Tomato |
J'Accuse! (1919) |
"Our jingoistic era might do well to revisit Gance's compassionate visions." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Tomato 3/4 |
J'Accuse! (1919) |
"Fertile to a fault." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Splat 2/4 |
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2008) |
"For artistic representation, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer gets a near-perfect score, less so for its restrained sense of fun." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007) |
"The film tries a little too fastidiously to piece together a life its owner tried quite brazenly to shatter." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Jackass: Number Two (2006) |
"You've got to give it to the Jackass crew: their commitment to their crass craft is awe-inspiring." |
Nick Schager |
Tomato |
Jackass: The Movie (2002) |
"What with all the vomiting, ****ting and rampant homoeroticism, Jackass: The Movie is the closest thing the average Joe has to a prison-life simulation." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
Jackass: The Movie (2002) |
"For fans of MTV's now defunct "Jackass" series, the best thing that can be said about Jackass: The Movie is that it offers more of the same but with an NC-17 twist." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato |
The Jacket (2005) |
"It should be a snoozer, but the soundtrack makes it impossible to doze off.
" |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
The Jacket (2005) |
"A great many supernatural things happen in The Jacket, though they ultimately make little sense and amount to even less." |
Nick Schager |
Splat 1/4 |
Jackpot (2001) |
"An abysmally contemptuous and pointless portrait of a drifter's need for a bit of homespun fame." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
Jailbait (2006) |
"Jailbait argues that prison is an unpleasant place to spend time, but didn't Oz already destroy any remaining romantic notions about life behind bars years ago?" |
Nick Schager |
Tomato |
James Stewart - Signature Collection (2006) |
"Cagney's well worth remembering, and this set is a good start to a specific corner of his career." |
Arthur Ryel-Lindsey |
Splat 2/4 |
James' Journey to Jerusalem (2003) |
"The film whips-up a benign portrait of slavery instead of making a true-grit political statement on the nature of New World capitalism." |
Eric Henderson |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) |
"The Jane Austen Book Club is pitched as The First Wives Club for coffeehouse intellectuals." |
Paul Schrodt |
Tomato |
Jane Eyre (1944) |
"Have fun with this hot-blooded Victorian soap opera." |
Jeremiah Kipp |
Tomato 3/4 |
Jane Eyre (1944) |
"A well-constructed piece of studio work, with vivid black-and-white cinematography under matte painting skies that creates a turbulent, oppressive mood." |
Jeremiah Kipp |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Japan Japan (2008) |
"The restless, mini-DV-camera-shot visual style of Lior Shamriz's semi-improvised fiction matches the wanderlust of its twentysomething gay hero." |
Bill Weber |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Japanese Story (2004) |
"The film should easily appeal to anyone who’s never met an Asian person in their life." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato |
Japanese Story (2004) |
"For those with a hardcore Asian fetish, Sue Brooks’s multi-culti harlequin romance is now available on home video." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
Jar City (2008) |
"Reconfiguring the objectives of a standard murder mystery requires more than these stock character studies of wounded daddies, which exude sham profundity via a high-toned grim realism." |
Nick Schager |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Jarhead (2005) |
"Given how strongly the film insists on striking its testosterone pose, Mendes might say he's too cool for political thought." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
Jason X (2002) |
"Jason X is positively anti-Darwinian: nine sequels and 400 years later, the teens are none the wiser and Jason still kills on auto-pilot." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 3/4 |
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) |
"Smith's homegrown pastiche is compact, sometimes rambling, but always hysterical." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato |
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) |
"Kevin Smith's clever in-joke movie gets an anemic Blu-ray release." |
Matt Noller |
Splat 2/4 |
Jazz in the Diamond District (2009) |
"Reminds us not of the worst of Spike Lee, but the best of Maury Povich." |
Joseph Jon Lanthier |
Tomato |
Jean-Luc Godard - Box Set (1982) |
"With Criterion's continued unwillingness to stray outside of Godard's canonized 1960s output, you've got to give Lionsgate credit for putting a spotlight on his later, grumpier works." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato |
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) |
"Own Jeanne Dielman if you must. Just don't fall asleep on her bed." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato |
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) |
"Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is Chantal Akerman’s 1975 experiment in film form, an astonishing work of subtextual feminism which has to count as one of the seminal films of the 1970s." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato 3/4 |
Jeepers Creepers (2001) |
"Jeepers Creepers is an old-fashioned horror flick tailor-made for the Fangoria crowd." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003) |
"Even when the boys in the film do manage to put their clothes back on, it’s only a matter of time before the Creeper takes them off (amongst other things)." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato |
Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003) |
"Ever wanted to spend a night in Michael Jackson’s bed? Now you can! The teens giggle. Salvo talks about his Steadicam." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2/4 |
Jellyfish (2008) |
"Jellyfish exists in a no man's land, adrift in vague, waterlogged abstractions on which the filmmakers can hang their characters' collective baggage." |
Paul Schrodt |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Jennifer's Body (2009) |
"Represents a cornucopia of ideas, both comedy and horror, and the determination of the filmmakers to simply play the odds of getting more elements right than wrong instead of pursuing a purer vision makes it a mixed viewing experience." |
Ryan Stewart |
Tomato 3/4 |
Jerichow (2009) |
"We imagine his burning gaze and labored breath behind every wide shot that depicts Thomas and Laura's trysts, providing the sterile visuals with a voyeuristic intensity." |
Joseph Jon Lanthier |
Tomato |
Jersey Girl (2004) |
"Skip the film but don’t miss the awesome “old, haggard twats” commentary track by Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck.
" |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Jersey Girl (2004) |
"Kevin Smith’s neuters his sense of humor for Jersey Girl, an old-fashioned ode to paternal love that shamelessly goes for its audience’s tear ducts." |
Nick Schager |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Jestem (2005) |
"Can't decide if you want to remake 400 Blows or The Piano? No prob—recreate both as one film!" |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 3/4 |
Jesus Camp (2006) |
"A piercing portrait of innocence perverted." |
Nick Schager |
Tomato |
JFK (1991) |
"An audio-visual tour de force, and perhaps the purest example of Oliver Stone's greatest strengths as a director." |
Matt Noller |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
JFK (1991) |
"There's something almost quaint about JFK now." |
Matt Noller |
Tomato |
A Jihad for Love (2007) |
"If A Jihad for Love demonstrates the mountainous struggle Muslim homosexuals face daily, the bonus footage on the DVD reiterates that they're far from alone in having much work still to do." |
Eric Henderson |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
A Jihad for Love (2007) |
"Perhaps carving enough space for the previously unheard voices of Muslim gays to speak is enough to ask of this socially groundbreaking work." |
Kevin Lee |
Tomato 3/4 |
Jimi Hendrix - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 (1970) |
"Recorded one month before Jimi Hendrix's death, Murray Lerner's Blue Wild Angel is a time capsule celebration of one of rock n' rolls most vital figures." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 1/4 |
Jiminy Glick in LaLaWood (2004) |
"Glick, alas, has run out of gas.
" |
Dan Callahan |
Tomato 3/4 |
Jimmy Carter Man From Plains (2007) |
"Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, like Neil Young: Heart of Gold and The Agronomist, is a poignant portrait of a great man." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato |
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) |
"Ripe for repeated viewings, this one is a definite keeper for the young ones." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) |
"Neutron's relatively conflicted, walking an awkward line between the absurd and the downright lame." |
Ed Gonzalez |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Jindabyne (2007) |
"Aussie filmmaker Ray Lawrence's debt to Robert Altman in his previous Lantana is made explicit in his new film Jindabyne." |
Fernando F. Croce |
Tomato |
Joan Crawford Collection Vol. 2 |
"An essential set of big-ticket Joan Crawford films." |
Dan Callahan |
Splat 2/4 |
Joe Somebody (2001) |
"Joe Nobody becomes Joe Somebody after he gives it to the man." |
Ed Gonzalez |