Reminiscence indulges in the well-established cinematic tradition of playing with our perception of time. The French pioneer Georges Méliès did it successfully at the turn of the twentieth century, and Christopher Nolan is doing it in our time. Continue Reading Read More
Trained assassins. Sins of the past and present. Double crosses. Exotic locales. Breezy banter. Name actors. Gaping plot holes. The Protégé has it all for you. Continue Reading Reeder’s Movie Reviews: The ProtégéRead More
By curious coincidence, two of the lovelier movies I've seen so far this summer — the family-friendly animated fable Luca and the German art-house fairy tale Undine — tell stories about mythic sea creatures making contact with the human world. That's hardly a new concept, as we've seen in films as different as The Shape of Water, Aquaman and countless versions of The Read More
There have been many fine films over the past several years about characters struggling with the onset of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, like Away From Her, Still Alice and the recent Colin Firth/Stanley Tucci drama Supernova. But few of them have gone as deeply and unnervingly into the recesses of a deteriorating mind as The Father, a powerful new chamber drama built Read More
Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, now 90, has a gift for making riveting cinema from the minutiae of the everyday. His latest is a four-and-a-half hour documentary starring Boston City Hall, pre-COVID-19. Continue Reading FILM Read More
Though Anne Hathaway throws herself into the role of the Grand High Witch with obvious relish, she often seems to be straining for effect — which leaves The Witches feeling flat. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
Ethan Hawke plays the famed Serbian American inventor in a new film that reminds us what a modern creature Tesla was — a figure from the past who never stopped pointing the way to the future. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Wild Read More
Rosamund Pike stars in Radioactive, a biography of the pioneering scientist, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to claim it in two different scientific disciplines (physics and chemistry). The director, Marjane Satrapi, the Oscar-nominated Iranian-French graphic novelist and filmmaker (Persepolis), tells the story in an ambitious but uneven fashion. Read More
First the town disappears from Google Maps. Then a UFO appears — and a water truck is riddled with bullet holes. Bacurau is a community portrait, a horror thriller and a work of political filmmaking. Continue Read More
Autumn de Wilde's adaptation of the Jane Austen classic is as clever and rich as its famous heroine — in part, because its actors are so good at finding fresh nuances in this timeless material. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: New Read More
Writer-director Bertrand Bonello uses the tale of a Haitian zombie to explore intergenerational racial trauma in this quiet, moody film. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: In ‘Zombi Child,’ The Real Horror Is ColonialismRead More
This adaptation of attorney Bryan Stevenson's book about a wrongly condemned black man dramatizes that case while offering an unflinching look at the death penalty. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: ‘Just Read More
Gerwig gives us the warm, homespun pleasures of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel, but she also holds the well-worn text up to the light to consider some of its flaws and compromises. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
Minhal Baig's new film about a Pakistani American teen captures what it's like to feel paralyzed, with one foot in adulthood and the other in childhood. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: A First-Generation Teen Tests The Read More
Life doesn't go according to plan for the family at the center of this wrenching drama. But while Waves doesn't peddle easy redemption, it does offer what feels like a state of grace. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
The new Netflix movie starring Aaron Paul as a desperate Jesse, on the run immediately after the events of the Breaking Bad finale, explores the trauma that his association with Walter White created. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
If you thought the end of the series Downton Abbey would be the end of the Crawley family's adventures, a new film has arrived to prove you wrong. Continue Reading Pop Culture Happy Hour: ‘Downton Abbey’ Returns For An Read More
Justin Chon's third feature, about a karaoke hostess forced to deal with her estranged brother while her father is dying, possesses an "emotional impact [that] is loudest in its quiet moments." Continue Reading FILM Read More
Two sisters (co-writers Hannah Pearl Utt and Jen Tullock) learn that their dead mother (Judith Light) is alive — and starring in a soap opera — in this "wise, witty and richly specific" film. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
A young Russian-American (Chris Galust) drives a beat-up medical transport van full of demanding, quirky passengers through Milwaukee's backstreets in this funny, authentic film. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
Disney's Lion King is so realistic-looking that, paradoxically, you can't believe a moment of it. The computer-generated blockbuster feels like the world's most expensive safari-themed karaoke video. Continue Reading FILM Read More
Richard Billingham documented his parents' neglect and abuse in previous documentary projects. His first narrative film captures their brutality even as it affords them some measure of dignity. Continue Reading FILM Read More
The breezy rom-com is set in a world where only one man remembers the fab four. The film so takes our affection for The Beatles for granted that it never bothers to give the music a proper showcase. Continue Reading FILM Read More
Though it's as dazzling as you'd expect from a Pixar animation, Toy Story 4 is also more ungainly than its predecessors, with coarser humor and audacious plot leaps that don't always pay off. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: To Read More
A new film is inspired by the real-life story of Jimmie Fails, who hopes to reclaim his family's home in the gentrifying Fillmore District. It's also an ode to the city its creators used to know. Continue Reading ‘The Last Black Read More
Director Olivia Wilde and leads Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever do wonderful work in a film about two high-school best friends who have one night to reverse course. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: ‘Booksmart’ Is A Wise And Warm Summer Read More
Though some elements generate fresh sparks, the remake "mostly has the beat-for-beat quality of the live-action Beauty and the Beast, the current standard-bearer for pointlessness." Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: ‘Aladdin’ Is A CGI Read More
Amy Poehler directs and stars in this Netflix film that, while light on laughs and conflict, delivers a "cozy reunion happy hour and an ode to female friendships." Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: ‘Wine Country’ Is An Ode To Read More
Though less thematically precise than Get Out, Jordan Peele's latest film doubles down on horror — and excels at capturing the mundane, funny moments between the big scares. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: When You Meet The Enemy, And It Is Read More
Newly restored footage of the historic 1969 moonshot widens the focus to include the hundreds of men and women who made the mission possible. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Documentary ‘Apollo 11’ Retells Read More
First-time writer-director Robert D. Krzykowski's odd, flashback-besotted film is a love letter to its leading man, who plays a World War II veteran struggling to remember his past. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Sam Elliott Is Read More
Peter Jackson's documentary, featuring expertly restored archival footage from the first World War, is "astonishing"; his "digital tools summon empathy, not spectacle." Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: World War I Brought To Read More
From writer and director Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men), 'Roma' is based on Cuaron’s childhood experiences and transports audiences back in time to a Mexico City in the 1970s. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda lead a great cast in a sequel that finds Mary Poppins helping the Banks family deal with a whole new set of woes. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ Is A Fine And Fresh Read More
The debt John McPhail's tuneful horror comedy owes to Shaun of the Dead proves too deep to clamber out of, but the songs are fun and Ella Hunt's feisty lead performance is charming. Continue Reading FILM Read More
Director David Mackenzie keeps the scale too small and the stakes too low in this retelling of the rebellion of Scotland's Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine). Continue Reading FILM REVIEW ‘Outlaw King’ Is Read More
Julian Schnabel's "bold, blissful and deeply sad" film about Vincent Van Gogh's final days is as textured as the artist's canvases; Willem Dafoe delivers "one of the finest performances of the year." Continue Reading FILM Read More
Joel and Ethan Coen have an erratic body of work but a remarkably consistent worldview. So it's no surprise that their six-part Western anthology, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, feels like both an entirely coherent vision and something of a mixed bag. Read More
A fearless performance from Rami Malek and rock-solid rock anthems can't lift this listless musical biopic out of the sea of clichés in which it treads water. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Is No Bed Of Roses, Read More
Ike Barinholtz writes, directs and produces this timely comedy about a family whose deep political divide widens even further over Thanksgiving dinner. Sloppy at times, but its satiric aim is true. Continue Reading FILM Read More
Filmmaker Robert Greene combines documentary and theatrical performance to tell the tale of a deadly mass deportation of copper miners in 1917. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Compelling Documentary Evokes Brutal Past Of Read More
The best-selling novel about Southeast Asia's super wealthy is now a movie. Jon Chu is the director. The movie's themes of identity, class and family are universal. Continue Reading ‘Crazy Rich Asians’: Love, Loyalty And Lots Of MoneyRead More
Let’s face it. Paul Rudd has an ageless, amiable persona which translates perfectly to the big screen. It served him and the story really well in the first Ant-Man movie (2015). He’s now back as ex-thief Scott Lang, joined by Evangeline Lilly (Hope Van Dyne/Wasp), Michael Douglas (Dr. Hank Pym), and Laurence Fishburne (Dr. Bill Foster). However, there’s a fundamental Read More
Day of the Soldado reunites CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and the “hitman” of the title, Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro). With the initial blessing of the Secretary of Defense (Matthew Modine) and the supervision of a CIA handler (Catherine Keener), Graver and Gillick engineer a false-flag kidnapping to turn two Mexican cartels against each other. Read More
In this derivative but fitfully inventive fifth installment of the Jurassic franchise, our heroes try to rescue Isla Nublar's dinosaurs from extinction-by-lava, only to get their ash handed to them. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Read More
It’s tough being a mom, even though it’s “such a blessing” to bring another life into the world. The central character in the new comedy-drama 'Tully' knows it all too well. Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: Motherhood Isn‘t Perfect, Just Real, In Read More
The story of A Quiet Place spans approximately thirteen months, in the year 2020. Posters and aging newspaper clippings quickly reveal humankind has been ravaged by a merciless alien force. A family of five tip-toe into the nearest town to take supplies from the shelves of ransacked stores. Read More