Jessica Reaves
Jessica Reaves's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Chicago Tribune
Los Angeles Times
Biography:
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Publications:
Chicago Tribune,
Los Angeles Times,
Metromix.com
Movie Reviews Only
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3/4 | 68% | The Brothers Bloom (2009) |
An awfully good time. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 5, 2009
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1.5/4 | 26% | Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) |
If there is a single bright spot in the financial crisis, it is the possibility that one day producer Jerry Bruckheimer will run out of money. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 13, 2009
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3/4 | 62% | Marley & Me (2008) |
The book, like the movie it inspired, is a sweet, surprisingly moving chronicle of a young couple's struggle to simultaneously build a family, advance their careers and maintain their sanity. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 24, 2008
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3/4 | 64% | Plus Tard (One Day You'll Understand) (Later) (2008) |
This is not a movie of big, dramatic revelations; in fact, the notionally elusive truth is pretty obvious from the movie's outset, which makes Victor's quest less about facts and more about principles. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 13, 2008
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3/4 | 93% | Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) |
By the end of Forbes' brisk, economical portrait, Atwater has been revealed as a repugnant and pathetic soul--and a political visionary, among the first to fully understand and harness the raw power of voters' fears. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 31, 2008
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2/4 | 59% | The Secret Life of Bees (2008) |
Sweat and good intentions, however, will take you only so far. And they take Bees right up to the threshold of entertaining%u2014but not one step further. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 20, 2008
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2/4 | 72% | America the Beautiful (2008) |
Despite the occasional flash of insight, and a few semi-shocking factoids, most women are going to find this movie roughly as illuminating as a remedial math class might be for a Nobel-prize winning physicist. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 18, 2008
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1/4 | 38% | Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? (2008) |
Morgan Spurlock is a living, breathing cautionary tale. Take a good, long look, kids: This is what happens when society validates really annoying people. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 18, 2008
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3.5/4 | 65% | The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008) |
Like its predecessor, Sisterhood 2 is based on two radical ideas: namely, that young women's stories are about more than the pursuit of men, and that happiness isn't something someone else gives you -- it's something you have to find for yourself. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Aug 7, 2008
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2.5/4 | 80% | Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008) |
I predict with great confidence that the big-screen debut of the American Girl brand will be a resounding success. This rosy prediction is based partly on the fact that Kit Kittredge is a solidly made movie...and partly on the fact that the America - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jun 19, 2008
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3/4 | 48% | The Strangers (2008) |
Anchored by convincing performances from Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler, both of whom elevate their roles above the standard horror-movie caricature, this is an enormously unsettling movie. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 29, 2008
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3.5/4 | 49% | Sex and the City (2008) |
Witty, effervescent and unexpectedly thoughtful, the big-screen iteration of the HBO series stands up beautifully (and somewhat miraculously) to the twin pressures of popular expectation and critical assessment. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 28, 2008
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3/4 | 83% | The Singing Revolution (2007) |
As far as the plot goes, widespread lack of familiarity with Estonia's recent history actually works in the film's favor: Suspense born of ignorance lends the unfolding drama the urgency of a political thriller. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 22, 2008
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3/4 | 79% | How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer (2008) |
Unlike so many of her peers who depend on music to do everything but deliver the dialogue, [director] Riedel isn't afraid of silence; early in the film there's a solid minute of noiselessness as the camera lovingly pans the town, establishing the story's - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 15, 2008
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2/4 | 49% | Before the Rains (2008) |
The problem isn't just that the material is cliched and vaguely offensive....It's more that the plot is incredibly predictable, the score is manipulative and the denouement completely unsatisfying. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 15, 2008
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2/4 | No Score Yet | America the Beautiful (2001) |
On behalf of every woman who's ever turned down that second piece of cake or spent far too much on anti-aging creams, I want to say: Welcome, Darryl. I hope you'll invite other men on your overdue journey to Obvious Town. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted May 8, 2008
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3.5/4 | 89% | Young@Heart (2007) |
A chorus (average age 80) prepares for a springtime tour, putting their signature spin on classics--classics like The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go." - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Apr 18, 2008
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2.5/4 | 80% | Teeth (2007) |
Given how thoroughly all the subtext spells out the message, then, it seems unnecessary to make the actual text so raw, grotesque and graphic. Granted, a horror movie about vagina dentata was probably never destined to be tasteful, but Lichtenstein's comp - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 27, 2008
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2.5/4 | 64% | Stop-Loss (2008) |
Peirce's obvious respect for the returned soldiers should prevent Stop-Loss from being dismissed as a Hollywood anti-war screed. It's more accurately described as an anti-war movie with a resolutely pro-troop message. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 27, 2008
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3/4 | 98% | The Band's Visit (2007) |
You can watch The Band's Visit for its political idealism, or you can watch it for entertainment value alone. In either case, it doesn't disappoint. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Mar 6, 2008
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2.5/4 | 43% | The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) |
Sticklers for historical accuracy are forewarned: This glossy production plays fast and loose with the facts, abbreviating, altering and excising entire character arcs and plot lines. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 28, 2008
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.5/4 | 6% | The Hottie and the Nottie (2008) |
Heidi Ferrer's screenplay...succeeds at just one thing: trumpeting one of the most anti-feminist messages in recent film history. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Feb 7, 2008
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2/4 | 12% | First Sunday (2008) |
The movie's total lack of focus and its unimpressive script should render it totally unwatchable. Weirdly, that doesn't quite happen. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jan 11, 2008
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2.5/4 | 74% | The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007) |
A sweet, familiar story, beautifully filmed and lovingly told. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 25, 2007
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2.5/4 | 74% | The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007) |
But for all the movie's good cheer, it's never dull. What it lacks in edginess, it more than makes up for with stunning scenery, a breathless finale and an irresistibly hopeful message. - Metromix.com
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| Posted Dec 24, 2007
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2/4 | 25% | P.S. I Love You (2007) |
Snippets of sharp, witty dialogue are lost in a sea of sappy clichés and too-cute-for-words plot twists. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 21, 2007
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3.5/4 | 89% | The Savages (2007) |
Assured and sharp, The Savages is only Jenkins' second feature-length film. You'd never know it. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 20, 2007
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3/4 | 87% | Starting Out in the Evening (2007) |
While the film shares the novel's stealth appeal ... on the whole it's better: sharper, leaner and less sentimental. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 14, 2007
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3/4 | 56% | What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) |
It's a wickedly effective indictment of America's consumer compulsion, our mindless shopping and the multinational corporations controlling it all. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 29, 2007
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3/4 | 98% | For the Bible Tells Me So (2007) |
This is a compelling, thought-provoking portrait of a quiet challenge rising within America's churches. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 29, 2007
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1/4 | 12% | Broken (2007) |
[The] script is so uneven that the result is like watching four different, equally bad, movies. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 12, 2007
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1/4 | 33% | P2 (2007) |
The same old grim game of cat and mouse. Sure, we hope the mouse gets away. But mostly we just want the whole thing to end. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 8, 2007
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2.5/4 | 67% | Wristcutters: A Love Story (2007) |
Wristcutters is quite a bit darker than most mainstream romantic comedies. As you might not expect, it's also quite a bit more inventive and far wittier than most mainstream romantic comedies. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 1, 2007
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2.5/4 | 33% | Music Within (2007) |
A well-intentioned biopic about disability crusader Richard Pimentel that starts strong but eventually collapses under its weighty sense of responsibility. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Oct 25, 2007
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2.5/4 | 68% | Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2007) |
Despite [director] Fox's excruciating level of self-involvement, she manages, more than once, to lay bare critical questions that are at once familiar and compelling. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 13, 2007
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3/4 | 53% | Across the Universe (2007) |
If you can get past its relatively minor failings, it's hard not to be seduced by the big heart of this chaotic, colorful movie. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 13, 2007
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2/4 | 14% | Mr. Woodcock (2007) |
[A] marginally promising -- but ultimately unfunny -- comedy. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Sep 13, 2007
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1.5/4 | 54% | Manufacturing Dissent (2007) |
Manufacturing Dissent comes across less as an expose of a polarizing public figure than as the realization of a personal and not especially interesting grudge against a once-admired colleague who has moved on to bigger things. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Aug 30, 2007
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3/4 | 62% | Them (2007) |
Taut and remorseless, Them, which is allegedly based on actual events, is the perfect antidote to the stomach-churning gore served up by so many in the current crop of horror films. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Aug 23, 2007
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2/4 | 39% | Hot Rod (2007) |
Some hilarity does, in fact, ensue, but the laughs are interspersed with long stretches of dead air. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Aug 2, 2007
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3/4 | 27% | Evening (2007) |
If you've not read Susan Minot's 1998 bestseller Evening, you will be happily oblivious to the movie's glaring departures and free to settle into this languid, gorgeously shot film, which bears only a passing resemblance to the novel. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jun 28, 2007
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3/4 | 82% | Live Free or Die Hard (2007) |
The usual pyrotechnics are intact, the corpses pile up and McClane even gets to spit out his signature battle cry. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Jun 26, 2007
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3/4 | 48% | We Are Marshall (2006) |
'Restrained' and 'tasteful' are not words normally associated with McG, the director best known for countless music videos and the Charlie's Angels movie franchise. We Are Marshall could change that. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 21, 2006
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2.5/4 | 50% | Ever Again (2006) |
What makes this movie worth seeing, is, ironically, exactly what may deter potential audiences: It's a rigorous, almost academic examination of a venomous hatred rooted in the past, primed to poison the future. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Dec 7, 2006
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3/4 | 63% | 10 Items or Less (2006) |
Silberling demonstrates an unerring ear for the natural, often discomfiting rhythm of two strangers tentatively forging a connection. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 30, 2006
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2.5/4 | 46% | Bobby (2006) |
A daring, messy and strangely rewarding patchwork that's straining at the seams. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 22, 2006
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1.5/4 | 6% | Deck the Halls (2006) |
... Deck the Halls has little to recommend it. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 21, 2006
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3/4 | 32% | Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) |
A revelatory, challenging and deeply affecting portrait, anchored by what may be Kidman's most profoundly moving performance to date. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 16, 2006
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2/4 | 25% | A Good Year (2006) |
It's no surprise that you can see A Good Year's plot twists and clunker of an ending from a mile away. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 9, 2006
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2.5/4 | 84% | Come Early Morning (2006) |
It's a solid, if flawed, effort by Adams. - Chicago Tribune
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| Posted Nov 9, 2006
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