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Movie Talk

Movie Talk is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Jason Best.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Queen of the Ring (2024) Jason Best A rousing sporting drama whose evocative period feel and burnished cinematography belie the film’s modest indie budget.
Posted Sep 19, 2025  Edit critic review
ParaNorman (2012) Jason Best Successfully balancing knockabout comedy and spooky chills, this stop-motion-animation fantasy... is a treat for kids and horror buffs alike and contains a heartening message: don’t mistreat misfits.
Posted Aug 09, 2024  Edit critic review
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) Jason Best What casts the film’s most potent spell is the exquisite animation, haunted by centuries of Japanese art and thoroughly bewitching throughout.
Posted Aug 07, 2024  Edit critic review
After Hours (1985) Jason Best After Hours is hallucinatory: lit with the clarity of a nightmare and bursting with such surreal details as a cashier who pirouettes as he takes your check and a crescent of mousetraps guarding the bed of a demented cocktail waitress.
Posted Mar 24, 2024  Edit critic review
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989) Jason Best Against the odds, Gilliam succeeded in creating a positively gargantuan epic teeming with invention and wit.
Posted Sep 26, 2023  Edit critic review
5
La Dolce Vita (1960) Jason Best That the scenes of decadence and debauchery have dated badly seems, perversely, to work in the film's favour, underscoring the hollowness of the high life, the vapidity of the ceaseless search for new sensation.
Posted Mar 24, 2022  Edit critic review
5/5
Bringing Up Baby (1938) Jason Best Grant... sails through the film's slapstick with breathtaking panache - only a supremely graceful actor could perform clumsiness so skilfully or amusingly.
Posted Sep 01, 2021  Edit critic review
Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959) Jason Best Stern's cameras linger on the festival's audience as much as they do on the stars, finding fascination in the gum-chewing redhead... and in the nerdy fellow with binoculars seemingly intent on solving Thelonious Monk's enigmatic musical equations.
Posted Sep 01, 2021  Edit critic review
A Quiet Place Part II (2021) Jason Best With Blunt, Jupe and, above all, Simmonds all doing sterling acting work, A Quiet Place Part II remains a superior horror movie. Do go. Just don't bring any popcorn.
Posted Jun 04, 2021  Edit critic review
3/5
End of Watch (2012) Jason Best With throat-grabbing immediacy, giddily frenetic cop thriller End of Watch thrusts you into the front seat of an LA patrol car.
Posted Dec 17, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Magic Mike (2012) Jason Best Soderbergh gives the stripping scenes a raucous razzle-dazzle, but the dramatic stuff in between is meandering and dull. Once the cast have whipped off their trousers there's nothing very substantial underneath.
Posted Dec 17, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
New Year's Eve (2011) Jason Best The stories are cheesy, all the stars overact and the direction... is disgracefully slack, but if you're watching in a spirit of holiday goodwill then its fuzzy warm-heartedness is passably entertaining.
Posted Dec 17, 2020  Edit critic review
Son of Rambow (2007) Jason Best The film goes beyond comic pratfalls to deliver a convincing portrayal of childhood imagination and the shifting power relations of teenage friendships.
Posted Dec 17, 2020  Edit critic review
In Bruges (2008) Jason Best You get the sense, now and then, that McDonagh is taking a little too much relish in his character's political incorrectness, but the writing is so scabrously funny that you'll laugh despite your best intentions.
Posted Dec 17, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
Pitch Perfect (2012) Jason Best Pitch Perfect combines the tuneful underdog triumphs of Glee with the sassiness of Bridesmaids to produce a sweet-sounding, wickedly funny movie.
Posted Dec 17, 2020  Edit critic review
2/5
Pusher (2012) Jason Best What was edgy and exciting in the mid-1990s now fails to deliver the same buzz.
Posted Dec 16, 2020  Edit critic review
LOL (2012) Jason Best A glossy but shallow Hollywood adaptation of the hit French film Lol: Laughing Out Loud. The original director, Liza Azuelos, is at the helm too, but the sass and spark of the French movie seems to have been lost in translation.
Posted Dec 16, 2020  Edit critic review
Hit & Run (2012) Jason Best Hit & Run is very much hit and miss. The plot careers all over the place and a lot of the jokes definitely sputter, but with the laidback, goofy Shepard at the wheel, the film somehow keeps on the road.
Posted Dec 16, 2020  Edit critic review
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) Jason Best [A] profound and moving meditation on friendship and honour, patriotism and growing old.
Posted Dec 16, 2020  Edit critic review
4/5
My Brother the Devil (2012) Jason Best The prospect of yet another Hackney-hoodie crime drama hardly quickens the blood, yet writer-director Sally El Hosaini's contribution to the genre is more thoughtful and original than most.
Posted Dec 16, 2020  Edit critic review
Willow (1988) Jason Best Cult favourite Willow saw producer George Lucas attempting to recreate the fantasy-adventure spirit of his Star War films in a sword-and-sorcery setting.
Posted Dec 15, 2020  Edit critic review
Lola Versus (2012) Jason Best For all Gerwig's undoubted charisma, Lola Versus too often resembles an extended episode of Friends without the laughs.
Posted Dec 15, 2020  Edit critic review
Zookeeper (2011) Jason Best Kevin James's zoo man shovels up a steaming pile of ordure.
Posted Dec 12, 2020  Edit critic review
The Cold Light of Day (2012) Jason Best Even if Cavill's bewildered hero is taken aback by successive turns of events, the viewer will probably see every twist coming.
Posted Dec 12, 2020  Edit critic review
3/5
The Sweeney (2012) Jason Best Love stages the action with a panache that belies the film's relatively modest budget and the big-set piece scenes... have an exhilarating energy and punch that British crime movies rarely deliver.
Posted Dec 12, 2020  Edit critic review
Brotherhood (2016) Jason Best Morally muddled, cliché riddled, cack-handed urban crime melodrama.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
The Knot (2012) Jason Best Truly dire wedding comedy The Knot represents an all-time low in Noel Clarke's distinctly patchy big-screen career.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011) Jason Best What hobbles the film is the screenplay's overly strenuous efforts to bind its parallel stories together.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
Mozart's Sister (2010) Jason Best Féret plucks hints and whispers from the historical record, adjusts other details and invents the rest to weave his fictional story.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) Jason Best If you've a soft spot for romantic comedies you'll fall hook, line and sinker for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
Machine Gun Preacher (2011) Jason Best The sight of a Kalashnikov-wielding white man swooping to the rescue of black children is awkward to say the least... But Butler brings a blazing intensity to his role.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
Albatross (2011) Jason Best Brown Findlay's feisty livewire gives the film the spark lacking in the routine plot.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
Dolphin Tale (2011) Jason Best Director Charles Martin Smith tugs a little too hard on the viewer's heartstrings, but Freeman's shrewd underplaying prevents the film from drowning in schmaltz.
Posted Dec 06, 2020  Edit critic review
Rio (2011) Jason Best With Blu and Jewel chained together (like the hero and heroine of The 39 Steps), there are thrills, spills and gags galore.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
The Ides of March (2011) Jason Best [It] takes a view of the political process that is closer to the dark cynicism of House of Cards than the rosy optimism of The West Wing. The writing isn't as clever or witty as either of those, but a powerhouse cast makes the most of every line.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
Flypaper (2011) Jason Best As the overly clever story unfolds, there are too many twist and turns to give the cast a chance to shine.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
Priest (2011) Jason Best The film looks good and the action sequences have zip, but the characters are underdeveloped and the dialogue is dire.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
The Devil's Double (2011) Jason Best Cooper is terrific in his two roles, but he's much better than the film itself, which is as flashy and violent as the decadent world it depicts - and just as shallow.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010) Jason Best Imagine a zany mix of Amélie and Lara Croft, Indiana Jones and Tintin, and you have Louise Bourgoin's plucky heroine.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
Cowboys & Aliens (2011) Jason Best The idea of Cowboys & Aliens is so wild that it's a shame the film doesn't make more of it.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
The Conspirator (2010) Jason Best Robert Redford's intriguing historical drama brings to light an overlooked episode from America's past but clearly intends to shine a torch on the present-day US as well.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
Don't Look Now (1973) Jason Best Roeg's film isn't just a chiller; it's a profound study of love and grief too.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
The Resident (2011) Jason Best The Resident is atmospherically shot but the predictable script doesn't supply enough twists to whip up truly nerve-jangling tension.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) Jason Best The film's pessimistic view of life and relationships probably won't win the director any new fans, but the intricate, darkly ironic plot should keep the Allen faithful intrigued.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
Stake Land (2010) Jason Best The pace is deliberately measured, with time to spare for the orphan hero's elegiac voiceover narration. When the action comes, however, it does so in savage and bloody bursts.
Posted Dec 05, 2020  Edit critic review
Hereafter (2010) Jason Best Clint Eastwood's latest movie opens with a spectacular natural disaster, an awesome scene (inspired by a real event) that takes the viewer's breath away. After that, disappointingly, this earnest drama about the afterlife is a bit of a plod.
Posted Dec 04, 2020  Edit critic review
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Jason Best Beneath the comedy... there's an undertow of sadness. The main characters are haunted by the fear of loneliness and the fear of ending up unemployed - which makes the film an appropriately bittersweet confection for our own straitened times.
Posted Dec 04, 2020  Edit critic review
Africa United (2010) Jason Best The filmmakers' backgrounds and experiences mean that the film's most picaresque and fairytale-like elements are still grounded in reality.
Posted Dec 04, 2020  Edit critic review
The Killer Inside Me (2010) Jason Best The prolific Winterbottom has got closer than most to the bleak spirit of his film's source - the 1952 novel by pulp writer Jim Thompson. No mean feat.
Posted Dec 04, 2020  Edit critic review
The Great White Silence (2011) Jason Best The Great White Silence truly is awesome. Ponting, who set sail with the British Antarctic Expedition a hundred years ago as its official photographer and cinematographer, captured images that still have the power to stun the eye and touch the heart.
Posted Dec 04, 2020  Edit critic review
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