‘City of Gold’ Review: Jonathan Gold Doc is a Spoonful of Sugar
Like the street tacos its subject so enthusiastically devours, the new documentary portrait of food critic Jonathan Gold aims only to please. The beloved LA Times writer makes for congenial company in...
View Article‘Wish Upon’ Review: Entitled Millennial Meets Demon, Generates Few Scares
One of the tenets of the canonical teen series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is that there’s no such thing as getting something for nothing. That doctrine applied most to magic: Each time a character cast...
View Article‘Person to Person’ Review: Indie Drama Flails to Little Avail
In “Person to Person,” Abbi Jacobson of “Broad City” plays a young woman named Claire too timid to stand up to her cat. Despite her mousy personality, Claire tries her hand at becoming a tabloid...
View Article‘Columbus’ Review: Low-Key Character Study Skimps on the Details
Surges of emotion roil under placid surfaces in the new drama “Columbus” — at least in theory. Seoul-based translator Jin (John Cho) finds himself stranded in the Indiana town where his estranged...
View Article‘Pilgrimage’ Review: Tom Holland Goes to the Crusades
The annals of Christianity — or if you prefer, of religious persecution — are full of horrifyingly inventive ways to maim and murder. The Irish medieval action-drama “Pilgrimage” denounces such...
View Article‘Gook’ Review: Indie Drama Offers Korean American POV of LA Riots
There’s something wondrous about being in a car wash. For a few stolen moments, real life dissolves into a cool, dark shadow world where splashes and bubbles rain down just inches away from your face...
View Article‘Death Note’ Review: Remake of Japanese Hit Loses Everything in Translation
I’ll have to trust the breadth and popularity of the 14-year-old “Death Note” franchise in Japan — which encompasses more than 100 issues of manga, two TV series, four live-action movies, several video...
View Article‘Viceroy’s House’ Review: Whites Are Burdened, Indians Contrived in Colonial...
The very premise of “Viceroy’s House” invites cynicism. Set during the 1947 Partition of India, in which the reluctantly departing British colonial rulers cleaved the subcontinent into India and...
View Article‘Strong Island’ Review: Poignant Netflix Doc Covers Race, Crime and a...
In “Strong Island,” first-time documentarian Yance Ford invites the viewer into his mother’s kitchen to revisit the brief life and sudden death of his older brother, William, at age 24. The surviving...
View Article‘Battle of the Sexes’ Review: Emma Stone and Steve Carell Recreate a Cultural...
Look anywhere around you, and it’s obvious: Sexism sells. In 1973, tennis hall of famer Bobby Riggs exploited that fact to goad Billie Jean King into competing in a match he billed “The Battle of the...
View Article‘The Tiger Hunter’ Review: Danny Pudi’s Got Big Dreams as a 1979 Immigrant
In the most piercing scene of “The Tiger Hunter,” a half-dozen Indian immigrants who share a Chicago apartment explain how each makes a living. Like protagonist Sami (Danny Pudi, “Community”), nearly...
View Article‘Lucky’ Review: Harry Dean Stanton Carries His Final Film
Opening exactly two weeks after its star Harry Dean Stanton’s death, “Lucky” arrives as an accidental eulogy for the beloved character actor. Stanton’s final role salutes him as the very picture of...
View Article‘Una’ Review: Rooney Mara Confronts Her Childhood Predator, But It’s Complicated
Here’s an undeniable fact about the movies: Every last one of them is watched in a specific time and place. A couple of weeks ago, I saw the Billie Jean King biopic “Battle of the Sexes” as Donald...
View Article‘Professor Marston and the Wonder Women’ Review: Diana’s Sexy Roots Are...
Wonder Woman, it seems, has always been a symbol of progress. She was created by William Moulton Marston, a forward-thinking psychology professor, to help usher in a new era of female empowerment....
View Article‘The Square’ Review: Comedic Moral Fable Shocks, Then Repeats Itself
“The Square” lands its bullseyes, over and over, with a faultless precision that grows duller with each strike. Its targets are twofold: moral hypocrisy, especially among the moneyed and well-meaning,...
View Article‘My Friend Dahmer’ Review: Portrait of a Future Serial Killer Never Comes...
Sometimes you spend an entire film wondering why it exists. Any feature, as anybody reading this likely knows, is a massive undertaking that requires months or years of intense, sustained effort. Even...
View Article‘Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story’ Film Review: She Was a Glamour Girl and a...
Hedy Lamarr’s early life was the stuff of movies: As a teenage starlet, she became the face of “Ecstasy,” one of the most controversial films of its day. By 18, she was the Jewish trophy wife of a...
View ArticleAll 7 Alexander Payne Movies Ranked From Worst to Best (Photos)
In the two decades since “Citizen Ruth,” director Alexander Payne has lampooned both sides of the abortion fight, male entitlement, Type-A priggishness, Midwestern pithiness, sex-obsessed grandmas, and...
View Article‘Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool’ Film Review: Annette Bening’s Performance...
The life stories of movie stars tend to follow the same arc: struggle, success, obscurity. Even the embellishments don’t vary much: addiction, plastic surgery, financial downgrades, messy personal...
View Article‘Molly’s Game’ Film Review: Jessica Chastain’s Poker Face Folds to an...
Here’s a recommendation I never thought I’d issue as a film critic: Consider watching just the first half of the overachievement-gone-awry biopic “Molly’s Game.” The initial hour of Aaron Sorkin’s...
View Article‘Proud Mary’ Film Review: Taraji P. Henson Shoulda Kept Her Good Job in the City
The action-drama “Proud Mary” exists mostly for its climactic fight sequence, in which Taraji P. Henson’s avenging assassin shoots a bunch of bad guys and occasionally crushes them with her Maserati...
View Article’12 Strong’ Film Review: Chris Hemsworth Leads the Charge in a Powerful...
Now in its 17th year, the war in Afghanistan is the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. The new military drama “12 Strong,” whose primary visual draw is U.S. troops on horseback shooting at the...
View Article‘La Boda de Valentina’ Film Review: Mexican Rom-Com Political Satire Nearly...
You can blame Trump, at least in part, for the fact that “La Boda de Valentina” (“Valentina’s Wedding”) is a better political satire than it is a romantic comedy. Set mostly in Mexico City, this...
View Article‘Samson’ Movie Review: Old Testament Tale Collapses Like a Philistine Temple
If you take the Old Testament literally, strongman Samson has a body count of at least 4040 men (and one lion) to his name. His biography — full of sex, lies, and disastrous haircuts — is a grisly one....
View ArticleAll 7 Aardman Animations Features Ranked, From ‘Wallace & Gromit’ to ‘Chicken...
In the same way that we look to France for fashion and Japan for electronics, we look to England for coziness. That’s at least in part due to Bristol-based Aardman Animations, the 46-year-old studio...
View Article‘Oh Lucy!’ Film Review: Japanese Woman’s Coming-of-Middle-Age Makes...
There’s plenty to mourn about the plunge in middlebrow, mid-budget features, but the decline of the midlife-crisis movie isn’t one of them. Arguably no other genre is as schmaltzy, banal, out-of-touch,...
View Article‘Thoroughbreds’ Film Review: Preppie Girls Go Homicidal in Taut, Toxic Comedy
Anya Taylor-Joy’s compellingly incongruent face is the best effect in the new thriller “Thoroughbreds.” Best known for playing the Puritan teen accused of practicing dark magic in the 2015 arthouse...
View Article‘Paul, Apostle of Christ’ Film Review: Passive Piety Stifles Biblical Drama
It’s difficult to make compelling cinema out of saintliness. That’s why so many Biblical biopics from the contemporary Christian-movie industry land with a thunk. Faith-based films are often literal...
View Article‘First Match’ Film Review: Netflix’s Female-Wrestler Drama Needs Breathing Room
The premise of “First Match,” lamentably, is an all-too-believable one. Fifteen-year-old Monique (Elvire Emanuelle), a foster kid in ungentrified Brooklyn, makes impulsive mistake after impulsive...
View Article‘Chappaquiddick’ Film Review: Ted Kennedy Scandal Makes for Searing Drama
From “Veep” to “Scandal,” “Wag the Dog” to “Our Brand is Crisis,” Hollywood has no shortage of cautionary tales about media manipulation by politicians. It’s tempting to see the plague of fake news and...
View Article‘Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero’ Film Review: Dog Loves His Doughboys in...
During his decade or so on earth, Stubby the terrier accomplished far more than some people (including me) will achieve in their human-length lifetimes. A Connecticut stray that became the most...
View Article‘I Feel Pretty’ Film Review: Amy Schumer Teaches a Despicable Lesson in...
“I Feel Pretty” makes a lot of sense on paper. After becoming America’s foremost chronicler of female self-esteem issues through her Emmy- and Peabody-winning Comedy Central sketch series, Amy Schumer...
View Article‘Disobedience’ Film Review: Two Rachels Don’t Make a Right in Unfocused Drama
A clumsily assembled film can remind us that every narrative feature is like a Jenga tower, with each block building on the foundational ones under it and faulty, minor-seeming pieces poised to upset a...
View Article‘Breaking In’ Film Review: Gabrielle Union Battles Burglars and Script...
After Wonder Woman, the most famous super-powered woman in America is the mythical mother who can lift a car to save her child. I’ve always wondered where’s the movie about her, that remarkable...
View Article‘Terminal’ Film Review: Margot Robbie’s Silkiness Wasted in Polyester Movie
The vision board for “Terminal” must have been incredible. It’s certainly easy to picture: the cold geometry of Stanley Kubrick married to the sleazy neons of Nicolas Winding Refn, a pair of smirking...
View Article‘Book Club’ Film Review: Women-of-a-Certain-Age Sex Comedy Has Poignancy...
It’s a credit to TV’s greater curiosity and openmindedness that when I beheld the four stars of “Book Club” — actresses ranging in age from 65 to 80 — my thoughts turned to how recently I’d seen them...
View Article‘The Misandrists’ Film Review: Bruce LaBruce Sends Up Feminist Ideology in...
Tell me if you’ve heard these before. How does a radical feminist end each prayer? A-wo-men. What does a radical feminist need to put together her Ikea furniture? A wo-manual. What’s the most humorless...
View Article‘Superfly’ Film Review: Remake Updates Blaxploitation Genre With Wit and...
It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you’re constantly surrounded by armed stupidity. That’s the wise revelation that launches “SuperFly,” the new remake of the 1972 blaxploitation classic starring...
View Article‘Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town’ Film Review: Mackenzie Davis Wanders...
There’s a very good probability that the story of how first-time writer-director Christian Papierniak finagled the (rather impressive) cast for his feature debut is vastly more interesting than the...
View Article‘RBG’ Film Review: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life Makes for a Snappy But...
Thanks to the unpredictable whims of the internet, there’s no telling where the next pop-cultural obsession will come from. In recent years, medieval portraiture, a tragic trip to the zoo (RIP...
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