Movie Reviews
The 20th Century Fox fanfare (with CinemaScope addendum) that opened War for the Planet of the Apes was performed on jungle drums and didgeridoo. Sometimes a film earns points even before the opening credits hit …
“No Aunt May, no Spider-Man,” says my brother, and I know what he means. Without that frail and innocent soul that quietly cries out for protection and sacrifice on its behalf, Spider-Man loses a chunk …
I’m of the opinion that “B movie” stopped having much useful meaning some time ago, certainly by the time the Transformers series became the box-office juggernaut that it is today — or was, until its …
47 Meters Down has girls and sharks, All Eyez on Me has rappers and racist cops, Beatriz at Dinner has a high-tension, high-end dinner party, The Book of Henry has boys and brutality and bullets, …
I’m not alone in my observation that Beatriz at Dinner will make the history books as the first narrative feature released since Trump took office that takes direct aim at the billionaire-game-show-host-turned-POTUS. It also has …
Sometimes the first impression of an artist whose work one will later grow fond of drops anchor in the unlikeliest of places. Such was the case of Miguel Arteta, whose latest, Beatriz at Dinner, opens …
Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan all get turns in the cinematic spotlight this week in a monster movie, the story of a dog and his girl, an expat drama, and a war doc, respectively. Some …
According to the TV spot, Elle and People magazines are going slug-nutty over Megan Leavey, proclaiming the fact-based girl-and-her-dog war drama both “inspiring” and “heartfelt.” Do I heed the advice of these venerated strongholds of …
It’s not that Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves, not entirely, anyway. (That would be, like, crazy. The kind of Brave New World you’d see laid out in a blistering manifesto.) Dudes still have a …
Gnarly: difficult, dangerous, or challenging. The challenge of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales? To make poor old Johnny Depp appealing again. Annnnd...nope. The difficulty of Baywatch: to make a successful R-rated …
Not unlike an actual Grateful Dead concert, Amir Bar-Lev’s candid Dead doc Long Strange Trip plays one night only — Thursday, May 25 — and runs just slightly over four hours. My initial interest in …
I’m probably more fascinated by H.R. Giger and his xenomorph than is entirely healthy, so it took me a little while to get over the fact that the aliens aren’t really the star, or even …
Obit, Vanessa Gould’s documentary look at the obituary department of the New York Times in action, is as deceptive in tone as it is perceptive in vision. A strange air of calm rumination pervades the …
In case my review of the (don’t call it quirky, don’t call it quirky) quirky psycho-thriller Buster’s Mal Heart didn’t fully convey it, I want to further express my delight at the film’s portrayal of …
“You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you …
Terence Davies’s slow and sumptuous A Quiet Passion turns the famously reclusive poet Emily Dickinson (played mostly and hauntedly by Cynthia Nixon) into an unenthusiastic but unshakable martyr for her sex. It’s not that she …