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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    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    The Edge of Heaven
    Born in Hamburg to Turkish parents, director Fatih Akin brought an unusual cultural perspective to "Head On" about a marriage of convenience between a beautiful Turk and a suicidal German. In The Edge of Heaven, his first dramatic feature since then, the characters navigate the same cultural divide, but here Akin is more preoccupied with the sense of responsibility that links parents to their children (or vice versa).
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    The Savages
    Disappointment, delusion, dementia, death--did I mention this is a comedy?
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 J.R. Jones
    Battle for Haditha
    Broomfield, whose celebrity exposés are known for their intrusiveness and innuendo, lost me with his gentle shower scene between an Iraqi woman and her husband; even if it wasn't invented, is it really any of our business?
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 J.R. Jones
    Exit Through the Gift Shop
    Some have suggested that the whole story, including the emergence of Mr. Brainwash, is an elaborate hoax engineered by Banksy to satirize the commodification of art. If so, it’s a brilliant one.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 J.R. Jones
    Kiki's Delivery Service
    The characters are gently and warmly rendered, and a climactic action sequence involving an unmoored dirigible hints at the stately grandiosity of Miyazaki's masterpiece Howl's Moving Castle.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Knocked Up
    Funny, honest, and generous, this is mainstream American comedy at its best.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    The Departed
    The Departed is completely engrossing, a master class in suspense. But in moral terms it may be the least involving story that Scorsese -- an artist much preoccupied with morality -- has ever taken on.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
    Wise, gentle, and simply constructed.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 J.R. Jones
    Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
    Like the earlier film, this one has an airless quality, much of the action taking place in the hushed and colorless offices of "the Circus." But whereas the dank tone of "Let the Right One In" served to heighten the moments of poignance and shrieking horror, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy begins to seem phlegmatic after a while.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 J.R. Jones
    Victim
    Victim, for all its compromises, offers a rich mosaic of minor characters, none of them particularly complex but each articulating some British attitude toward homosexuality and the law surrounding it.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Neil Young: Heart of Gold
    Given what Young charges for concert tickets, all his organs could be gold. So I was even more grateful for this documentary of his August 2005 shows at the fabled Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, expertly directed by Jonathan Demme.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 J.R. Jones
    The Dark Knight
    The moral dilemmas are perfectly fused with the amped-up action and outsize characters, but they're impossible to miss: like all of us, the people of Gotham have to protect themselves from evil without falling prey to it.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    O'Horten
    Strange, unpredictable, and sometimes magical.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    24 Hour Party People
    Coogan delivers a winning comic performance as the pompous impresario, but his story has little dramatic momentum of its own; he functions mostly as a pedantic narrator, imposing some cultural significance on the endless party and pointing out more intriguing personalities.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 J.R. Jones
    Atonement
    Atonement is that rare combo: a good movie based on a good book.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 J.R. Jones
    The Tree of Life
    A sense of reconciliation is Malick's great accomplishment in The Tree of Life, affording us equal wonder at grace and nature alike. 
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Alexandra
    On its deepest level it considers not a particular war but the complex feelings between mothers and the young men they send out into the world to kill or be killed.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 J.R. Jones
    The Host
    The mix of dark humor, creeping suspense, and a sort of apocalyptic tenderness makes this the best horror flick in years.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 J.R. Jones
    Restrepo
    The movie premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, too soon to include a tragic denouement: in April the U.S. command surrendered the Korangal Valley to the Taliban.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 J.R. Jones
    Rachel Getting Married
    It's not a terribly disciplined exercise--the rehearsal dinner and wedding ceremony go on so long I felt like I was watching "The Deer Hunter"--but the performances are outstanding, especially Hathaway's and Debra Winger's in a small but devastating turn as her chilly, resentful mother.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Since Otar Left
    A trio of finely observant performances graces this quiet drama.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Slumdog Millionaire
    The movie brushes against some of India's worst social ills, but it's essentially a fairy tale.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 J.R. Jones
    49 Up
    This seventh installment is utterly fascinating.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 J.R. Jones
    The White Ribbon
    There’s no denying this is a coldly commanding tale in which Haneke’s signature obsessions--bourgeois control, sexual repression, emotional cruelty, cathartic violence--simmer quietly as subtext before bursting into the open in the final reels.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 J.R. Jones
    Old Joy
    This quiet, elegiac road movie hinges on a few beautifully underplayed scenes between Daniel London and Will Oldham.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 J.R. Jones
    Ballast
    Hammer overplays his indie hand with an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending, but his three leads are so credible that their aching, tongue-tied characters linger in the memory.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 J.R. Jones
    The Descendants
    Alexander Payne has won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay (Sideways), but you'd never guess that from this clumsily written drama: characters keep explaining things that their listeners would already know, and the first couple reels are so thick with expository voice-over that you may think you're listening to a museum tour on a set of headphones.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 J.R. Jones
    Happy-Go-Lucky
    Leigh pushes the story in a more interesting direction, asking whether people find happiness or simply will it on themselves.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 J.R. Jones
    Dave Chappelle's Block Party
    It's a hell of a show, though none of the artists gets more than a single number, and most of Chappelle's comic interludes are half-baked. Funnier and more engaging are his perambulations around the neighborhood.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 J.R. Jones
    Arthur
    Three decades of skyrocketing income inequality have soured the comedy of Arthur's astronomically expensive self-indulgences.
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