Rotten Tomatoes
Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes
Critics list

Joanne Kaufman

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Wall Street Journal film critic.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Best Intentions (1992) 81% EDIT “Throughout, Bergman sets up a series of vivid, literate confrontations involving Frler, August and other articulated characters. Director August stages these tense, intimate, emotional wrestling matches with naturalistic fervor.” – People Magazine Nov 20, 2017 Full Review Naked (1993) 88% EDIT “That wonderful British writer-director Mike Leigh continues down his brave, lonely road, making movies about believable people living and suffering under painfully believable circumstances.” – People Magazine Mar 4, 2015 Full Review Let Him Have It (1991) 84% EDIT “It does not follow that behind every great miscarriage of justice lies a great movie. Case in point: the well-intentioned but ultimately unsatisfying Let Him Have It.” – People Magazine Oct 28, 2014 Full Review Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) 77% EDIT “The script plods. Tandy looks as though she'd rather be elsewhere. The desire is understandable.” – People Magazine Jun 2, 2014 Full Review Hero (2002) 94% EDIT “As they move through the martial-arts sequences, the performers leave the impression that the laws of gravity are subject to amendment. The rules of love and war -- all's fair -- are, Hero makes clear, immutable.” – Wall Street Journal Mar 18, 2014 Full Review Wicker Park (2004) 27% EDIT “Wicker Park is built on such a goofy premise that your average soap-opera scriptwriter would laugh it out of a story meeting.” – Wall Street Journal Mar 18, 2014 Full Review Forrest Gump (1994) 75% EDIT “America's loss of innocence as filtered through the eyes of an innocent -- that's the theme of this plodding, heavy-handed parable.” – People Magazine Jan 7, 2014 Full Review Schindler's List (1993) 98% EDIT “Despite admirable intentions and the undeniable splendor of his craft, ultimately what Spielberg has told is the story of the list; he has not told the story of Schindler.” – People Magazine Jan 6, 2014 Full Review Crash (2004) 73% EDIT “Ultimately, Crash succeeds in spite of itself. Its color war starts to feel obvious and schematic. Its coincidences and cliches become like a pileup on the 405 freeway, but there it is -- you find yourself rubbernecking and can't manage to look away.” – Wall Street Journal Jan 6, 2014 Full Review Extract (2009) 62% EDIT “Mr. Judge has done better, more pointed work before, notably in the cult-favorite workplace comedy Office Space.” – Wall Street Journal Sep 3, 2009 Full Review Amreeka (2009) 87% EDIT “Most important, Mr. Dabis knows that home -- what a fraught place! -- is, in equal measures, where the hurt is and where the heart is.” – Wall Street Journal Sep 3, 2009 Full Review All About Steve (2009) 7% EDIT “A head-banging excuse for a comedy.” – Wall Street Journal Sep 3, 2009 Full Review The September Issue (2009) 83% EDIT “The September Issue is old news, all the more so given the recent recession-driven transformation of the magazine landscape.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 28, 2009 Full Review Taking Woodstock (2009) 47% EDIT “Taking Woodstock is hardly a bad trip; just a very inconsequential one.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 28, 2009 Full Review Post Grad (2009) 9% EDIT “Post Grad delivers a murky message about love, work, family and Eskimo Pies.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 21, 2009 Full Review Art & Copy (2009) 57% EDIT “It all sounds rather grandiose, but it's hardly a surprising view from folks accustomed to thinking big.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 21, 2009 Full Review My One and Only (2009) 69% EDIT “Despite some clichéd set-pieces, the unassuming My One and Only keeps its balance and momentum.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 21, 2009 Full Review Inglourious Basterds (2009) 89% EDIT “All the trademark Tarantino flourishes are here -- the joyous splaying of gore; the self-referential dialogue; the artful artificiality and the juxtaposition of humor and violence -- but they don't add up to much.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 21, 2009 Full Review District 9 (2009) 90% EDIT “There's a wonderfully sly, farcical verve to these early moments, but it dissipates when the script, with its strains of E.T. and The Fly, moves into high sci-fi gear.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 14, 2009 Full Review Ponyo (2008) 91% EDIT “If the plot of Ponyo is small as a minnow, its themes -- the relationship between parent and child, between the young and the elderly, between friends, between man and nature -- are large and fully realized.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 14, 2009 Full Review The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) 38% EDIT “The movie moves at such an agonizingly stately pace that by the end, side effects be damned, Henry's time-traveling gene starts to look mighty appealing.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 14, 2009 Full Review In the Loop (2009) 94% EDIT “In the Loop is a confusingly plotted satire -- plan on being out of the loop -- that starts off at such a frantic pace and at so high a pitch that it really doesn't have anywhere to go.” – Wall Street Journal Jul 24, 2009 Full Review The Answer Man (2009) 32% EDIT “Its crackly sarcasm and smart talk turn out to be simply coating for a soft, icky, center.” – Wall Street Journal Jul 24, 2009 Full Review The Ugly Truth (2009) 14% EDIT “The Ugly Truth wants to have it both ways, reveling in a misogyny it claims to deplore.” – Wall Street Journal Jul 24, 2009 Full Review Ballet Shoes (2007) 100% EDIT “[A] pleasant if uninspired adaptation of Noel Streatfeild's children's classic.” – Wall Street Journal Aug 29, 2008 Full Review
No Reviews Yet
Load More