Jonathan Rosenbaum was film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008.
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Mr. Jealousy 1997
Writer-director Noah Baumbach’s second feature (after KICKING AND SCREAMING) has about as much romantic charm and wit as the first, which is pretty much. Cast in the form of a nostalgic art movie like Jules and Jim, it recounts the obsession of its hero (Eric Stoltz) with the former lovers of his girlfriend (Annabella Sciorra), which leads him to spy on one of them, a successful novelist (Chris Eigeman), by adopting the name and identity of a friend (Carlos Jacott)…
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It's in the Water 1997
Lightly comic agitprop about homophobic bigotry in a small southern town--sincere, hokey, and artless--by first-time writer-director Kelli Herd. Various complications ensue when the rumor spreads that something in the drinking water turns people gay. In spite of a couple of able actors (Keri Jo Chapman and Teresa Garrett) as the two leads, estranged wives and best friends who become lovers, most of the performances and direction call to mind little theater productions, and the storytelling and sense of character remind…
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Barbie 2023
I have no current plans to see OPPENHEIMER and I’m already looking forward to seeing BARBIE a second time. What’s infuriating about the usual press shorthand for this duo — including The Economist‘s — is the assumption that the former is “realist” and “adult” whereas the latter must be “escapist” and “childish”. But what if the reverse is true?
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Saving Private Ryan 1998
Steven Spielberg’s 1998 exercise in Oscar-mongering is a compilation of effects and impressions from all the war movies he’s ever seen, decked out with precise instructions about what to think in Robert Rodat’s script and how to feel in John Williams’s hokey music. There’s something here for everybody — war is hell (Sam Fuller), war is father figures (Oliver Stone), war is absurd (David Lean, Stanley Kubrick), war is necessary (John Ford), war is surreal (Francis Coppola), war is exciting…
