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57
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78
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71
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65
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35
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73
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37
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52
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43
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48
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53
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55
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33
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93
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64
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36
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54
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93
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82
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79
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78
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76
Shine a Light
73
Kung Fu Panda
71
Horton Hears a Who!
69
Redbelt
67
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
64
Wanted
62
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
61
Stop Loss
61
Incredible Hulk, The
58
Mist, The
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
55
Street Kings
55
Nim's Island
55
Baby Mama
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
52
Mamma Mia!
49
Hancock
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Strangers, The
44
Ruins, The
43
Meet Dave
41
Drillbit Taylor
37
Made of Honor
37
Shutter
37
Speed Racer
36
College Road Trip
36
What Happens in Vegas...
35
Jumper
35
Space Chimps
34
Happening, The
34
10,000 B.C.
33
Superhero Movie
31
Deception
24
Love Guru, The
22
Postal
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

83
Alexandra
39
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80
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76
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79
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47
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80
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60
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55
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61
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70
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49
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83
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82
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78
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75
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48
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54
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47
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64
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73
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85
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27
Eight Miles High
54
Elsa & Fred
81
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62
Expired
64
Fall, The
54
Felon
51
Finding Amanda
57
Flawless
86
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63
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60
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72
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45
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31
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55
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69
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73
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59
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10
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68
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36
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68
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55
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66
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58
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66
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62
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63
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80
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38
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74
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70
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67
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xx
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64
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30
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33
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53
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74
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52
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52
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71
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85
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61
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69
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70
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83
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72
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51
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55
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29
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79
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71
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77
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56
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51
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76
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66
Son of Rambow
70
Standard Operating Procedure
57
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61
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72
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25
Take
81
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56
Then She Found Me
xx
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71
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54
Tracey Fragments, The
69
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71
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71
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83
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56
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86
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59
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79
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61
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37
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65
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66
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55
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72
Woman on the Beach
64
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
86
Up the Yangtze
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Edge of Heaven, The
85
My Winnipeg
83
Chop Shop
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chris & Don. A Love Story
81
Tell No One
81
Encounters at the End of the World
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
80
Band's Visit, The
80
Last Mistress, The
79
Reprise
79
Visitor, The
79
Before I Forget
78
Counterfeiters, The
77
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
76
Shotgun Stories
76
Beauty in Trouble
75
Young@Heart
75
Days and Clouds
74
Mongol
74
Lou Reed's Berlin
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
72
Woman on the Beach
72
Full Battle Rattle
72
Priceless
72
Surfwise
71
Tuya's Marriage
71
Trumbo
71
To the Limit
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Roman de gare
70
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Love Songs
70
Outsourced
70
Caramel
69
Transsiberian
69
Operation Filmmaker
69
Go-Getter, The
68
Heartbeat Detector
68
Honeydripper
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Mad Detective
66
Son of Rambow
66
Jellyfish
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
66
Kabluey
65
Water Lilies
64
Married Life
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
64
XXY
64
Fall, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Expired
62
Kiss the Bride
61
Brick Lane
61
Stuck
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Wackness, The
61
On the Rumba River
60
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60
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59
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59
Very British Gangster, A
58
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57
Flawless
57
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56
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56
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56
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55
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55
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55
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55
Bra Boys
55
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54
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54
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54
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54
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53
Mister Lonely
52
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52
My Blueberry Nights
51
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51
Promotion, The
51
Savage Grace
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
48
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47
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47
Bella
45
Full Grown Men
39
August
38
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37
War, Inc.
36
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33
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31
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30
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29
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27
Eight Miles High
25
Take
10
Harold
xx
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xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
El Cantante
Picturehouse Entertainment
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for drug use, pervasive language and some sexuality
Starring
Jennifer Lopez,
and
Marc Anthony
El Cantante celebrates the life and music of the legendary Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe, a pioneer of the sound and sensibility that redefined Latin music in the 1960s and 1970s. El Cantante portrays an era when a new sense of national identity and pride took root in Puerto Rican communities across the U.S. Hector Lavoe's music was both a soundtrack to and affirmation of that awakening. (Picturehouse)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
David Darmstaeder (& story)
Todd Bello (& story)
Leon Ichaso
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Leon Ichaso
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 30, 2007
Theatrical: August 3, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
116 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Spanish / English |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Anthony doesn't have a large emotional range as an actor, and neither does Lopez. Still, the musical numbers, which constitute a hefty portion of screen time, are thrilling.

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bill White
A special film, one that refuses to package a person's life into a comfortably familiar genre.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
It's a soaring, crashing, blazing affair with pyrotechnic performances by real-life spouses Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez as Lavoe and his wife, Puchi. Like a plane disaster, it holds you in thrall of ¡ay, Dios mio! drama.

70
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
A star isn't born in El Cantante as much as it's reconfirmed. She's still here, and she's still got it.

63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The music is the uncontested highlight of El Cantante.

63
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Biopic cliches hamstring producer-star Jennifer Lopez's pet project.

50
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
The awkwardly told story of salsa legend Hector Lavoe, El Cantante doesn't even get the title right: It should have been called "La Esposa," since it's really less about the singer than his wife.

50
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A sizzling soundtrack and Jennifer Lopez's best performance since "Out of Sight" go only so far in El Cantante, a downer of a musical biopic that leaves no cliché unturned.

50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
If you're a fan of Hector Lavoe and Latin music, or Lopez and Anthony, you'll want to see El Cantante for what's good in it. Otherwise, you may be disappointed. The director (Leon Ichaso) and his co-writers haven't licked a crucial question: Why do we need to see this movie and not just listen to the music?

50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
"Everybody loved him. One woman understood him," goes the ad line. But the movie makes you wonder how anyone could love this screw-up and why anyone would have a problem understanding him.

50
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Ideally, it would give you a sense of an entire people knocking the planet off its axis with a shake of their hips. If only El Cantante were that movie. Instead, it's a curiously sludgy cross between a Doomed Star biopic and a J. Lo vanity project.

50
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
It may be best to approach El Cantante less as a movie than as a two-hour promotional video for a must-have soundtrack album.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Unfortunately, the music is as irresistible as the tired story of a musician succumbing to substance abuse is resistible.

50
Entertainment Weekly
Scott Brown
Anthony, with his famished thousand-yard stare, turns in a delicate -- perhaps too delicate -- performance more informed by the shadow of Lavoe's death than the spark of his art. And his shrill domestic scenes with Lopez feel small and squalid, as we wait restlessly for the band to play us out.

50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
Turns out to be nothing special. Well, the music is. The storytelling is not.

50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Anthony delivers a respectable performance, but his character never comes into sharp focus. Consequently, Lavoe emerges as a supporting character in his own story.

50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
It's whenever the music stops that the movie runs into trouble.

42
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
Lopez can't decide if she's playing Lavoe's victim or enabler -- the movie sort of half blames her -- and neither of her characters is likable. The music's lovely, though.

40
Variety
Robert Koehler
A virtual template of every imaginable cliche of the musical biopic, picture suffers from a lack of narrative and character focus

40
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Unfortunately, there's little more than formula in Ichaso's El Cantante.

40
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Before long, El Cantante disintegrates into a stylized jumble -- even a straightforward jumble would have been preferable.

38
Premiere
Scott Warren
Ichaso seems far too interested in what led to Lavoe's downfall rather than what made him great.

30
Village Voice
Robert Wilonsky
Focusing almost solely on Lavoe's addictions (drugs and women, ho and hum), El Cantante is a garish, dispiriting bit of work--a mountain of biopic clichés snorted through the lens of a fidgety camera that never pauses long enough for us to get to like (or even know) the man responsible for making the Nuyorican sound a mainstream American commodity in the 1970s and early '80s.

25
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
The film doesn't make a case for Lavoe as an important artist.


The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 55 User Votes
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