Problem: 1. 'Overlong, but what makes the film's length more endurable is the impeccable acting of its cast.'
2. Ray boasts a great smorgasbord of music and a fine performance by Jamie Foxx but is hobbled by a mediocre screenplay and its long playing time.
3. An emphatically entertaining, toe-tapping cautionary tale about how drug addiction is more crippling than any physical handicap.
4. It's the music that keeps me drawn into the film, followed closely by Jamie Foxx's soulful (in both senses of the word) performance.
5. Anchored by Foxx's astonishingly powerful performance, this moving and engaging biographical film ... is also director Hackford's finest film.
6. '...the audience feels as though this is the real Ray Charles playing himself. I can't say anything more than that in tribute to Jamie Foxx's outstanding work.'
7. Eminently worth seeing.
8. Jamie Foxx's all-encompassing performance in the title role more than justifies the early Oscar gossip it has generated.
9. [Foxx's] peerless work elevates this otherwise ordinary biopic, which is plagued by stiff dialogue and hokey imagery.
10. ...a case of a star performance outshining the movie. Foxx is like a virtuoso headline act backed up by a band that wanders in and out of key.
What is the consensus?
****
Answer: An engrossing and energetic portrait of a great musician's achievements and foibles, Ray is anchored by Jamie Foxx's stunning performance as Ray Charles.


Problem: 1. Lucidly [explores] the grey-area complexities of guilt, morality, and the reactionary justifications that lead humane people to seek unspeakable retribution.
2. It's a rough ride, but an exhilarating and strangely moral one all the same.
3. Somehow you'd be more won over by his anti-revenge case if he didn't seem to be having such a good time making it.
4. This ultra-violent revenge thriller is far more notable for its baroque excesses than coherence or credibility.
5. So bloody, scatologically violent and consistently shocking, it seems to have no larger purpose than itself -- which is pretty grim.
6. Two hours that didn't entertain much, thrill much or do much of anything...much.
7. Even more brutal than Oldboy, but sadly less focused and with less intrigue
8. Park pays most of his attention to visceral style, but he sketches in enough about his characters to make them frighteningly relatable.
9. It's all a little ultra-cool for me. Shakespeare was right. Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold, not cool.
10. Park's worldview is grotty to such extremes that it becomes hard to recommend [this] in good conscience, no matter how virtuosic the delivery.
What is the consensus?
****
Answer: Though Park directs with stylistic flair, this revenge thriller is more excessively gruesome than thrilling.


Problem: 1. The segments are so cleverly arranged -- [director Michael Apted] includes past pictorial references for each of the people we revisit -- that now there is something almost mystical involved.
2. Apted continues his seminal docu series with another riveting chapter. The film no longer belongs to him: Feeling their privacy has been invaded, the subjcets talk back, trying to shape their own narrative and even withhold vital information from him.
3. A reality show that transcends that now-hackneyed phrase to become an utterly unique work of 'popular history'--and of art.
4. As a viewer, I feel privileged to be able to peer into their private lives perchance to learn something useful about my private life.
5. But a funny thing happened on the way to the class-warfare lecture: Most of the subjects got on with living their lives, ignoring their class distinctions in the process.
6. I'll wait breathlessly for 56 Up, and hope this brave group will speak to the camera again; giving us the gift of a share in their lives.
7. Now, they are middle-aged, and (unfair to spoil small surprises here) embedded in life with some learned wisdom.
8. Surprisingly, the discussions of normal, average-life events are pretty fascinating and relatable. The films continue to be part of a moving sociological portrait of England and everyday life.
9. The monumental 7 Up series continues with a lesser but worthwhile chapter, 49 Up.
10. As always, [Apted] intercuts footage from the previous age levels and provides enough history to make each chapter a fascinating sociological examination in itself.
What is the consensus?
****
Answer:
The latest installment in this remarkable series, 49 Up is a satisfying continuation of Michael Apted's singular sociological and cinematic experiment.