Time Out Chicago - Rotten Tomatoes

Time Out Chicago

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
How To Die In Oregon (2011)

Sam Adams

How to Die can be tough to watch, but when it's over, you feel privileged to have taken part.
Posted Jul 2, 2018
2
Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012)

A.A. Dowd

"I do not see myself as a footnote to someone else's life," Kidman says in the movie's final minutes. The preceding two and a half hours beg to differ.
Posted Jul 2, 2018
3
The Normal Heart (2014)

Jessica Johnson

While there are kinks in Murphy's adaptation, the raw power of Kramer's story cannot be diluted. It's a powerful memorial to the men that lost their lives and those they loved while fighting bring the AIDS epidemic to light.
Posted Jul 2, 2018
4
There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane (2011)

Sam Adams

The movie offers a few plausible explanations as to what might have been wrong with Diane Schuler, but ultimately it tests her family's, and its audience's, ability to accept without understanding.
Posted Jul 2, 2018
5
I Am Kalam (2010)

Amy L. Hayden

Overall, I Am Kalam is an interesting film.
Posted Oct 20, 2017
6
3/5
Sound City (2013)

A.A. Dowd

When getting into the nitty-gritty of tapes and tracks, Grohl makes a strong case for music docs directed by musicians.
Posted Dec 16, 2013
7
3/5
The Motel Life (2013)

Sam Adams

This debut film does establish a fragile mood that lingers like a morning fog.
Posted Dec 2, 2013
8
White Reindeer (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

I's a rare Christmas movie whose uplift, such as it is, feels earned.
Posted Nov 18, 2013
9
3/5
4 (Chetyre) (2006)

Hank Sartin

Khrzhanovsky and screenwriter Vladimir Sorokin have both the grim ideas and the little sideways winks in perfect equilibrium in the brilliant first half hour of this strange film. The rest of the film is certainly memorable, if increasingly impenetrable.
Posted Nov 5, 2013
10
5/5
Sicko (2007)

Cliff Doerksen

Equal parts laugh-riot and call to arms.
Posted Aug 5, 2013
11
3/5
Ratatouille (2007)

Ben Kenigsberg

Ratatouille seems more charming in concept than in execution. Bogged down by too many climaxes, it's a little overcooked.
Posted Aug 4, 2013
12
District 9 (2009)

Ben Kenigsberg

If the basic idea is provocative, District 9 never lives up to the promise of its allegorical freight.
Posted Aug 4, 2013
13
5/5
Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Ben Kenigsberg

For all its originality, this hall of mirrors is the closest Tarantino has come to making a film with old-fashioned, movie-movie appeal.
Posted Aug 4, 2013
14
5/5
Knocked Up (2007)

Ben Kenigsberg

The movie is a decisive breakthrough for Apatow, whose comic instincts go hand in hand with an unfashionable empathy.
Posted Aug 3, 2013
15
3/5
Nancy, Please (2013)

A.A. Dowd

Nancy, Please hasn't much to offer beyond the amusing spectacle of a complacent college boy losing his cool. But that may be enough, especially for those who've sparred with archrivals of their own -- real or invented.
Posted May 23, 2013
16
5/5
Taxi Driver (1976)

A.A. Dowd

What strikes you aren't just the iconic moments, but the little ones.
Posted Apr 29, 2013
17
3/5
To The Wonder (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

Once the shock of seeing a Sonic Drive-In in a Malick film wears off, the movie leaves little to ponder beyond the sketchily drawn romance drama at its core.
Posted Apr 19, 2013
18
3/5
Ginger & Rosa (2013)

A.A. Dowd

Whether it's memoir or personalized fiction, Ginger & Rosa displays a shrewd understanding of late adolescence-a time when every emotional slight lands like an atom bomb.
Posted Mar 21, 2013
19
2/5
The Croods (2013)

A.A. Dowd

The latest advances in computer animation have been applied to a truly primitive comedy-Ice Age recast with a family of nattering Neanderthals.
Posted Mar 21, 2013
20
3/5
Caesar Must Die (2013)

A.A. Dowd

The problem with the film, which somewhat inexplicably won the Golden Bear at Berlin last year, is that it scarcely transcends the basic novelty of its premise.
Posted Mar 21, 2013
21
3/5
Admission (2013)

A.A. Dowd

Thank goodness for Fey, who lends this sitcom soap a credible emotional center.
Posted Mar 21, 2013
22
5/5
Spring Breakers (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

Not just a step forward. It's a vision: a fever dream of sun-dappled debauchery that doubles as a thriller-satire on the allure of excess.
Posted Mar 21, 2013
23
4/5
Barbara (2012)

Ben Kenigsberg

Petzold renders Communist oppression in a provocatively muted manner.
Posted Mar 10, 2013
24
1/5
Somebody Up There Likes Me (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

There's talent here, but the goal seems to be proving that everyone involved is too cool to make an actual movie.
Posted Mar 10, 2013
25
4/5
No (2013)

A.A. Dowd

Stirring as a celebration of voter empowerment, No may also inspire pangs of wistful nostalgia.
Posted Mar 10, 2013
26
5/5
Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne) (1954)

Ben Kenigsberg

Diary is less a movie about the necessity of faith than what it means to be cut down in the midst of youthful idealism and intransigence, before life offers wisdom.
Posted Mar 5, 2013
27
3/5
Stoker (2013)

A.A. Dowd

You may be dazzled or exasperated by this flurry of stylistic excess. You probably won't be bored.
Posted Mar 1, 2013
28
1/5
21 And Over (2013)

A.A. Dowd

The real problem with 21 and Over is that it swipes most of its material from better movies.
Posted Mar 1, 2013
29
2/5
Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

Taking a healthy swig from Lord of the Rings' cup, this high-concept "Jack and the Beanstalk" dresses up traditionalism in expensive nothingness.
Posted Mar 1, 2013
30
B
Future Weather (2013)

Sam Adams

Feels like the product of an explosion at the Sundance factory: a rural setting here, a wisp of mildly quirky indie rock there.
Posted Feb 23, 2013
31
3/5
Beautiful Creatures (2013)

A.A. Dowd

If we must have supernatural high-school romances, can they all be as relatively painless as Beautiful Creatures?
Posted Feb 18, 2013
32
1/5
A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)

A.A. Dowd

Director John Moore, the anonymous hack at the helm, stages car chases and gun fights with messy imprecision.
Posted Feb 18, 2013
33
The King's Speech (2010)

Ben Kenigsberg

The King's Speech is an entertainingly crafted movie that doesn't linger too long in the mind.
Posted Feb 16, 2013
34
3/5
The Trouble with the Truth (2012)

Keith Phipps

While it never quite lives up to its lofty inspiration, particularly in an unsatisfying final act, it's engagingly written and well played by both leads.
Posted Feb 14, 2013
35
3/5
John Dies at the End (2013)

A.A. Dowd

More arch than amusing, John Dies at the End may exhaust your patience for everything-but-the-kitchen-sink "storytelling." Still, there's something endearing about its relentless barrage of gonzo happenings.
Posted Feb 9, 2013
36
4/5
Side Effects (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

Makes for an intriguing if dispassionate fit.
Posted Feb 9, 2013
37
2/5
Warm Bodies (2013)

A.A. Dowd

Good luck ascribing a clear satirical agenda to Jonathan Levine's tonally uneven zomcom, which suffers an identity crisis nearly as severe as its protagonist's.
Posted Feb 1, 2013
38
2/5
West of Memphis (2012)

A.A. Dowd

The new film is largely a recap of the older ones, with more celebrity testimonials and fewer Metallica songs but little fresh insight into the miscarriage of justice it chronicles.
Posted Jan 25, 2013
39
1/5
A Haunted House (2013)

A.A. Dowd

You know a fright-flick craze is in danger of running its course when Marlon Wayans comes along to broadly, belatedly spoof it.
Posted Jan 25, 2013
40
3/5
Broken City (2013)

A.A. Dowd

A political thriller that's never quite as smart as you wish it were.
Posted Jan 25, 2013
41
4/5
Consuming Spirits (2012)

A.A. Dowd

Even if one grows impatient with the film's dovetailing tales of small-town desperation, it's hard to tire of its visual execution.
Posted Jan 25, 2013
42
2/5
Movie 43 (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

Neither the Kentucky-fried turkey its unceremonious release suggests nor the kind of daring film maudit that seems destined to be reassessed decades hence.
Posted Jan 25, 2013
43
2/5
Gangster Squad (2013)

A.A. Dowd

A shallow, star-studded amalgam of every Los Angeles cops-and-crooks drama you've ever seen.
Posted Jan 10, 2013
44
1/5
Texas Chainsaw (2013)

A.A. Dowd

When making a sequel to a beloved genre classic, it's generally unwise to include clips of the masterpiece you're attempting to live up to.
Posted Jan 10, 2013
45
5/5
Amour (2012)

A.A. Dowd

The most brutally honest picture ever made about growing old and wasting away.
Posted Jan 10, 2013
46
4/5
Sister (2012)

A.A. Dowd

For fans of Ursula Meier's last movie, the strikingly offbeat domestic drama Home, this act of auteur-on-auteur emulation may feel like a comedown. Yet it's still stirring work.
Posted Jan 9, 2013
47
5/5
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)

Ben Kenigsberg

The decade-spanning Zero Dark Thirty comes freighted with a historical weight it bears amazingly well.
Posted Jan 9, 2013
48
3/5
Premium Rush (2012)

A.A. Dowd

Want more from a late-summer joyride than slides, wheelies and bunny hops? Get a load of Shannon, dementedly inspired, trying out an oddball accent and Richard Widmark giggle.
Posted Jan 8, 2013
49
4/5
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

A.A. Dowd

A fiendishly clever genre Rubik's Cube that demonstrates, if nothing else, how much Fangoria fare benefits from the wicked wit of a real writer.
Posted Jan 8, 2013
50
4/5
Argo (2012)

Ben Kenigsberg

After Gone Baby Gone, The Town and now this directorial-best, Affleck is establishing himself as a major craftsman.
Posted Jan 8, 2013