Review: “House of Gucci”

Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. In adapting Sara Gay Forden’s book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed for the big screen, director Ridley Scott (who has been circling this project since the early 2000s) and writers Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna only scratch the surface of the […]

Review: “The Last Duel”

The myth of noble knights, regal ladies, and majestic, sprawling kingdoms is one that is often romanticized, both in fantasy and in stories based in reality. So far this year, we’ve already had one film, David Lowery’s “The Green Knight”— an adaptation of an Arthurian legend— challenge the notion of the courageous knight on a […]

Review: “Annette”

Toward the end of Noah Baumbach’s 2019 film “Marriage Story,” Charlie, played by Adam Driver, breaks into an emotional rendition of Sondheim’s “Being Alive” from the musical “Company” while at a restaurant with friends, facing the dissolution of his marriage. It’s a beautiful scene—my favorite in the entire film, actually—and one that made me immediately […]

Review: “Star Wars Episode XI: The Rise of Skywalker”

3 out of 5 stars. How does one even begin to end the greatest cinematic franchise of all time, one that has been going for 42 years strong? It’s a herculean task, but it’s one that with “Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker,” director and co-writer J.J. Abrams approaches more with the intent […]

Review: “Marriage Story”

4.5 out of 5 stars. Contrary to its title, writer and director Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” drops the viewer into the story of a marriage that it at its end. But even though we don’t see the couple at the heart of the story falling in love, we get a complete sense of what their […]

Review: “The Report”

3.5 out of 5 stars. “The Report” is the rare movie based on a true stories that doesn’t focus on bending facts to fit a more entertaining narrative; in fact, it frequently does just the opposite. Written and directed by Scott Z. Burns, the film tells the story of an investigation led by Senate staffer […]

Review: “The Dead Don’t Die”

3 out of 5 stars. From the get-go, police officer Ronnie Peterson (played by Adam Driver), tells his colleagues—and the audience—that this story is going to end badly. The journey to that ending, however, is a light-hearted romp through the zombie apocalypse, told with writer and director Jim Jarmusch’s signature brand of deadpan humor, with […]

“BlackkKlansman”

4.5 out of 5 stars. Spike Lee’s new joint, “BlackkKlansman,” opens with a scene from the fictional 1939 film “Gone with the Wind,” and closes with very real video clips from the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. While the story the film has to tell surrounds Ron Stallworth, a black Colorado Springs […]