ROTTEN TOMATOES: Jeffrey Westhoff

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JEFFREY WESTHOFF

Agrees with the Tomatometer 71% of the time.

Biography: Jeffrey has been reviewing films professionally since he was a senior in high school and wrote reviews for his home-town paper, the Erie Times News. He earned his degree in journalism at Marquette University, where he wrote reviews for the school newspaper, the Marquette Tribune. Most recently he was the film critic for the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Illinois, and continues to submit reviews to the Northwest Herald and its sister paper, the Kane County Chronicle Jeffrey placed second in the 2002 and 2003 Illinois Press Association competitions for reviews (Division E). In 2005 and 2006 he was a finalist in the Chicago Headline Club's prestigious Peter Lisagor Award. For both years he was the only Chicago-area film critic nominated in the entertainment writing category. He has served as a board member for the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Favorites: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" "It's a Wonderful Life" "Gregory's Girl" "Heaven Can Wait" "Babe" "A Man for All Seasons"

Publications: Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

Critics' Group: Chicago Film Critics Association

Total Reviews: 1167
Total QuickRatings: 1563

Location: Palatine, IL

MOVIE REVIEWS ONLY

Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date (default)

Fresh 3/4	Fresh 83%	Avatar (2009)	" Avatar is great to look at, often astonishing and sometimes beautiful. But, oh, is the story pedestrian." Posted Dec 20, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 83%	The Princess and the Frog (2009)	" Princess and the Frog revels in the sumptuous qualities of mood and color and especially music that flow naturally through hand-drawn animation but eludes the subroutines of computer animation." Posted Dec 12, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 72%	The Road (2009)	" *The end of civilization in The Road* is ugly and terrifying, but that makes the father and son's hope and faith so much stronger.**" Posted Dec 12, 2009
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 39%	2012 (2009)	" Emmerich, Bay and their brethren need to learn how boring these CGI onslaughts have become. When we see 18 skyscrapers collapse and several dozen vehicles wreck at the same moment, what do we focus on?" Posted Nov 12, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 55%	Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009)	" *Leaving aside the technology behind Robert Zemeckis' animated A Christmas Carol, this is the most satisfying version of Charles Dickens' oft-told tale in years.*" Posted Nov 11, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 54%	The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)	" Maybe it is just easier to laugh at things that happened decades ago, but the contemporary story never attains the same power as the flashbacks." Posted Nov 11, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 48%	Astro Boy (2009)	" Director David Bowers supplies just enough heart and more than enough humor to make "Astro Boy" an agreeable entertainment." Posted Nov 11, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 73%	Where the Wild Things Are (2009)	" *Jonze creates perhaps the most artful film aimed at children since The Red Balloon, and one with unusually deep emotional resonance.*" Posted Nov 11, 2009
Rotten 2.5/4	Rotten 57%	The Invention of Lying (2009)	" *Like many movies that try to stretch a sketch idea to 90 minutes or more, Lying* starts to sputter early on.**" Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 83%	Whip It (2009)	" An easy movie to like." Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 57%	9 (2009)	" A visual feast, if you don't mind the depressing, post-Apocalyptic setting." Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 49%	Taking Woodstock (2009)	" *The more tightly Taking Woodstock* focuses on history, the more satisfying the experience.**" Posted Aug 31, 2009
Rotten 2.5/4	Fresh 88%	Inglourious Basterds (2009)	" Tarantino's scenes go on and on because he's in love with the sound of his character talking. This gets especially maddening in Inglorious Basterds because much of the dialogue is in German, so the words are three times as long." Posted Aug 21, 2009
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 75%	Julie & Julia (2009)	" Any movie that follows parallel stories runs the danger that one will be superior to the other, but the disparity is especially wide in Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia." Posted Aug 21, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 68%	Funny People (2009)	" Comes mighty close to becoming something few film critics dreamed they would declare, an Adam Sandler masterpiece." Posted Aug 21, 2009
Rotten 1.5/4	Rotten 14%	The Ugly Truth (2009)	" Allowing the characters to talk dirty adds nothing to the chick flick formula." Posted Aug 21, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 67%	Bruno (2009)	" Bruno has one crucial element Borat lacked, a satirical point of view." Posted Aug 21, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 66%	Public Enemies (2009)	" *Some sloppy storytelling prevents Public Enemies* from reaching greatness anyway, but what hampers the movie is Mann's decision to shoot in high definition video. The movie just looks cheap.**" Posted Jul 8, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 20%	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)	" All this is Bay being Bay, but you have to question the motives of Hasbro. The company is marketing its toys through a film that contains language and humor inappropriate for children 13 and younger." Posted Jun 23, 2009
Rotten 2.5/4	Rotten 43%	The Proposal (2009)	" *Once you've set your story up as a bedroom farce, resisting the form seems futile. The Proposal* meanders toward a tone without arriving at one.**" Posted Jun 23, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 25%	Land of the Lost (2009)	" Land of the Lost is only one hour and 36 minutes long, but it could easily be 15 minutes shorter without the scenes of Ferrell's meandering ad-libs." Posted Jun 4, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 98%	Up (2009)	" Up may not quite rank as Pixar's finest film, but it is certainly the animation studio's oddest and bravest picture, and possibly its most beautiful." Posted May 30, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Rotten 32%	Terminator Salvation (2009)	" Who wants to see a Terminator movie without the star synonymous with not just with the role, but the whole concept of the series? Anyone who wants to see another smart, taut and exciting science-fiction extravaganza with outstanding action sequences, that" Posted May 21, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 36%	Angels & Demons (2009)	" At one point Langdon bellows, "I need a map showing all the churches in Rome!" which is a hilarious bit of dialogue because you might as well demand a map showing all the bars in Milwaukee. Then again, that would lead to a more entertaining movie." Posted May 21, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 94%	Star Trek (2009)	" *J.J. Abrams muscles aside Trek's* ponderous aspects with a rip-roaring storyline and enough action to qualify as a galactic James Bond movie**" Posted May 8, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 36%	X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)	" The script plays it safe and clings to the rules of the superhero movie." Posted May 1, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 84%	State of Play (2009)	" *Though satisfying as throwaway suspense, State of Play* is framed with fondness for the American newspaper and sadness for its presumed demise.**" Posted May 1, 2009
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 50%	Observe and Report (2009)	" *A funny version of Taxi Driver* is a dubious proposition to begin with, and writer-director Jody Hill botches it from the start.**" Posted May 1, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 88%	Adventureland (2009)	" Adventureland tells a bleaker story than the audience might expect, but for the most part the coming of age drama is sincere and honest." Posted May 1, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 43%	Race to Witch Mountain (2009)	" Saves its best for last and emerges as an enjoyable and competent bit of family entertainment." Posted Mar 16, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 64%	Watchmen (2009)	" With Snyder, "visionary" means he's all about the visuals, and he does mine Watchmen for impressive, computer-enhanced eye candy. But Snyder is tone deaf to stultifying dialogue and wooden performances." Posted Mar 5, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 59%	The International (2009)	" *After a gripping opening scene, The International* often shudders to a halt trying to explain its convoluted plot.**" Posted Feb 21, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 89%	Coraline (2009)	" *The artistry on display in Coraline* cannot be underestimated.**" Posted Feb 21, 2009
Rotten 1.5/4	Rotten 57%	Taken (2009)	" Was Liam Neeson looking for a script with lousier dialogue than "The Phantom Menace"?" Posted Feb 21, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 70%	Last Chance Harvey (2008)	" How refreshing to be in the hands of a filmmaker who doesn't follow a diagram he found in the pages of "Seven Easy Steps to a Boffo Screenplay."" Posted Jan 15, 2009
Rotten 1.5/4	Rotten 12%	Bride Wars (2009)	" *Here's the biggest problem with Bride Wars: As simple as the premise is, we don't buy it for a moment.*" Posted Jan 8, 2009
Rotten 2.5/4	Fresh 60%	Valkyrie (2008)	" *Much of Valkyrie* works, but not quite enough.**" Posted Jan 7, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 43%	Yes Man (2008)	" *Much of the time we are watching a middle-aged man hoping to recapture the glory of his youth. Yes Man* is Carrey's cinematic substitute for a little red sports car.**" Posted Dec 20, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 54%	Australia (2008)	" It is a pleasure, and not a guilty one, to place ourselves in the hands of a mischievous director who wants to push screen dimensions back to the era of CinemaScope, Technicolor and stereophonic sound." Posted Nov 26, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 50%	Twilight (2008)	" *The longer the revelations drag out, the duller Twilight* gets. And the revelations drag on a long time - three quarters of the movie.**" Posted Nov 20, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 64%	Quantum of Solace (2008)	" With his cool blue-eyed gaze and assured athletic moves, Craig holds this insanely uneven movie together." Posted Nov 13, 2008
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 64%	Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)	" Except for the moronic title (Madagascar is part of Africa, so it's not much of an escape, is it?), the sequel is more enjoyable than the original." Posted Nov 12, 2008
Rotten 1/4	Fresh 65%	Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)	" *The most offensive aspect of Zack and Miri* is not the language or the subject matter, but the agonizing predictability of the story.**" Posted Nov 12, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 61%	Changeling (2008)	" How could a film with so much turmoil, drama and pulp elements become boring? Because it contains too much of all of the above." Posted Nov 12, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 60%	W. (2008)	" Stone miscalculates by wanting to talk about George W. Bush just as he has become the lamest of lame ducks." Posted Nov 12, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 51%	Body of Lies (2008)	" Body of Lies proves as generic as its title." Posted Nov 12, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 72%	Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)	" Cera and Denning are a winning team." Posted Nov 12, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 28%	Eagle Eye (2008)	" Eagle Eye occupies a treacherous middle ground. It isn't credible enough to work as a thriller and isn't ridiculous enough to work as a spoof." Posted Nov 12, 2008
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 85%	Ghost Town (2008)	" *Despite the high-concept premise, Ghost Town* has a low-concept feel. The jokes are small, sly and sometimes gentle.**" Posted Nov 12, 2008
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 77%	Burn After Reading (2008)	" Burn After Reading is part spy spoof and part rumination of middle-aged loneliness, which goes a long way to explain why its elements never cohere." Posted Nov 12, 2008

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JEFFREY WESTHOFF

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