New York Observer's Scores

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For 363 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 55
Highest review score:
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
The Best and the Brightest
Critic Score 0
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 175 out of 363
  2. Mixed: 93 out of 363
  3. Negative: 95 out of 363
363 movie reviews
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  1. The Master
    Call The Master whatever you want, but lobotomized catatonia from what I call the New Hacks can never take the place of well-made narrative films about real people that tell profound stories for a broader and more sophisticated audience. Fads come and go, but as Walter Kerr used to say, "I'll yell tripe whenever tripe is served."
  2. Meek's Cutoff
    Who goes to the movies for 104 minutes of punishment? Where is John Wayne, now that we need him?
  3. Moonrise Kingdom
    The result, in the case of Moonrise Kingdom, is what I call transcendentally brainless - an after school special aimed at asinine adolescents over the age of 40.
  4. Melancholia
    Melancholia is his latest pile of undiluted drivel, nauseatingly filmed by a wonky hand-held camera and featuring a crazy, mismatched ensemble headed by Kirsten Dunst, who won an acting award in Cannes last year for looking totally catatonic.
  5. True Grit
    The original western won John Wayne a puzzling and undeserved Oscar for finally falling off his horse. Don't expect the same miracle for Jeff Bridges. In the numbing hands of pretentious filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, history does not repeat itself in any way whatsoever.
  6. Please Give
    At a time when every penny counts, where do they come up with the money to finance a movie this boring?
    Read full review
  7. The Dark Knight Rises
    Halfheartedly, I give The Dark Knight Rises - the third and final Batflick in the Nolan trilogy - one star for eardrum-busting sound effects and glaucoma-inducing computerized images in blinding Imax, but talk about stretching things.
  8. Margin Call
    As a movie, it's so tightly framed you gasp from claustrophobia. As a film of cryptic boredom, I cannot believe the actors were able to say their lines without cue cards.
  9. Submarine
    The movie knocks itself unconscious trying to be offbeat, but instead of cinematic heart, the director self-indulges in cinematic art, drowning the whole thing in freeze frames, slow-motion and color-coding, owing everything he knows to the worst of Jean-Luc Godard and Wes Anderson.
  10. Side Effects
    What it turns out to be is a preposterous puzzle that fails every test under scrutiny, leaving the spectator with a “Huh?” that is meant to be uttered only while chewing gum.
  11. Inception
    I'd like to tell you just how bad Inception really is, but since it is barely even remotely lucid, no sane description is possible.
    Read full review
  12. Cyrus
    It still has a long way to go before the term Mumblecore (which sounds like a Harry Potter major at Hogwart's) can be confused with the term Class Act.
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  13. The Cabin in the Woods
    A creepfest so stupid it makes trashy slash-and-burn epics like "Humans Versus Zombies" and "I Spit on Your Grave" seem like Molière and Proust.
  14. 50/50
    Artificial, irresponsible, filthy and forgettable, it knocks itself cross-eyed trying to make you roar with laughter at chemotherapy, with the nauseating Seth Rogen milking most of the yuks. But a stoner comedy about cancer? I don't think so.
  15. Tiny Furniture
    Lena Dunham makes a 98-minute home video seem like 98 days of hard labor.
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 25
    The Last Circus
    By the time the end finally comes, there's no relief. You're left with the vague recollection of an interesting movie you were watching before you got kidnapped and subjected to over an hour of torture porn starring a fat, sadistic clown.
  17. Life During Wartime
    What some critics praise as astute and compelling, I find juvenile and fraught with hysteria. There's no arc here, no real pathos, and the direction is like watching snow melt on the side of a road.
    Read full review
  18. The Exploding Girl
    There is no hope on the horizon for movies as leaden as The Exploding Girl.
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  19. Crazy, Stupid, Love.
    What to say about an uphill slog called Crazy, Stupid, Love? It's not nearly crazy enough to clear the clogged arteries of summer comedies, and when the love appears, it's in all the wrong places. Oh well, at least they nailed the stupid part.
  20. We Need to Talk About Kevin
    This is the most unwatchable horror movie masquerading as social comment I have seen this year.
  21. Haywire
    Haywire makes no sense whatsoever, which should come as no surprise. It's the latest brainless exercise in self-indulgence from Steven Soderbergh, whose films rarely make any sense anyway.
  22. Sightseers
    Sightseers is a morose, unsettling blend of pathology for sport and murder for laughs.
  23. The Myth of the American Sleepover
    The movie is so clueless and time-warped it could be comprised of outtakes from "Father Knows Best."
  24. Somewhere
    The latest calcified bore by Sofia Coppola is less pretentious than "Marie Antoinette" but every bit as inertly stupefying as "Lost in Translation."
  25. Ruby Sparks
    The script is breezy, but neither of the two leads have the heft or charm to carry an entire feature-length film - separately or together.
  26. Seven Psychopaths
    The result is a twitching convulsion of vicious drivel passing itself off as a movie, which can be best appreciated by the kind of people who dig "Showgirls," the "Saw" franchise and Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman flicks.
  27. Salt
    Salt is about as believable as a secret training program for military pilots consisting entirely of kangaroos in flight helmets. But it must be said that the star carries her load admirably.
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  28. Hanna
    Contrived, pretentious and not worth seeing even for the perverse pleasure of watching first-rate talents make second-rate fools of themselves.
  29. Killing Them Softly
    A filthy, pretentious, brutally violent and utterly pointless load of rubbish called Killing Them Softly.
  30. Return
    Ms. Cardellini plays it like a zombie, and she isn't helped by all the loitering camera angles and repetitive close-ups of her head framed against car windows. It's a worthy subject, ploddingly explored in a film that is too modest for its own good.
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