movie review

Luca Guadagnino makes impeccable movies. No matter what their relative merits, every aspect of his work reveals conscious, detailed choices. No matter how complex the emotions of his characters, his direction exhibits a distinct vision.

This Disney project has been fifteen years in the making, renewing a franchise spawned in the 1980s.

A performance by the immensely talented Sir Daniel Day-Lewis is always an event. After eight years of retirement from acting, he has returned in a movie which ultimately frustrates more than it satisfies.

Dialogue. Empathy. Cooperation. Those concepts may seem foreign to the age-old conflict between conservationists and ranchers, but a thoughtful new documentary brings them entirely into focus.

In his capacity as screenwriter and bona fide “auteur,” Paul Thomas Anderson has adapted Thomas Pynchon’s novel to suit this new century in America.

One of the most influential science fiction horror films of all time, Alien had its world premiere on May 25, 1979 as the opening night feature of the…

Biopics are notoriously fraught with difficulty. They have to achieve an emotional and intellectual resonance, as well as a period look and feel. The script has to reflect and enhance the inherent drama in the lives of its characters, and the main one really has to matter. In Oppenheimer, the British-American writer-director Christopher Nolan embraces the challenge of telling the story of the “most important person who ever lived,” as he puts it.

Biopics are notoriously fraught with difficulty. They have to achieve an emotional and intellectual resonance, as well as a period look and feel. The script has to reflect and enhance the inherent drama in the lives of its characters, and the main one really has to matter. In Oppenheimer, the British-American writer-director Christopher Nolan embraces the challenge of telling the story of the “most important person who ever lived,” as he puts it.

You might not have imagined a connection between the new Barbie and the acclaimed 2001: A Space Odyssey. True enough, Barbie the toy character does have pilot and astronaut on her résumé. In this case, however, she makes her big screen appearance to the accompaniment of Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, enhanced by the droll narration of Dame Helen Mirren. 2001’s director, Stanley Kubrick, would not have seen that coming.

When Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) laments to Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) that “you’re playing four-sided chess with an algorithm,” his character couldn’t possibly have appreciated the irony of his words. The seventh and latest installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise has burst onto theatrical screens just as the actor-members of SAG-AFTRA have gone on strike. The existential threat to their craft–and their jobs–posed by AI has emerged as one of the major issues in the negotiations between the union and the major film production and streaming companies.