Jay Carr

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Boston Globe
For 1,227 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.7 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Jay Carr's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Husbands and Wives
Lowest review score: 0 Beaches
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 845 out of 1227
  2. Mixed: 223 out of 1227
  3. Negative: 159 out of 1227
1227 movie reviews
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    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Jefferson in Paris
    But despite the vibrancy of its images and the exquisiteness of its craftsmanship, Jefferson in Paris doesn't often light a fire under its material. [07 Apr 1995]
    • Boston Globe
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Waking the Dead
    It's too fragmented and diffuse to ever bring its parts together in any really satisfying manner.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Freddy Got Fingered
    His (Green) new gross-out comedy is crude and stupid, but just as often rudely funny. It doesn't so much push the envelope as shred it.
    • Boston Globe
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    The Matrix
    Snazzy visuals, of which she (Moss) is one, carry The Matrix past its klutzy script.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    American Movie
    It seems more a geek show than a slab of marketing wizardry.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Goya in Bordeaux
    Rich as it looks, it lacks the feverishness of Goya's art.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    The Graduate
    The Graduate is not subtle in its writing off of the parental generation as hopelessly corrupt. [Review of re-release]
    • Boston Globe
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Deep Cover
    Although expertly directed by Bill Duke, Deep Cover becomes the cinematic equivalent of a drive-by shooting, posing as community uplift. [15 Apr 1992, p.91]
    • Boston Globe
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    On the Line
    In the end, it's much ado about not very much, certainly not enough to catapult Bass into a film career, but probably enough to satisfy 'N Sync fans.
    • Boston Globe
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Sleeping with the Enemy
    The script and direction are her real enemies here. Sleeping with the Enemy is a vehicle with too many manufacturing defects. [08 Feb 1991, p.39p]
    • Boston Globe
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    The Frighteners
    It's technically sophisticated and intermittently engaging, and its showdown is more than up to genre standards. But fresh it isn't. [19 July 1996, p.G4]
    • Boston Globe
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    High Heels
    Mostly it's Paredes' imperious - then surprisingly generous - high-handedness that carries High Heels. [20 Dec 1991]
    • Boston Globe
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Nowhere
    In short, Nowhere needs more humor, more wildness. Its pandemonium is only on the surface - which could have been the premise of a really humorous take on teen chaos. But it doesn't push the envelope as much as Araki's previous films. Although it gives his pop sensibility a vigorous workout, Nowhere is Araki's Mallrats. [06 June 1997, p.D6]
    • Boston Globe
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Sugar Hill
    This ponderous, mostly empty exercise at least has ambition. It wants to be more than the usual gangsta zap. But about the best that can be said for it is that it dresses well. [25 Feb 1994, p.48]
    • Boston Globe
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    The Hudsucker Proxy
    The movie seems destined to win a place in the nocturnal-cityscape-hell hall of fame. Its externals are brilliant, but The Hudsucker Proxy is virtually nothing but externals. [25 Mar 1994, p.52]
    • Boston Globe
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Where the Heart Is
    Never earns the rollicking life affirmation it's after.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    The Last of the Mohicans
    While Last of the Mohicans is an eyeful - how could anything shot in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina not be? - it's mindless, meticulous in its externals, taking refuge from awareness by clinging to Cooper's distortions. In the end, it'll be remembered for its three S's: Stowe, Studi and the scenery. [25 Sep 1992, p.27]
    • Boston Globe
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    All Dogs Go to Heaven
    All Dogs Go to Heaven" has the right spirit, and its warmth will offset what for small kids might be some scary moments. But it does seem skimpy and warmed over. [17 Nov 1989]
    • Boston Globe
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Bring It On
    She's (Dunst) the big reason the film rises above instantly rejectable formula to campy pop.
    • Boston Globe
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Naked Lunch
    Cronenberg hasn't so much filmed Naked Lunch as tamed it, turned it into entertainment, with oozy rubber bugs, big and little, that look left over from David Lynch's movie of "Dune," or the intergalactic dive from "Star Wars." [10 Jan 1992]
    • Boston Globe
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    What's Cooking?
    This good-hearted but undersupplied ensemble piece is only appetizer-deep.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Illuminata
    Beverly D'Angelo, Rufus Sewell, Georgina Cates, Leo Bassi - tumble with zest through a daisy chain of sexual capers. But while warmly energized, their carryings-on also seem a little generic.
    • Boston Globe
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Sonatine
    Sonatine is less stylish and affecting than Fireworks. Its deadpan satire becomes indistinguishable from numbing slack as the waiting game is played out.[17 Apr 1998, p.F7]
    • Boston Globe
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Presumed Innocent
    Presumed Innocent is interesting to the extent that it goes beyond the usual whodunit and courtroom drama formulas and shows how nobody really has clean hands. [27 July 1990, p.29P]
    • Boston Globe
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Felicia's Journey
    Has more ambition than the usual serial killer film, but curiously less urgency.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    The Evil Dead
    Although idiotic, The Evil Dead at least is propelled by energy and enthusiasm. It's scarier than many a more pretentious effort, and not everything in it is borrowed. [8 Oct 1983, p.Arts1]
    • Boston Globe
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Light Sleeper
    For a while, Light Sleeper hangs together promisingly. But when Dafoe's character meets old flame Dana Delaney, the plot spirals into preposterousness involving a sinister Eurotrash client, and the film also gets away from Schrader, who isn't a deft enough director to conceal or minimize the flaws in his script. [15 Sep 1992, p.71]
    • Boston Globe
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Charlotte Gray
    Rarely has a movie that looked so good on paper fallen so flat as the aptly named Charlotte Gray. It's not a bad movie. Bad movies have more flavor.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    The Cruise
    Perhaps a little more back story would have given Levitch some dimension and given us a bit more incentive to commiserate with him. As it is, a little Levitch goes a long way. [20 Nov 1998, p.C4]
    • Boston Globe
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Carr
    Romeo and Juliet
    Franco Zeffirelli's reputation as a popularizer of Shakespeare stems from this gusty swirl of a 1968 production built around - and aimed at - teens. The uncomprehending looks on the faces of Leonard Whiting's Romeo and Olivia Hussey's Juliet only increase the film's demographic pull, as poetry is replaced with prettiness. [18 Jan 1991, p.32p]
    • Boston Globe
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