The Box (Warner Bros.)
Daily Variety (Jordan Mintzer): “Pushing a few of the right buttons and plenty of the wrong ones, “The Box” reps a dicey mainstream effort by enfant terrible Richard Kelly following the doomed exploits of 2006′s “Southland Tales.”
Hollywood Reporter (Kirk Honeycutt): “An artistic fiasco that cuts across genre lines and all logic to become, perhaps, an instant midnight movie.”
Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey): “Too bad Norma and Arthur didn’t leave it on the porch. Richrd Kelly’s latest is no ‘Donnie Darko.’ The morality tale is fractured, foolish and slow as molasses.”
New York Times (Manohla Dargis): “But Mr. [Richard] Kelly [the film's director] is so busy sampling genres and confusing the issue that he rarely gives you time or space to enjoy them. In the end, he often seems as lost as his characters, trapped in a Pandora’s box of his own making.”
A Christmas Carol (Disney)
Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy): “Shortchanging traditional animation by literalizing it while robbing actors of their full range of facial expressiveness, the performance-capture technique favored by director Robert Zemeckis looks more than ever like the emperor’s new clothes in “Disney’s A Christmas Carol.”
Hollywood Reporter (Kirk Honeycutt): “Exuberant movie technology overwhelms, then buries Dickens’ emotional tale.”
Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey): “Have you ever wanted to strangle a ghost?”
New York Times (A.O. Scott): ““Disney’s A Christmas Carol,” written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, a branded piece of shiny seasonal entertainment, uses the digital technique of performance capture and the enhancements of 3-D projection to deliver a big, noisy and sometimes terrifying version of the Charles Dickens tale on which it is based.”
The Fourth Kind (Universal)
Daily Variety (Rob Nelson): “Suggesting the studio-budget remake of “Paranormal Activity” that Paramount didn’t shoot (at least not yet), Universal’s alien-abduction thriller “The Fourth Kind” none too cleverly bids to pass off mock-documentary footage of levitating psychological patients — and, scarier still, ordinary talking heads — as the real deal.”
Hollywood Reporter (Michael Rechtshaffen): “This stiff paranormal thriller could stand a lot more activity.”
Los Angeles Times (Robert Abele): “They try to get ‘real’ about strange occurrences. Instead they get ludicrous.”
The Men Who Stare At Goats (Overture)
Daily Variety (Derek Elley): “A serendipitous marriage of talent in which all hearts seem to beat as one, “The Men Who Stare at Goats” takes Jon Ronson’s book about “the apparent madness at the heart of U.S. military intelligence” and fashions a superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.”
Hollywood Reporter (Deborah Young): “A coy spoof on the Army’s interest in psychic research only laughs so far.”
Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan): “If there doesn’t seem to be enough story here to make a movie, seeing the film’s practiced farceurs at work can’t help but be amusing. A lot more fun, all things considered, than trying to will yourself through a wall.”
New York Times (Manohla Dargis): “There’s a curious evanescence to the movie, which while apparently based in truth — it recalls a multimillion-dollar project called Star Gate dedicated to parapsychology research that came to light in the mid-1990s — doesn’t add up to anything. It’s wacky, amusing. But that’s about it.”
Precious (Lionsgate)
Daily Variety (John Anderson): “Everyone involved deserves credit for creating a movie so dangerous, problematic and ultimately elevating. Marketing will be a problem because the shorthand description is so unpalatable. But this is, for all its scorched-earth emotion, a film to be loved.”
Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey): “Nothing quite prepares you for the rough-cut diamond that is “Precious.” A rare blend of pure entertainment and dark social commentary, this shockingly raw, surprisingly irreverent and absolutely unforgettable story of an obese, illiterate, pregnant black Harlem teen circa 1987 is one that you hope will not be dismissed as too difficult, because it should not be missed.”
New York Times (A.O. Scott): “Precious is also perceptive and shrewd, possessed of talents visible only to those who bother to look. At its plainest and most persuasive, her story is that of a writer discovering a voice.”
Splinterheads (Paladin)
Daily Variety (Peter Debruge): “A non-starter on the fest circuit, “Splinterheads” will likely be overlooked in limited release as well.”
New York Times (Jeannette Catsoulis): “A cool hobby and a hot blonde guide an aimless young man to his bliss in “Splinterheads,” a shaggy comedy with more heart than heft.”
