ROTTEN TOMATOES: Jon Niccum

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JON NICCUM

Agrees with the Tomatometer 69% of the time.

Biography: For the last three years I've been the Entertainment Editor at the Lawrence Journal-World. Prior to that I was music/film editor at Kansas City's PitchWeekly for seven years. I've been a member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle since 1994, and am currently the organization's chairman for 2003. I have a degree in film criticism from the University of Kansas.

Favorites: The Godfather Shane This Is Spinal Tap Aguirre, Wrath of God Run Lola Run The Conversation The Manchurian Candidate Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Taxi Driver Days of Heaven The Thin Blue Line

Publications: County Cable, Lawrence Journal-World, Lawrence.com, Pitch.com

Critics' Group: Kansas City Film Critics Circle

Total Reviews: 286
Total QuickRatings: 475

Location: Lawrence, KS

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

Rotten 2.5/4	Fresh 78%	Dreamgirls (2006)	" a mildly engrossing lecture on the pitfalls of fame -- drug abuse, failed marriages and egos run rampant -- all set to the melismatic bellowing of semi-catchy show tunes." — County Cable Posted Feb 2, 2007
Rotten 1.5/4	Rotten 19%	The Hitcher (2007)	" It's good advice to never pick up strangers. It's equally sound advice to never go see a remake of an unremarkable '80s horror flick that is produced by Michael Bay and directed by a filmmaker best known for crafting Britney Spears videos." — County Cable Posted Jan 26, 2007
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 24%	Lady in the Water (2006)	" Lady in the Water appears to be a creepy fairy tale, but it's really a psychological thriller. Trouble is, the psychology involves the mindset of its writer-director." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jul 21, 2006
N/A	Fresh 62%	Clerks II (2006)	" Brian O'Halloran: 'It speaks to a more broad audience than to one who wants to hear us lace into a couple customers and play hockey on the roof.'" — Lawrence Journal-World INTERVIEW Posted Jul 14, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 21%	You, Me and Dupree (2006)	" It simply fades into Wilson's growing r�sum� of watchable but unremarkable comedies." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jul 14, 2006
Rotten 2.5/4	Rotten 53%	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)	" At more than two-and-a-half hours, this second installment veers toward overkill" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jul 7, 2006
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 75%	The Devil Wears Prada (2006)	" Come February, it might be very fashionable to present Streep with another Oscar" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jun 30, 2006
Rotten 2.5/4	Fresh 76%	Superman Returns (2006)	" It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a downer." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jun 28, 2006
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 93%	An Inconvenient Truth (2006)	" the documentary is so convincing that it makes opposers of the argument as credible as Holocaust deniers." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jun 23, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 39%	Nacho Libre (2006)	" What is least appealing about the Hesses is the sense that they are always laughing 'at' rather than 'with' their characters" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jun 16, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 75%	Cars (2006)	" *Apparently, anthropomorphized machines are a whole lot less fun than anthropomorphized fish, insects, toys or monsters. Remember last year's Robots? Yeah, me neither" — Lawrence Journal-World* Posted Jun 9, 2006
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 33%	The Break-Up (2006)	" It's at least trying to stay anchored in the real world, where cute couples don't always make up and walk hand-in-hand into the sunset." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jun 2, 2006
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 56%	X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)	" *The main downfall of X-Men: The Last Stand* is also its biggest guilty pleasure: watching just how many mutant baddies they can throw on the screen.*" — Lawrence Journal-World* Posted May 26, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 24%	The Da Vinci Code (2006)	" Ideas that are genuinely challenging to people's beliefs don't come from sources like Ron Howard. His movie is a professional, workmanlike effort -- a passable potboiler and not much more." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted May 19, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 33%	Poseidon (2006)	" It's the cinematic equivalent of a Carnival Cruise" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted May 12, 2006
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 69%	Mission: Impossible III (2006)	" The movie is why popcorn was invented." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted May 5, 2006
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 90%	United 93 (2006)	" The very act of depicting the events with such detached frankness makes for a far more gripping experience than any cinematic embellishments might provide." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted May 1, 2006
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 40%	American Dreamz (2006)	" *The film is tailor-made for the vast audience that can't wait to watch Fox's Idol* each week while still intellectually grasping what a glossy hunk of junk it is.*" — Lawrence Journal-World* Posted Apr 21, 2006
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 86%	Thank You For Smoking (2006)	" a comedy both as dark as a black lung and as illuminating as a stadium full of flicked lighters." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Apr 14, 2006
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 52%	Lucky # Slevin (2006)	" What at first appears to be heading into Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie turf steadily finds its own violent voice" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Apr 7, 2006
Rotten 1.5/4	Rotten 7%	Basic Instinct 2 (2006)	" Stone's every line of dialogue, every gesture, every hussy lip smack screams 'I'm too sexy for this movie.' And it's often hilarious." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Mar 31, 2006
Rotten 2.5/4	Fresh 73%	V For Vendetta (2005)	" V for Vendetta is a confounding exercise that has no trouble getting people to think, but it's far less successful at getting them to feel." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Mar 17, 2006
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 49%	The Hills Have Eyes (2006)	" So visceral is the carnage and so believable are the victims' reactions to it that it's impossible not to get caught up in the story." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Mar 10, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 56%	16 Blocks (2006)	" the quieter scenes far outweigh the noisier ones" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Mar 3, 2006
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 40%	Running Scared (2006)	" *For a picture so fetishistically obsessed with death, Running Scared* is vibrantly alive.*" — Lawrence Journal-World* Posted Feb 24, 2006
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 48%	Hoodwinked (2006)	" an irreverent, imaginative and often just plain weird spin on the classic fairy tale" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Feb 17, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 19%	Firewall (2006)	" once the fistfights, car chases and stray explosions begin to mount, the movie veers into exponentially dumb overkill." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Feb 10, 2006
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 90%	Capote (2005)	" it does a capable job of capturing a time and place, bringing to life several unforgettable personalities and illustrating the moral self-loathing of a writer whose real-life subject must die before he has a decent ending to his book." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Feb 3, 2006
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 41%	End of the Spear (2006)	" This generally engrossing Christian parable is the type of film that conservatives will overpraise and liberals will overcriticize." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jan 20, 2006
Rotten 2.5/4	Rotten 54%	Last Holiday (2006)	" somehow the conviction that Queen Latifah brings to the project makes some of the film's dopier choices easier to forgive." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Jan 13, 2006
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 86%	Brokeback Mountain (2005)	" *a monotonous and often inadvertently campy romance that rivals The Hours* as the most overrated movie of the decade*" — Lawrence Journal-World* Posted Jan 6, 2006
Rotten 2.5/4	Rotten 51%	The Producers (2005)	" The 'zany' performances are like a well-oiled machine, and, consequently, much of the movie comes across as mechanical." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Dec 27, 2005
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 94%	Good Night. And, Good Luck (2005)	" When Murrow cautions viewers they should 'not be driven by fear into an age of unreason,' the film seems more culturally relevant than anything playing at the multiplex." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Dec 23, 2005
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 83%	King Kong (2005)	" The sight of the mighty ape taking futile swipes at bullet-spitting biplanes from the top of the Empire State Building remains one of the most awe-inspiring and utterly sad images in movie history." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Dec 14, 2005
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 75%	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)	" The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe fares much better in its smaller, quieter moments that test the mettle and morality of its young heroes" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Dec 9, 2005
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 83%	Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)	" The movie is so relentlessly impulsive that it becomes easier if the audience just cries 'uncle' to its stylistic arm twisting." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Dec 2, 2005
Rotten 1.5/4	Rotten 48%	Rent (2005)	" *'Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes.' These opening lyrical lines of Rent* also seem to describe how long it takes for a viewer to sit through the movie.*" — Lawrence Journal-World* Posted Nov 24, 2005
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 88%	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)	" Although the plot of this installment explores 'three unforgivable curses,' the sequel avoids the 'curse of the fourth film,' proving there is still a heap of charm left in this young wizard's tale." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Nov 18, 2005
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 76%	Zathura (2005)	" What makes the fantasy elements seem particularly colorful is that the film immediately grounds the characters in reality." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Nov 11, 2005
N/A	N/A	Firecracker (2004)	" Steve Balderson: "My 20s were spent trying to conceive and make this movie."" — Lawrence Journal-World INTERVIEW Posted Nov 4, 2005
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 60%	Jarhead (2005)	" Gyllenhaal gives his strongest performance yet, perfectly balancing the frat-like bravado and utter cluelessness of young guys riding out their terms in the military" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Nov 4, 2005
Fresh 2.5/4	Rotten 57%	The Weather Man (2005)	" Audiences who can stomach Cage�s lingering malaise might appreciate an eccentric drama with a subtle command of dark humor" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Oct 28, 2005
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 20%	Doom (2005)	" It�s possible there�s not a single moment in the movie � in terms of dialogue, plot or design � that can�t be directly attributed to another flick." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Oct 21, 2005
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 27%	Elizabethtown (2005)	" The movie comes across like the director died about two-thirds of the way through filming and a loony relative stepped in to finish the project." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Oct 14, 2005
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 95%	Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)	" Park finds a way to turn very peculiar plots into easy-to-digest adventures" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Oct 7, 2005
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 87%	A History of Violence (2005)	" It�s the director�s most fully realized work and a masterstroke of violent cinema." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Sep 30, 2005
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 62%	Lord of War (2005)	" Charming and amoral, intense and indifferent, Cage continues to deliver the kind of dominating performance that elevated quirky efforts such as Adaptation." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Sep 16, 2005
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 45%	The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)	" When it�s scary, it�s extra scary. Nails-in-the-armrest scary." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Sep 9, 2005
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 87%	Broken Flowers (2005)	" Despite occupying nearly every scene, Bill Murray is a virtual non-presence in Jim Jarmusch�s latest puzzler." — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Sep 2, 2005
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 13%	The Cave (2005)	" too generic to offer many scares" — Lawrence Journal-World Posted Aug 26, 2005

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4/4	Fahrenheit 9/11Offsite
5/5	Breaking the WavesOffsite
3.5/4	Kill Bill Vol. 1Offsite
4/5	Master of the Flying GuillotineOffsite
3/4	Mystic RiverOffsite
2.5/4	Beyond BordersOffsite
3/5	The CraftOffsite
2/4	Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the HatOffsite
1.5/4	GothikaOffsite
1/4	The Matrix RevolutionsOffsite
0/4	AlexanderOffsite
3.5	I, RobotOffsite

4/4	King KongOffsite
4/4	A History of ViolenceOffsite
4/4	Million Dollar BabyOffsite
5/5	The Lavender Hill MobOffsite
5/5	Breaking the WavesOffsite
4/4	The IncrediblesOffsite
4/4	Spider-Man 2Offsite
4/4	Fahrenheit 9/11Offsite
4/4	ChicagoOffsite
4/4	American MovieOffsite

0/4	AlexanderOffsite
0.5/4	GigliOffsite
1/4	What the Bleep Do We Know?Offsite
1/4	The Matrix RevolutionsOffsite
1/4	National SecurityOffsite
1/4	Collateral DamageOffsite

JON NICCUM

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