Heartwarming / The Cinema Snob

• During his review of Elves, Brad slips out of his Cinema Snob character for a moment when the main character's stepmother kills her cat for no reason whatsoever, hissing, "I'd kill her. I'd fucking KILL her!" Do not mess with cats while Brad Jones is watching.
  • And it even pops up in the Snob videos, where Lloyd jumps up on Brad's lap for most of the Gross Out review and Brad just lets him stay there.
  • In A Talking Cat, Brad actually seems to get angry when he thinks Duffy died.
• He begins his Pieces review out-of-character, and explains that most of the riffs he does are out of love, not hate.
• Brad is mostly playing himself rather than his always-irritated Snob persona in his crossover with Linkara for reviewing the Manimal comic—he's shocked and looks genuinely hurt when he finds out it's a dark-as-hell comic about a Nazi-created Beast Man rather than the Manimal he loves.
• Brad's reaction to violence against children, both in and out of character. Apparently he has Papa Bear tendencies.
  • A lesser reaction (as no violence is involved), but still surprisingly effective: during the movie Home Sweet Home, as the characters are having Thanksgiving dinner, one character tells his daughter to have some peas, threatening not to let her have dessert if she doesn't eat any. The Snob (or possibly Brad himself) is livid at this, recounting how he got sick as a child when his daycare forced him to eat green beans, and denouncing any parent that forces their children to eat food they clearly dislike. Wow... There's a Berserk Button most people probably didn't expect!
• While his review for Maniac! (1980) is definitely given in sarcasm, it's interesting to note that - throughout the review - he is secretly demonstrating a genuine appreciation for a film that has had little such praise. He's defending its merit against those who gave a film such negative criticism for its violent and sleazy nature when that was the entire point of making it.
• The Shock! Shock! Shock! review ends with a tribute to James Gandolfini.
• Jillian kisses Brad (in-character as the Snob and Mrs. Snob) after they both give an exasperated "Really?" during the Rape Squad review.
• The Snob reviewing Golden Girl, which is considerably less dark and disturbing than his normal fare, and liking it. Brad even breaks character at the end of the review, taking off his glasses and un-slicking his hair, to praise the film and encourage the audience to seek it out.
• During his review of Gross Out, he frequently tries to warn the audience away from the things he's going to show. During certain extended sequences, almost as a reward, he focuses the camera on his cats curling up on his lap while the audio of... certain events plays out over it.
• Brad's review of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is an affectionate tribute to Ebert, who penned the movie. In fact, Brad goes out of character to admit that without Ebert, there wouldn't be a Cinema Snob.
  • Oddly enough, his choice of The Stinger is also heartwarming: part of Ebert's scathing review of Brad's favorite movie, Caligula, which was what caused him to see Caligula in the first place.
  • The music he chooses for the opening credits is the opening theme to Siskel & Ebert.
• From The Conqueror review:
  Temujin: See to the sharing of the booty.
  Snob: John Wayne just said that he wants to "share booty". There are times when I love this job. This... is one of those times.
  • Brad also makes it clear that, despite John Wayne's severe miscasting, he does credit Wayne for at least trying something different and clearly putting his all into his performance.
• Snob's (and most certainly also Brad's) clear discomfort at how Wired seemed to be one long Speak Ill of the Dead with regards of John Belushi (in his words, "Congratulations, you're lecturing a dead person."), including the scenes with Ray Sharkey's character chastising Belushi,^note Sharkey was also a drug addict, and died of AIDS in 1993. while at the same time also praising Michael Chiklis, defending Chiklis for wanting to jump at the chance to play one of the most beloved comedians of the day, despite the book's and movie's controversial nature.
• Brad pointing out that The Babe Ruth Story, while a bad film due to its saccharine tone and Questionable Casting of the titular character, does at least seem to legitimately like Babe Ruth and want to portray him in a positive way (unlike how the aforementioned Wired did with John Belushi).
• In his review to Driller: A Sexual Thriller he manages to review the porn parody of Michael Jackson's Thriller video without doing any poor taste jokes toward Michael Jackson and with that makes the review enjoyable for MJ fans as well. This also counts as an awesome moment.
• The beginning of the Plutonium Baby review, where the Snob finds out that his mother watches his show.
• Him talking about Spoony during his review of Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever and referencing him and his Jack Russell terrier, Oreo. Sure, he's making jokes about Jackie being Oreo, but it's nice to hear him talking about his friend.
• Through his review of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, he kept making jokes about how bitchy the character of Rachel was, but when the topic came up about Rachel's actress getting injured during filming a scene, but didn't go to the hospital till it was done, even he had to give her props, showing that while he may hate the character, he can separate performer from performance... unless it's Kirk Cameron.
• During his review for Ghosts Can't Do It, he has this to say about Bo Derek and her husband:
  Like in the movie, her husband was also a few decades older than her, and if their relationship was anything like the one in this movie... I'm happy they had a very long-lasting and happy marriage. Hey, I don't wanna be too mean here.
• The Snob pausing during the review of A Halloween Puppy to sing the praises of Eric Roberts.
• Snob pointing out that I'm Not Ashamed, a Pure Flix movie about the Columbine Massacre, at least has the decency to instill sympathy in the victims.
  • He also praised the film for showing kids drinking and smoking but not judging them for it and for showing Rachel Scott as being a good person who acted like a Christian unlike other Pure Flix films. He also gives credit to Masey McLain's performance.
  • Presumably out of respect for the real Rachel, he avoids showing her death scene.
• As bad as Glen or Glenda is, Brad never mocks the film's subject material and even commends it for being well-intentioned and progressive for its time regarding gender identity.
• In spite of his hatred for movies like Last Ounce of Courage and Voiceless, Snob/Brad regularly points out how Rusty Joiner is the best actor of both of them, even to the point of saying Joiner is too good for Voiceless, where he has the lead role.
• Snob won't pull any punches when it comes to the movies David A.R. White or Pure Flix (which White is a co-founder of) produces, but it's clear that Snob genuinely enjoys White's acting whenever he shows up.
  Snob: [after seeing White's character in God's Not Dead 2 comically stub his toe on a stool] Hehehe, he's gonna be the best part of this movie isn't he?
  • Sure enough, God's Not Dead: A Light In Darkness arrives with White promoted to protagonist and Snob declares the movie to be miles superior to its two predecessors, citing its more charismatic acting, decrease in its War On Straw, and more focus on the religion it's trying to promote via the main character going through a crisis of faith.
  • While he is more critical of the fourth film for back sliding into the over the top drama of the first two somewhat and saying it feels like a film made out of obligation and to fund more ambitious projects, Brad also gives praise for improvements such as the more sympathetic portrayal of Ayisha's father and acknowledging that the creators, both of these films and Pureflix in general, genuinely made an effort to listen to criticism and for David AR White's performance with Brad calling him "one of the most likable and underrated leading men in movies right now" and says the film still shows an improvement in the franchise compared to the earlier films. He goes even further in saying how, despite all his jokes about the previous films, the people behind them sent him message of support when he was in hospital the previous year and Brad says that while he may disagree with them, he can acknowledge them as good people.
• In the Christian Mingle: The Movie review, when the female lead is angsting over being 30 and not having a long-term relationship, Snob tells her "I'm 35 and divorced. You'll be fine." While this might have been mostly because of how it came across as Wangst, it also seems to be the Snob giving her some Tough Love advice. It gets even more heartwarming in hindsight, as in real life, Brad got remarried less than a year after the episode was made.
• In his review of Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas, he admits that he thinks Larry the Cable Guy’s character and his wife playfully ribbing each other is oddly endearing.
• Despite the heavy lampooning he gave to the character David Schwimmer played in Kissing A Fool, Snob/Brad is still absolutely complementary about Schwimmer's acting skills, from Friends' more dramatic scenes to The People v. O. J. Simpson.
• While reviewing his own movie, Snob angrily praises Spoony as Gene, accusing him of stealing scenes from his film. At one point, though, Snob expresses how much he wishes Spoony would come back to reprise his role for the sequel.
• While the Snob still throws plenty of snark towards Brad Stine's way in the Persecuted review, he does admit that Stine overall gave a much better performance than he did in Christmas with a Capital C.
• The Snob acknowledging that however silly Mobsters and Mormons is, it's still the rare religious film he's reviewed where the religious characters are genuinely kind to others, and there's legitimate Character Development without going into Character Derailment or Easy Evangelism, with the Pasquales even shown practicing their Catholic beliefs at the end of the movie. He contrasts this to the various Pure Flix Entertainment movies he's reviewed in which the non-Evangelical antagonists tend to suffer... rather bad fates.
• Similar to his "there are times when I love this job" scene in the review of The Conqueror, Snob has another rare moment of openly enjoying himself in the review of Rock Around the Clock, mostly due to the huge amount of hilarious '50s slang:
  Character in the movie: Descending, daddy-o, coming in on the cloud.
  Snob: [as he, or rather Brad, is corpsing] This is already my favorite Musical March (In September) yet.
• The Snob's appreciation for Arch Hall Jr. and his musical abilities in the Wild Guitar review, shown when he's ready to hurl vitriol at "Yes I Will" only to relent and, during "I'm Growing Taller," dance happily to it. By the end of the movie, he straight up admits that he loves the movie.
• The 1941 (1979) episode where the Snob forgoes any riffing in favor of praising all the art, comedy and love put into the movie. With all the lines from the Snob, you can see that Brad REALLY loves this movie. He specifically notes being proud to have written and recorded the episode on what would have been John Belushi's 70th birthday.
  • Hell, him gushing over movies he loves in general, like The Hollywood Knights, That Darn Cat!, Night of the Creeps, Carrie (1976), James Bond, Phantom of the Paradise, Little Shop of Horrors, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, The Witches (1990) or Cannibal! The Musical.
  • The 1980 and 1981 extended-length episodes have a lot of this too, to the point that the arguable climax of "1981 in Film" is his rooting for Heartbeeps (which was a Christmas release).
  • He reviewed Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie for its twenty-fifth anniversary. It's essentially him gushing about MST3K and how much he and others like him owe the show.
• While Brad's review of Gotti describes it as a pretty bad movie overall because the poor editing turns it into a confusing Random Events Plot that doesn't really provide insight into John Gotti, he expresses this very sympathetically, feeling that the movie has a lot of ambition behind it, a decent soundtrack (though many of the songs are poorly included in the movie) and a cast that puts genuine effort into their performances, especially John Travolta; so much so that he finds the movie's badness more sad than amusing.
• Dave's cameo in the Tyler Perry's A Fall from Grace is one for fans of Midnight Screenings who were worried about not seeing the familiar faces following Brad's move to Chicago.
• The Snob's review of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is entirely kind to the film and plays along (inadequately) with the audience participation, despite it possibly seeming more likely for the Snob to poke fun at the popularity of the film. The most he does is call out the audience nicknames given to Brad and Janet. At the end, he gives the film a pretty glowing review, and also takes another moment to advocate for Shock Treatment as well, maybe even giving it higher praise than he did in its own positive review.
• His review of Repo! The Genetic Opera is similar. Brad mentioned that when he first watched the movie, he turned it off midway through. Years later, he gave it another go and is way more complimentary, acknowledging its appeal and that it's exactly the kind of film designed to have a cult following. He even defends Paris Hilton of all people, pointing out that she'd actually gave some of her own clothes and funding to make sure the movie could get made.
  • On a similar note, he's been quite vocal about his dislike for Scream (1996) in the past, blaming it for the decline in slasher films in the late nineties. The Snob episode shows that he's warmed up to it over time.
• He opens up the Goldfinger review with a moving tribute to Sean Connery, who passed away a few weeks back.
• During his review of Exterminator 2, while introducing the villain named X, he pays tribute to his friend and "excellent riffer" Mister X. He re-tweeted this moment with "Aw, shucks".
• His review of The Street Fighter trilogy is nothing but praise for the late Shinichi Chiba, acknowledging how badass he was. The same can be said for his review of Clifford, dedicated to the late co-star Charles Grodin and praising his darkly hilariously unhinged performance in the film, along with other love for his other works.

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