Jim Slotek

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Original-Cin
For 280 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 76% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 20% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 6 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Jim Slotek's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 The Cleaners
Lowest review score: 25 Maze Runner: The Death Cure
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 209 out of 280
  2. Mixed: 68 out of 280
  3. Negative: 3 out of 280
280 movie reviews
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    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    Parasite
    As entertained as the audience is throughout, you don’t leave the theatre undisturbed.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Oppenheimer
    Oppenheimer is three hours of testimony played out as drama. There are no action scenes as such, besides pyro played on the quantum and city-destroying level. It is the opposite of escapism, but it’s real history worth telling.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    Apollo 11
    Apollo 11 is ultimately the finest look back to the anniversary of this historic event you’ll see this year.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Jim Slotek
    Lorne
    If Lorne really is “the most boring” doc of the Oscar-winning Neville’s career, it’s only because his career bar is high. As it is, Lorne is a terrific backgrounder for devout fans of Saturday Night Live. Fairweather fans, on the other hand, might find it like an overlong sketch.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    Pain and Glory
    In evocative and understatedly emotional scenes, carried out with a mature grace by Banderas, we come to a connection of how we get where we are, and what holds us back from what we dream of becoming.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
    [A] crazily imaginative, hilarious and frenetic animated feature that’s practically a palate-cleanser for comic book earnestness.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    No Other Choice
    Well shot, well acted and with locations that vary from brutalist factory sites to beautiful nearby forests, No Other Choice is both believable and absurd as it unfolds. But its social relevance remains spot-on.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    Tea with the Dames
    It’s hard to imagine a lovelier fly-on-the-wall experience than Nothing Like A Dame – a documentary that basically intrudes on a regular, wickedly-funny get-together of four octogenarians who’ve been friends since they were barely more than precocious schoolgirls.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Jim Slotek
    West Side Story
    This West Side Story retains its ‘50s feel, while polishing this venerable gem of a musical to a greater gleam.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 67 Jim Slotek
    Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
    There’s a little more room for characters to breathe. This is not to last, however. The whole thing must ignite into a final act of fights, car chases and general destruction (and Snake Eyes’ discovery of honour). The battle scenes are often darkly lit and confusing (though it is a change of pace to see so much swordplay as opposed to gunplay), and the attempt to fuse the Joes and Cobra into the plot in the last act is not exactly smooth.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Jim Slotek
    Black Bag
    There are not many films on the release schedule with good writing and plotting, wit and solid acting. That’s an exceptional combination in a quick bite of the spy movie genre.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin
    Despite the participation of the traveler’s wife and biographer, Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin is as much about Herzog as it is about his subject. You can be a fan of either and enjoy the film and its voice, so seamlessly did they apparently share a vision of the world.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Decision to Leave
    If Decision to Leave is indeed intended as an homage to a genre, mission accomplished.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Jim Slotek
    All Joking Aside
    I get why people want to make movies about comedy that make you cry. But making you laugh first – I mean, really laugh – would make for a potent combination indeed.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Jim Slotek
    Hamnet
    Hamnet is a sensitively told, beautifully realized pastoral tale, driven by Buckley’s magnetism, and a well-placed cast.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    Stray
    A day in the life of Zeytin is, for the most part, an agreeable experience that doubles as a dog’s-eye-view of humans.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Jim Slotek
    The Animal Kingdom
    A film that wants to be a metaphor for something, the French film The Animal Kingdom is like an edgeless, absurdist high school version of The Island of Doctor Moreau.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Jim Slotek
    Maiden
    It’s an inspiring chapter in history, beautifully conveyed on the screen.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Hearts Beat Loud
    What gives Hearts Beat Loud its life is the father-daughter interaction and chemistry between Offerman and Clemons. Their original jam session makes the audience sit up and take notice.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Jim Slotek
    Sator
    A masterpiece of squeamishly uneasy, nightmarish mood-making, the demonic-possession film, Sator is partly in the vein of The Blair Witch Project – though much more sure-handed and stylistically sophisticated.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Pig
    If this seems like a bit of a deep dive when the subject is trendy restaurants in Portland, Pig is a serious movie with heady themes that just happens to come at you from oblique and unexpected angles.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    The Holdovers
    Add a bit of road movie misadventure, a la Payne’s Sideways, and you have a Christmas movie with spirit and wit, with a minimum of mawkish sentiment.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Jim Slotek
    A Hero
    Oscar-nominated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation), with his powerful and perceptive tale A Hero, shows us universalities, from the complexities of human nature to the modernized way we’ve manipulated right and wrong.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Close
    Far from being mysterious and confounding, it rings utterly true as it captures both the beauty and fragility of young boys’ friendships, amid the storm of growth and social pressure.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Jim Slotek
    Us
    His choice of shots is remarkable, from the mirror house to an institutional hallway chase that goes on forever, to static shots of possible entry points that double down on the suspense. Us is a well shot, artfully chilling movie, one awash in mood but which doesn’t fail to deliver the story.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Living
    Nighy performs a considerable character arc with only the smallest of emotional reveals, as if tentatively exercising unused muscles of humanity and even joy.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Jim Slotek
    Woman at War
    Though the quirk is ladled on a little thick at times, Woman at War is a surprisingly crowd-pleasing film experience considering its subject matter. In style, Erlingsson evokes the playfulness of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, and it seems impossible to film anything in Iceland without being hypnotized by the landscape.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    Ford v Ferrari
    It’s on the track where it finds traction. The events of the various races, reflected on the faces of characters whose lives revolve around the outcome, tell a story all by themselves.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Jim Slotek
    28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
    It’s a new apocalyptic pallet to paint upon, and I look forward to where it goes next.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 67 Jim Slotek
    Midway
    On the sliding scale of war movies, Emmerich’s Midway is obviously no prestige film like The Hurt Locker or Saving Private Ryan. It belongs more to the school of the original Midway, with Tora! Tora! Tora! as its exemplar. Tell the story of a battle, offer up some sketched-out characters, played with aplomb, add a dash of soap opera and fire when ready. On that scale, for what it’s worth, Midway is a much more solid piece of entertainment than the Pearl Harbor directed by Emmerich’s fellow master-of-disaster Michael Bay.
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