J.R. Jones

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Chicago Reader
For 1,513 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 6.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

J.R. Jones' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 59
Highest review score: 100 The Baader Meinhof Complex
Lowest review score: 0 Bad Boys II
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 697 out of 1513
  2. Mixed: 598 out of 1513
  3. Negative: 218 out of 1513
1513 movie reviews
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    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Crazy Horse
    This documentary about Crazy Horse, the legendary Parisian nude cabaret, is so warm, colorful, and sensuous that it seems like a real anomaly for the highly disciplined filmmaker.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Brick
    It's worth seeing for the tightly coiled plot, well-realized characters, and novel take on rapacious teen culture.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Ghost Town
    In this comedy by David Koepp, Gervais handles the big, crowd-pleasing gags with aplomb.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 J.R. Jones
    Tiny Furniture
    A tolerably warm bath of postcollegiate self-pity, salted with irony and self-mockery.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Walk the Line
    As the star-crossed couple, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon contribute all their own vocals, and their soapier scenes together reminded me of no less than the 1954 "A Star Is Born."
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Control
    Darkly funny and metaphorically potent.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Terri
    Reilly's performance here is hilarious: he's located the character in the bursts of shouting he uses to do his job and the warped sense of humor he needs to deal with the weird kids sent his way.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    People Like Us
    The movie develops into a painful story of one generation inflicting its selfish compromises on the next. The three leads are uniformly excellent, and the strong supporting cast includes Mark Duplass and Philip Baker Hall.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    The Talent Given Us
    The most poignant performance comes from Allen, a retired stock analyst who clings to his masculine pride even though his body's falling apart on him.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Step Into Liquid
    In his narration Brown says that he wants to dispel the image of surfers as airheaded slackers, an ambition undercut by his own breathless and clumsy writing. But to his credit he collects some fascinating stories.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Isn't This a Time! A Tribute Concert for Harold Leventhal
    As you might expect, this is hip deep in reminiscence.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Four Eyed Monsters
    So playful and imaginative that only at the very end -- in a metafictional tag about their project's success on the festival circuit -- does its narcissism become off-putting.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
    The consequent pain, anger, and confusion on all sides disrupts the standard martyrology of the genre and exposes the ordinary human wreckage that can follow even the most extraordinary acts of heroism.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 J.R. Jones
    Marion Bridge
    It has all the virtues of fine stage drama: narrative economy, honest emotion, and characters so closely defined that the most pedestrian encounters between them are revelatory.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Inspector Bellamy
    Depardieu brings such easygoing authority to the title character that you're pulled into the investigation, even as Bellamy becomes increasingly bewildered by his home life.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 30 J.R. Jones
    Everyone Else
    By the end of this 124-minute drama I'd have settled for ANYONE else, but like most visits with irritating people, the movie lingers, sharpening one's judgment.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Holes
    For a Disney movie, Holes is mercifully low in saccharine.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 J.R. Jones
    One Lucky Elephant
    Michael Webber's documentary "The Elephant in the Living Room" (2010) makes such a powerful case against private ownership of exotic wild animals that this portrait of circus owner David Balding and his beloved elephant Flora seems sentimental by comparison.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 J.R. Jones
    Jerichow
    Undeniably well executed.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Rudy
    [A] well-crafted piece of middle-American uplift...For once it really does matter most how you play the game.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Thank You for Smoking
    As the substantially faithful movie version demonstrates, the story of Thank You for Smoking resides in that libertarian netherworld where the far left and the far right march shoulder to shoulder.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Factotum
    Despite some fine black comedy, this hovers uncertainly between the novel's tragic precision and "Barfly's" existential burlesque.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 J.R. Jones
    Tropic Thunder
    Never lives up to the hilarity of the opening, partly because the large-scale production smothers the gags but mostly because those gags are so easy to smother.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Disgrace
    The movie eventually begins to wilt under the sober, plodding direction of Steve Jacobs, but the thoughtful screenplay gives Malkovich a complex, increasingly reflective character arc that he plays with great feeling, making the professor’s redemption seem honestly won.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Mozart's Sister
    The injustice of the girl's thwarted career goes only so far, though Feret pushes it in some interesting directions.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 J.R. Jones
    Machete
    Rodriguez retreats into gruesome violence and flaccid comedy, grasping feebly for topical relevance by referencing the current immigration fracas.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 J.R. Jones
    Rapt
    This French kidnapping drama drags on for so long I'd have paid the ransom out of my own pocket just to wrap things up.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 J.R. Jones
    Deep Blue
    The episodic structure prevents any real momentum, but Byatt and Fothergill give a visceral sense of the sea's violence and vividly capture the riot of color to be found on the ocean floor.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Le petit lieutenant
    The movie's realism is unimpeachable, though American cops might be stunned by the idea of a half-dozen detectives being assigned to the murder of an anonymous floater.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 J.R. Jones
    Young Adult
    Whether the character is supposed to be a stand-in for Cody, who grew up in the western 'burbs of Chicago and has since won an Oscar, is more than I can say, but the movie suffers from the sort of self-pitying fog that can envelop a writer when he dives into his own malaise.
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