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Jonathan Rosenbaum

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

(Photo Credit: Claude Medale/ Contributor/ Corbis Entertainment /Getty Images)

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Megalopolis (2024) 46% EDIT “It becomes conventionally digestible only when it occasionally turns into an old-fashioned love story. ” – Sight & Sound Dec 18, 2025 Full Review Big Top Pee-wee (1988) 31% EDIT “Most of the circus freaks are as synthetic as Pee-wee himself, and while the level of imagination here is scaled to the bite-size dimensions of TV, the sense of an alternate universe felt in Herman’s TV show is woefully lacking. ” – Chicago Reader Dec 11, 2025 Full Review Boogie Nights (1997) 91% EDIT “Notwithstanding its occasional grotesque nods to postmodernist convention, this is highly entertaining Hollywood filmmaking, full of spark and vigor.” – Chicago Reader Sep 23, 2025 Full Review Night of the Living Dead (1990) 57% EDIT “The film can’t simply be discounted as a skim job on the original; Romero’s dark social commentary, which grew in impact over his entire Dead trilogy, is still very much present here, even if it no longer has the same bite and urgency” – Chicago Reader Sep 17, 2025 Full Review Waterworld (1995) 60% EDIT “This movie feels like it was made by a bank rather than a person. ” – Chicago Reader Jul 28, 2025 Full Review DuckTales, the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990) 66% EDIT “While the animation isn’t top drawer, the plot and characters are fairly diverting.” – Chicago Reader Jul 16, 2025 Full Review Rollerball (1975) 56% EDIT “Rollerball postulates an unlikely future society... but then resolutely refuses to show it, reserving all its heavy hardware for the brutal mechanics of an exceedingly dull sport that is presumed to make this invisible anti-utopia possible.” – jonathanrosenbaum.net Jun 3, 2025 Full Review Mission: Impossible II (2000) 58% EDIT “If only it had shown some nostalgia for the silent thrillers of Louis Feuillade and Fritz Lang, I might have had some fun.” – Chicago Reader Apr 29, 2025 Full Review Tommy (1975) 71% EDIT “Even at its most lacklustre and tasteless junctures, Tommy is never boring, and always full of energy; and given the very loose narrative framework and imprecise plot that Russell has to work with, this is no small achievement.” – Sight & Sound Mar 18, 2025 Full Review My Pleasure Is My Business (1974) 10% EDIT “Despite a reasonable amount of high spirits, the shrill ugliness and witlessness of the Gestalt cabinet scenes are sufficient to sink this shaky vehicle without a trace.” – Monthly Film Bulletin Mar 11, 2025 Full Review Nashville (1975) 89% EDIT “One proceeds through this constant play between organisation and chaos as though in a mystery, picking out threads that may be either loose ends or clues to future events -- and aspect that makes Nashville well worth repeated visits.” – Sight & Sound Feb 27, 2025 Full Review Shall We Dance? (1996) 90% EDIT “Its paper-thin characters turned into caricatures by egregious hamming, this 1996 Japanese comedy drama about shy ballroom dancers is sentimental goo and downright interminable. ” – Chicago Reader Aug 21, 2024 Full Review Home Alone (1990) 66% EDIT “The movie is quite enjoyable as long as it explores the fantasy of a neglected little boy having an entire house of his own to explore and play in, and it still manages to be fun when he exhibits superhuman ingenuity and resourcefulness.” – Chicago Reader Nov 29, 2023 Full Review Smoke Signals (1998) 90% EDIT “Good-natured but haunting, elliptical and repetitive as narrative but extremely likable, this is a poignant and sometimes funny story.” – Chicago Reader Nov 8, 2023 Full Review Atanarjuat the Fast Runner (2001) 93% EDIT “This totally absorbing 172-minute feature, winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes, is exciting not as ethnography but as storytelling, as drama, and as filmmaking. ” – Chicago Reader Nov 8, 2023 Full Review The Great New Wonderful (2005) 73% EDIT “Tries way too hard to be clever and shrewd. Danny Leiner (Dude, Where’s My Car?, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) directed a script by Sam Catlin, and though both have their moments, they’re rarely the same moments.” – Chicago Reader Sep 12, 2023 Full Review Y tu mamá también (2001) 90% EDIT “A genuine rarity: a sex comedy with brains. Even rarer, one with smart politics -- so unobtrusive you may not notice -- and wonderful acting.” – Chicago Reader Sep 9, 2023 Full Review When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) 68% EDIT “Apart from a confusing and unnecessary beginning and slick and corny Hollywood ending, this is a fairly serious and honest tearjerker about the delicate and subtle relationship between a family’s dysfunctionality and the wife’s alcoholism.” – Chicago Reader Sep 1, 2023 Full Review La Haine (1995) 96% EDIT “Though some of this might seem a bit old to Americans, Kassovitz has some things of his own to say -- and he says them with nuance, feeling, and authority.” – Chicago Reader Jul 20, 2023 Full Review Mulholland Dr. (2001) 84% EDIT “I’m still trying to decide if this piece of hocus-pocus is David Lynch’s best feature between Eraserhead and Inland Empire.” – Chicago Reader Jul 10, 2023 Full Review Kandahar (2001) 89% 3/4 EDIT “Thanks to the shifting tone and manner of Kandahar, we wind up responding in many different ways at once, and if the overall effect is still scattered, the burden of making sense of it all–as art and as reality–reverts to us.” – Chicago Reader Aug 12, 2022 Full Review What Time Is It There? (2001) 85% 4/4 EDIT “It’s Tsai's own way of thinking globally, of finding hope in the midst of despair, of seeing a profound connectedness in the midst of alienation, and it carries a lift that could enlighten us all.” – Chicago Reader Aug 12, 2022 Full Review Minority Report (2002) 89% 3/4 EDIT “Minority Report does offer a few issues to ponder, and given the mindlessness of most summer action specials, it’s something of an intellectual feast, even if it’s all hors d’oeuvres. ” – Chicago Reader Aug 10, 2022 Full Review Secret Ballot (2001) 83% 3/4 EDIT “I see Payami as creating a formal relationship between his audience and subject that encourages us to be open-minded: neither of the two main characters can be seen as all right or all wrong...” – Chicago Reader Aug 10, 2022 Full Review The Luzhin Defence (2000) 58% EDIT “I realize that every film adaptation of a good novel involves some sort of trade-off and that fair exchanges are few and far between. But this movie takes away a good two-thirds...” – Chicago Reader Jun 22, 2022 Full Review
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