Jonathan Rosenbaum

From the Chicago Reader (June 12, 1992). — J.R. HOUSESITTER ** (Worth seeing) Directed by Frank Oz Written by Mark Stein and Brian Grazer With Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, Dana Delany, Julie Harris, Donald Moffat, Peter MacNicol, Richard B. Shull, Laurel Cronin, Roy Cooper, and Christopher Durang. I’ve seen previews of two summer comedies so far — Sister Act and [...]

From Film Comment (July-August 1999). I’ve done a light edit, trimming part of my original conclusion. It’s worth adding that at least two additional pieces about this film have recently turned up on the Internet — a new essay by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (the first part of an ongoing series) and a detailed account by the [...]

From the Chicago Reader (August 30, 1991). — J.R. 100% DEAD AGAIN ** (Worth seeing) Directed by Kenneth Branagh Written by Scott Frank With Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi, Andy Garcia, Hanna Schygulla, Robin Williams, Campbell Scott, and Wayne Knight. The most instructive evening I’ve spent in the English theater was the [...]

Published by the web site Fandor on January 4, 2011. — J.R. It’s widely and justly believed that the two greatest plays of Eugene O’Neill (1988-1953) were both written near the tail end of his career — The Iceman Cometh, completed in 1939 and first staged in 1946, and Long Day’s Journey into Night, completed in [...]

I’m terrible when it comes to dating cars from any period, especially during the early part of the 20th century. According to my memoir Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980), which I researched pretty thoroughly back in the late 1970s, “The Florence Princess, an $85,000 Opera House, [opened] triumphantly on Labor Day, September [...]

From the Chicago Reader (August 11, 1995). — J.R. The Day the Sun Turned Cold Rating *** A must see Directed and written by Yim Ho With Siqin Gowa, Tuo Zhong Hua, Ma Jing Wu, Wai Zhi, Shu Zhong, and Li Hu. A striking moment in Mina Shum’s Double Happiness – a recent Canadian feature about an aspiring young actress [...]

Written in 2010 for the Cinema Guild’s DVD release of Shirin. — J.R. It doesn’t do justice to Shirin to call it the most conceptual of Abbas Kiarostami’s films. But it probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the most paradoxical. Not the least of its paradoxes is the way that it simultaneously confronts and [...]

From the Chicago Reader (April 7, 2000). — J.R. Beyond the Clouds Rating *** A must see Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (with Wim Wenders) Written by Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, and Wenders With John Malkovich, Ines Sastre, Kim Rossi-Stuart, Sophie Marceau, Chiara Caselli, Peter Weller, Fanny Ardant, Jean Reno, Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni, Irene Jacob, and Vincent Perez. Chicago has had a [...]

From Sight and Sound (Summer 1989). — J.R. The degree to which contemporary cinema has become a desperate recycling operation was pain fully evident in Berlin this year, where even the better films seemed mired in familiar habits. Aki Kaurismaki’s Ariel, a hard-luck story of an unemployed miner pushed into a life of crime, [...]

From the Chicago Reader (July 5, 1991). –J.R. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY ** (Worth seeing) Directed by James Cameron Written by Cameron and William Wisher With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, Edward Furlong, Earl Boen, and Joe Morton. As much a remake as a sequel, James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day begins, like The Terminator (1984), with a postnuclear [...]

From Film Comment, July-August 1982. — J.R. Movies Plus One by William S. Pechter, 246 pp., index, Horizon Press, $14.95. Ever since certain American film critics have taken to collecting their own reviews and/or commanding their own screenings, the solipsistic nature of their profession has tended to grow. It is a tendency that crosses cult boundaries, [...]

From the Chicago Reader (September 23, 2005).– J.R. Dear Wendy * (Has redeeming facet) Directed by Thomas Vinterberg Written by Lars von Trier With Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Alison Pill, Danso Gordon, Michael Angarano, Novello Nelson, Chris Owen, and Mark Webber Reel Paradise ** (Worth seeing) Directed by Steve James Two new releases are defined by an inability to fathom another culture — Reel [...]

From Cineaste (Summer 2010, Vol. XXXV, No. 3). — J.R. Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film By Tony Pipolo. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 407 pp. Hardcover: $125 and Paperback: $29.95. “I do not like to show sex crudely on the screen,” Orson Welles declared in a 1964 interview, pursuing an argument that he [...]

From the Chicago Reader (September 23, 1988). — J.R. 1. A front-page story in the August 24 Variety begins, “Last week’s Republican National Convention garnered the worst network ratings of any convention in TV history.” An interesting piece of information, but not, as far as I know, one that was noted in daily newspapers, weekly newsmagazines, [...]

From Moving Image Source [movingimagesource.us], posted March 5, 2009. The last time I checked, the box set Cinéma Cinémas was still available from French Amazon, for 25.12 Euros. — J.R. How does one distinguish American cinephilia from the original, hardcore French brand? Based on an exchange I had with French critic Raymond Bellour and [...]

From the Chicago Reader (June 21, 1996). — J.R. Welcome to the Dollhouse Rating ** Worth seeing Directed and written by Todd Solondz With Heather Matarazzo, Brendan Sexton Jr., Telly Pontidis, Herbie Duarte, Daria Kalinina, and Matthew Faber. Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud Rating *** A must see Directed by Claude Sautet Written by Sautet, Jacques Fieschi, and Yves Ulmann With Emmanuelle Beart, Michel Serrault, [...]

I no longer recall where this 2008 review was written for. — J.R. ORSON WELLES AT WORK by Jean-Pierre Berthomé and François Thomas. London/New York: Phaidon Press, 2008. 320 pp. Considering how much popular currency is enjoyed by works about Orson Welles that are poorly researched, possibly because they respond so dutifully [...]

From the Chicago Reader (May 11, 1990). — J.R. LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN * (Has redeeming facet) Directed by Uli Edel Written by Desmond Nakano With Stephen Lang, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Burt Young, Peter Dobson, Jerry Orbach, and Alexis Arquette. After making the rounds of Europe late last year, this West German feature, an adaptation in English of Hubert Selby [...]

Written circa June 2010 and previously unpublished. — J.R. I can still recall the amusement of Penelope Houston — my boss, during the mid-1970s, when I was working for British Film Institute’s Editorial Department, on the staffs of Sight and Sound and Monthly Film Bulletin – whenever she came across routine references to [...]

From the Chicago Reader (December 19, 2003). — J.R. Stuck on You *** (A must-see) Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly Written by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, Charles B. Wessler, and Bennett Yellin With Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Eva Mendes, Wen Yann Shih, Cher, Seymour Cassel, Griffin Dunne, and Meryl Streep. One of my all-time favorite Japanese movies is Yasuzo [...]