hynes Stop Smiling Aug 24, 2017 Avoiding easy conflict and histrionics, Summer Hours instead shows loving siblings, relatives and friends negotiating differences the best that they can. Go to Full Review Summer Hours (2008) 94% 70%

Eric Hynes Stop Smiling Aug 23, 2017 An adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina transposed to contemporary Kazakhstan, Chouga is a masterful distillation of the great novel's characterizations and themes. Go to Full Review Shuga (Chouga) (2007) 60% - -

Eric Hynes Stop Smiling Aug 23, 2017 From beginning to end, horizon to horizon, Dvortsevoy's film is simply a privilege to watch. Go to Full Review Tulpan (2008) 96% 70%