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Macabre and melancholy but suffused with a delicious absurdism that somehow doesn’t clog the arteries of its hopeful little heart, Pablo Larraín’s sprawling, peculiar, terrific “My Sad Dead” is about 20 things at once in every moment. It’s a ghost story, obviously, on account of all the ghosts. It’s a droll tragicomedy, with eccentrically deadpan […]
Since hitting an artistic peak with the back-to-back festival triumphs “Head-On” and “Edge of Heaven” in the mid-2000s, German-Turkish auteur Fatih Akin has darted all over the map in genre, style and form — occasionally striking commercially, as with the Diane Kruger thriller “In the Fade” and the local hip-hop biopic “Rhinegold,” without ever matching […]
The first thing to know about “Charlie Harper” is that it’s not, in fact, about someone called Charlie Harper. Charlie (Nick Robinson) and Harper (Emilia Jones) are a couple, meeting and parting at various stages across a five-year timeline; the title of this earnestly melancholy first feature by directing duo Mac Eldridge and Tom Dean […]
If you’re a Taylor Swift fan, one of your deepest fears this year might have been that the pop superstar will be so wrapped up in a long, rapturous honeymoon that she’ll neglect to bring us down by continuing to write about the bums that got away, or any lingering regrets that were accumulated on […]
The Unabomber may be a figure of enduring public fascination, but it’s hard to see that extending to “Unabomber,” Netflix’s unimaginatively titled and prosaically assembled drama about how domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski was radicalized, and how he was caught. Alternating between a standard-issue procedural thriller, dramatizing the FBI’s final year of investigation on the case, […]
In Hollywood, parallel thought is a funny thing. As in every other sphere, two or more people can have a similar idea at the same time, but when those ideas bloom into movies, their release can feel like a land rush. Which is more firmly cemented in moviegoers’ memories, “Dante’s Peak” or “Volcano”? “Lambada” or […]
It’s at the tail of its closing credit scroll that “Ancestors” drops its final, plainly worded message, also setting its title in context: “No survivors, only descendants.” As the sign-off for this heartbroken drama of connections made and lost as AIDS ravaged London’s queer community in the late 1980s, it’s a lyrical rejoinder to anyone […]
Thirty-nine years after the beloved NBC series premiered, Netflix is reopening the gates of the fictional, historically Black Hillman College with “A Different World.” Created by Felicia Pride and executive produced by Debbie Allen (who helmed the first version of the sitcom), the bold and brilliant reboot follows Deborah Wayne (an outstanding Maleah Joi Moon), […]
The hotel and also the waiters live more and more subject to what the online reviews say. Is that fair?
When an “Amadeus” revival opened at Pasadena Playhouse in February, it was such a spectacular success on every level that you wouldn’t have minded if the keepers of the venerable San Gabriel Valley venue just turned over the keys to the place for a while to the two Tony winners most responsible for making it […]
Nobody sings in the latest adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1462-page cinder-block classic, but the absence of rousing musical numbers does not mean that Fred Cavayé’s “Les Misérables” is going for gritty realism. The 179-minute film, enjoying a reported $37m budget and a host of Big French Stars trapped in starchily archetypal Big French Roles, spackles […]
For those of us who only ever think about reindeer when December draws in, and even then in a fairly abstract sense, “Brace Your Heart” arrives as a flinty reality check. Following the life and trials of a young female reindeer herder in the present day, it’s stripped of any fairytale essence, and doesn’t stint […]
“You have all the hallmarks of a world-class politician,” campaign manager Gwen (Lisa Gilroy) tells her client Matthew McConaughey (Matthew McConaughey). “However, your Achilles’ heel is that you’ve been a celebrity for so long that your brain has turned into a big old sloppy pile of goo.” The literal premise of the Apple TV comedy […]
In reviewing “Wonka’s Golden Ticket,” a competition series from Netflix loosely (and I mean loosely) based on Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” it’s tempting to simply copy and paste my write-up of “Squid Game: The Challenge” from nearly three years ago. After all, the shows share similarly misguided concepts. In trying to kickstart […]
Long before the relevant authorities do, you’ll figure out the secret that immigrant homemaker Hermine Ryan (née Braunsteiner) holds close to her chest in “The Housewife” — a giveaway that may be the fault of some heavy-handed direction and scripting, but speaks to the detail and integrity of Naomi Watts’ lead performance, which often seems […]
Despite the generic title, “Voices” is quite the novelty. Mixing the rarely combined genres of chamber thriller and musical, the film takes place almost entirely in one location — a Detroit motel room in 1967 — and focuses on just three characters. The actors start singing at the most tense moments, puncturing the perception that, […]
Ayer and Pitt (both producers on the film) have teamed up to make something that isn’t so far removed, in form and spirit, from an old-school Disney movie. But the real surprise of "Heart of the Beast" is how well-made it is. Ayer draws on his logistical talent, and even his taste for violence, to craft a tale of survival that makes us feel the pain, the fear and the hardship, the stakes of what it takes to battle nature.
It’s been over 30 years since Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility” became (for this critic, as for many) the Platonic ideal of the Jane Austen adaptation. Lush but controlled, dryly funny (thanks to Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning script) in that chatty, cheeky, keenly perceptive Austen way, Lee’s classic also boasted a formidable cast to unleash a […]
For decades, law-enforcement procedurals have been staples on television, and when they are done well, these series build loyal fanbases that stick with them for years. NBC’s newest drama, “Line of Fire” is from “Quantico” creator Joshua Safran and loosely based on executive producer Jenna Bush Hager’s experiences with the United States Secret Service. The […]
Expanding on his 2021 short film, Theja Rio’s debut feature “Angh” forces its way into the hidden crevices between indigenous identity and colonial modernity. This tension unfolds with riveting restraint in a story set in 1960s Nagaland — the eastern Indian state on the Burmese border — following the principled chief of a waning tribe, […]
