Jonathan Rosenbaum Movie Reviews & Previews

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Jonathan Rosenbaum

Agrees with the Tomatometer 72% of the time.

Publications:: Chicago Reader , Orlando Weekly
Critics' Group:: National Society of Film Critics

Total Reviews:: 2157

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Showing 1 - 50 of 2157

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	81%	Fight Club (1999)	" This is American self-absorption at its finest." — Chicago Reader Posted May 11, 2012
	73%	Tombstone (1993)	" A lot of care and attention were obviously devoted to selecting locations, designing sets, and grooming handlebar mustaches. Much less attention went to making one believe that any of the events took place circa 1879." — Chicago Reader Posted May 10, 2012
	51%	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)	" It's certainly distinctive, looking at times like Richard Lester put through a postmodernist blender." — Chicago Reader Posted May 2, 2012
	81%	The General (1998)	" I can no longer stomach the premise in so many Anglo-American crime pictures that mavericks are admirable simply because they're mavericks" — Chicago Reader Posted May 1, 2012
	86%	Guys and Dolls (1955)	" Conceivably the best picture Sam Goldwyn ever produced." — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 30, 2012
	43%	Road House (1989)	" Eventually it mutates into a paranoid revenge plot that might be called Walking Short." — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 30, 2012
	45%	Holy Smoke! (2000)	" All sorts of questions go unanswered, and there's little of the density found in Campion's early work; this is mainly smoke, not fire." — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 27, 2012
	85%	Crna macka, beli macor (Black Cat, White Cat) (1999)	" As with some of Fellini's late works, the energy and inventiveness, not to mention the juicy vulgarity, are so consistent in Black Cat, White Cat that you feel you can slice into the material at almost any point." — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 10, 2012
	78%	Muriel's Wedding (1995)	" This movie only shows true tact and understanding when it comes to flattering the audience; everyone on-screen is strictly up for grabs." — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 9, 2012
	88%	Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)	" A profoundly sexist and eminently hummable 1954 CinemaScope musical with some terrific athletic Michael Kidd choreography and some better-than-average direction by Stanley Donen." — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 9, 2012
	96%	The Wedding Banquet (Xi yan) (1993)	" A very adroit and entertaining social comedy." — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 4, 2012
	100%	Wagon Master (1950)	" This may be the closest Ford ever got to making a musical." — DVD Beaver Posted Apr 3, 2012
	29%	Max My Love (Max Mon Amour) (1996)	" Max Mon Amour isn't as good as [Nagisa Oshima's other] movies, but then what else is?" — Chicago Reader Posted Apr 3, 2012
	80%	Ornette: Made in America (1985)	" This ambitious and affectionate effort to capture an elusive subject is undoubtedly worth a look." — Chicago Reader Posted Mar 27, 2012
	100%	The Cool World (1964)	" It certainly had a visceral impact when it first appeared, helped enormously by Baird Bryant's cinematography and Dizzy Gillespie's score." — Chicago Reader Posted Mar 27, 2012
	91%	The Connection (2007)	" The film retains the same beatnik wit that the play effectively distilled, as well as a few scary shocks." — Chicago Reader Posted Mar 27, 2012
	53%	Jamaica Inn (1939)	" By common consent, one of Alfred Hitchcock's poorest and least personal works, though it has some compensations." — Chicago Reader Posted Mar 20, 2012
	100%	The Ring (1927)	" Probably the most visually sophisticated of Alfred Hitchcock's silent pictures and certainly one of the best." — Chicago Reader Posted Mar 20, 2012
	40%	Number Seventeen (Number 17) (1932)	" A peculiar and neglected early Hitchcock stage adaptation." — Chicago Reader Posted Mar 20, 2012
	41%	Heaven's Gate (1980)	" The longer version is impressive as long as the characters and settings remain in long shot; only when the camera gets closer do the problems start." — Chicago Reader Posted Mar 2, 2012
	100%	The Crying Game (1992)	" This thriller gives you an entertaining run for your money and some offbeat frissons along the way." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 13, 2012
	96%	Sideways (2004)	" Payne does know how to capture two kinds of male menopause. But I can't say he ever surprised me." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 13, 2012
	95%	Twelve O'Clock High (1949)	" Sincere, square, and interminable." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 10, 2012
	100%	Alfie (1966)	" For all its implicit misogyny, the original 1966 film version of Bill Naughton's play remains durable because of Michael Caine's career-defining performance as the cockney ladies' man." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 10, 2012
	98%	La Grande illusion (The Grand Illusion) (1937)	" It's still one of the key humanist expressions to be found in movies: sad, funny, exalting, and glorious." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 8, 2012
	7%	Woo (1998)	" This Manhattan-based romantic comedy might be fun if it didn't hit you over the head with a sledgehammer every few minutes." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 8, 2012
	11%	Alex & Emma (2003)	" The actors make this fun if you can overlook the ludicrous view of Jeremy Leven's screenplay concerning how novels are written and what publishers generally pay for them." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 8, 2012
	75%	A Single Girl (2000)	" A stunning demonstration of moral and existential suspense in relation to duration, much like Agnes Varda's 1961 Cleo From 5 to 7." — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 7, 2012
	73%	The Prince of Tides (1991)	" The results may seem overripe and dated in spots, but she coaxes a fine performance out of Nolte, and the other actors (herself included) acquit themselves honorably. " — Chicago Reader Posted Feb 3, 2012
	50%	The Alamo (1960)	" Interminable." — Chicago Reader Posted Jan 31, 2012
	78%	Il Momento della Verita (The Moment of Truth) (1965)	" Francesco Rosi's 1965 feature is widely (and plausibly) considered the best movie about bullfighting, in part because of its irony and finesse in capturing how the sport springs from and plays against the social reality of Spain." — Chicago Reader Posted Jan 23, 2012
	92%	Evil Angels (A Cry in the Dark) (1988)	" Streep's beauty and talent and director Fred Schepisi's intelligence are both shown to best advantage, without easy points or grandstanding." — Chicago Reader Posted Dec 19, 2011
	68%	Hard Candy (2006)	" Personally, I'd rather have this movie obliterated from my memory." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 15, 2011
	76%	8 Mile (2002)	" The movie has some of the braggadocio of its white-trash hero, building to its competitive climax as if it were a gladiatorial sporting event, and it carried me all the way." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 15, 2011
	61%	American Pie (1999)	" Another giggly gross-out comedy for teenagers, this one somewhat better than most by virtue of a more satisfying ending." — Chicago Reader Posted Nov 8, 2011
	78%	Biloxi Blues (1988)	" Perhaps this movie isn't as wise or as profound as Simon wants it to be, but it is certainly a cut above sitcom complacency, and packed with wit and charm." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 26, 2011
	67%	The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)	" Frankly, if I had to see either Harlin-Davis movie again, I'd opt for the klutzy unpleasantness of Cutthroat Island over the efficient if equally stupid unpleasantness of this 1996 release." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 25, 2011
	76%	Top Secret! (1984)	" The plot combines the rock musical with the spy thriller (not to mention assorted other genres), and the comic invention is fairly constant." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 18, 2011
	91%	Cure (1998)	" It's unsatisfying as a story precisely because it aspires to create a mounting sense of dread by enlarging questions rather than answering them." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 17, 2011
	90%	Postcards from the Edge (1990)	" There's not much depth here, but Nichols does a fine job with the surface effects, and the wisecracks keep coming." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 5, 2011
	96%	The Big Easy (1986)	" [McBride] gets tense, sexy performances from Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin and makes the most of his New Orleans locations." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 5, 2011
	71%	The Game (1997)	" This 1997 thriller is fairly entertaining nonsense if all you're looking for is 128 minutes of diversion. But if you'd like something more from David Fincher, the director of Seven, don't get your hopes up." — Chicago Reader Posted Oct 4, 2011
	92%	Memento (2000)	" More a puzzle than a meaningful story, it reminds me of how Edmund Wilson compared reading a mystery to eagerly unpacking a box of excelsior, only to find a few rusty nails at the bottom." — Chicago Reader Posted Sep 27, 2011
	84%	Moby Dick (1956)	" One could have plenty of quarrels with this as an adaptation of the Herman Melville novel, but it's still one of the better John Huston films of the 50s." — Chicago Reader Posted Aug 5, 2011
3/4	——	Negative Space ()	— Chicago Reader Posted Jul 27, 2011
	54%	Home Alone (1990)	" The movie is quite enjoyable as long as it explores the fantasy of a neglected little boy having an entire house of his own to explore and play in, and it still manages to be fun when he exhibits superhuman ingenuity and resourcefulness." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 26, 2011
	73%	Falling Down (1993)	" None of the characters ever rises beyond the level of his or her generic functions, and by the end the overall emptiness of the conception becomes fully apparent." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 18, 2011
	91%	Dark Passage (1947)	" An odd, atmospheric 1947 thriller." — Chicago Reader Posted Jul 12, 2011
	97%	Apollo 13 (1995)	" This meticulous but ultimately rather pedestrian drama gradually won me over as a minor if watchable example of the "victory through defeat" brand of military heroism that John Ford specialized in." — Chicago Reader Posted Jun 1, 2011

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