Jen Chaney
Select another critic »For 384 reviews, this critic has graded:
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56% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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40% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.9 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Jen Chaney's Scores
- Movies
- TV
Average review score: | 72 | |
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Highest review score: | What We Do in the Shadows (2019): Season 3 | |
Lowest review score: | 13 Reasons Why: Season 3 |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 284 out of 384
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Mixed: 87 out of 384
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Negative: 13 out of 384
384
tv
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Jen Chaney
An absorbing exploration of commitment, friendship, and romantic love.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted May 13, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
Hacks is at its best in moments like that, when it highlights life at its most simultaneously hilarious and wrenching. It just takes a little while for it to reach those scenes this time around. ... Season two is much looser and, like a stand-up tour, jumps from place to place without clearly addressing its broader ideas.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted May 12, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
It’s hard to imagine gleaning something new from a subject that’s already been explored via multiple hours of television. But The Staircase, which casts Colin Firth in the role of Michael and Toni Collette as Kathleen, defies expectations, adding new perspective and dimension to a well-known story while creating an experience that differs from the docuseries.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted May 6, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
There are moments when the show seems more interested in making a case than telling a full-fledged story, and the timeline-jumping can get confusing despite the text from incident reports used as transitions and designed to to keep us grounded in the chronology of events. Nevertheless, it’s a vivid, richly detailed series, shot with gritty intimacy by director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) and worth watching for a host of reasons. A big one is Bernthal’s performance.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Apr 26, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
Exceptional. ... It’s so good this season that I not only want to recommend it to Vulture readers, I want to hand out flyers to random people on the street, imploring them to watch.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Apr 22, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
One of the flaws in this well-acted but overly drawn-out limited series is that we never get sufficient insight into Michelle’s behavior.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Mar 29, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
Despite its positives, Bridgerton is ultimately not as fully, effectively transportive this go-round. Even though both seasons rely heavily on the tropes of romantic storytelling, this one makes it easier to spot those tropes and become distracted by their presence. ... But the real scandal — Lady Whistledown herself would certainly confirm this — is that there’s less excitement.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Mar 22, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
As it stands, this HBO series tells a messy, pulsating, occasionally problematic, but mostly entertaining version of the molding of a legendary basketball team. It’s not necessarily enlightening, but it is certainly a show.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Mar 4, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
The final gift this treasure of a series offers to us is a sequence that makes us feel like we’ve been part of Sam’s family the whole time.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Mar 1, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
Super Pumped makes the case that figures like Kalanick pride themselves on pushing boundaries so much that they decide boundaries don’t need to exist. And that’s interesting to explore, up to a point. But exploring that flawed, morally unmoored worldview also results in regurgitating messages that TV shows and movies about the business world have been telegraphing for decades.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Feb 25, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
It’s a multi-episode conversation that’s thoughtfully and sensitively handled, and rightly places emphasis on how Cosby’s downfall has affected the Black community. It is also transparent about how conflicted Bell and others remain when it comes to how to define this comedian, a feeling that ultimately interferes with the series reaching the strong conclusion it seems to be setting up.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Jan 28, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
Overall, The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window is short enough to not be a complete time suck yet long enough for the central gag to overstay its welcome, but honestly, if you’re on Netflix looking for a series that is funny, involves murder and wine, and is also suspenseful, you would probably be better off watching or rewatching Dead to Me.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Jan 28, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
This is a sitcom, sure. But the world it builds rings with authenticity. There are occasionally some extremely local Philadelphia jokes, and those too hit with the pinpointed accuracy of a laser beam.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Jan 20, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
This season of Euphoria is doing the most, and sometimes it’s so much that key figures fall somewhat by the wayside. This is a television series that doesn’t just depict the darker impulses of adolescence — horniness, jealousy, resentment, a flippant attitude toward one’s mortality. It wears them like a bodycon dress, a fresh gel manicure, and carefully applied eye glitter. And more often than not, this version of “too much” is a hell of a drug.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Jan 10, 2022
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- Jen Chaney
Station Eleven is a beautifully wrought piece of storytelling. ... Our world isn’t ending even though COVID is still a presence in it. But when you watch Station Eleven and become immersed in it, it really does become the whole wide world. What a gift.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Dec 14, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
There are occasional flashes of the insight and humor that helped make Sex and the City such a phenomenon in its day. ... But And Just Like That … comes across as desperate to seem cool and relevant in a very different TV landscape. Watching it made me feel old, and not because I, like these ladies, have aged since the original series. Nothing about the show feels organic; so much about it is painfully forced.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Dec 9, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
Based on the first two episodes shared with critics, Hawkeye is a reasonably entertaining series with a holiday vibe that makes it fun to watch at this time of year. ... Yet it is still challenging to watch without feeling distanced from what’s transpiring. Like Falcon and Loki, Hawkeye is emotionally impenetrable, even though the gifted actors try their best to make you feel something.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Nov 24, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
What’s more illuminating, however, is the way this documentary connects the dots from so-called Nipplegate all the way back to the beginning of Jackson’s career. ... Like everything in The New York Times Presents series, the evidence of the uproar is presented straightforwardly, letting its ridiculousness speak for itself.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Nov 19, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
Despite the rarefied air it occupied — “How posh is this?” Adele asked early in the special, to which the answer obviously was very — it also reminded her fans why they missed her. Her voice is like a memory and an active emotional trigger, a robust glass of Zinfandel that heats your insides and makes you wistful.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Nov 15, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
The plot is pretty meaty (sorry), but Yellowjackets is adept at juggling it all, hopping between narratives and tones in a way that doesn’t register as jarring jumps, but moves in a purposefully choreographed dance.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Nov 12, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
Despite some contrivances and overly familiar beats, there’s also enough suspense and substance to this follow-up, led by showrunner Clyde Phillips, who served as Dexter’s showrunner during its first four seasons, to make it worth your attention, at least for a few episodes.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Nov 4, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
While it’s entertaining and a mostly breezy watch, it’s also committed to showing the realities of being one-half of a couple. Love requires work, introspection, and pushing oneself to be bigger and better for the sake of another. Love Life does not shy away from showing that. ... In a series structured so much around one character’s experience, it’s imperative that we connect with and enjoy that person. Harper makes that easy.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Oct 26, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
While it bites off more than it can reasonably chew and can be a little heavy-handed at times, when the series breaks your heart, it really shatters it.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Oct 14, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
The writing drips with more poison, and the cast seems to relish more than ever the opportunity to disseminate its toxins.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Oct 12, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
[Alex and Paula] are each other’s worst enemies and greatest advocates, and watching them dance through their complicated love for one another is one of the most enriching experiences of the fall TV season. Like so much in Maid, you don’t just observe what’s happening to them. You feel like you’re in it right along with them.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Oct 1, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
Information is presented in a cogent, journalistic fashion that is more interested in uncovering what Britney Spears has been facing away from the shiny filters of her Instagram feed rather than exploiting her.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Sep 29, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
Without Linklater, Midnight Mass would be a pretty good series. With him, it achieves moments of greatness.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Sep 23, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
Real tension is only felt in two episodes, though: the aforementioned “Butt Plug” and “Moment of Silence,” both of which are buoyed by strong performances from their leads and a greater sense of storytelling focus. ... That’s what The Premise really is: a series of episodes that each have their own gimmick. “Moment of Silence,” at least, is smart enough to not try to be funny. The other episodes try too hard and, too often, fail.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Sep 15, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
This is basically a two-hander. Fortunately, and not surprisingly, the two stars make this thing live. They are each completely dialed-in and totally believable as a couple with a vast, un-erasable history whose weight can be felt in the spaces between them.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Sep 10, 2021
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- Jen Chaney
Coming off an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2020, What We Do in the Shadows continues to alternate between deadpan, dark, physical, and scatological humor, sometimes within a single scene, with ease and effectiveness. It also remains delightfully weird, acted by pros with impeccable timing, and Goth-gorgeous in every detail, including production designs that demand viewers hit pause in order to absorb everything in the frame.- New York Magazine (Vulture)
- Posted Sep 1, 2021
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