Review: “Missing”

In 2018, Aneesh Chaganty presented a unique twist on an otherwise run-of-the-mill thriller with his directorial debut, “Searching.” A father’s (played by John Cho) desperate quest to find his missing daughter is depicted entirely through his computer screen: video calls, text messages, web searches, and phone calls. I remember enjoying “Searching” quite a bit when […]

Review: “Alice, Darling”

It’s all in the details. Tugging out her hair. Leaping to answer her phone every time it dings. The constant calorie-counting. Always needing to have her hair and make-up done just right. When we first meet Alice (Anna Kendrick), she’s meeting her two best friends Sophie (Wunmi Mosaku) and Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) for dinner, but […]

Review: “The Old Way”

There’s a moment in the climax of director Brett Donowho’s “The Old Way” where baddie James McCallister (Noah Le Gros) and gunslinger Colton Briggs (Nicolas Cage) finally confront each other face-to-face after having spent the entire movie on each other’s heels. McCallister tells Briggs that they’re going to resolve this conflict “the old way”—i.e., with […]

Review: “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody”

Whitney Houston was the greatest voice of her generation, though you might not know it from the biopic “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” the very title of which feels the need to explain a subject who needs no introduction. Her vocal prowess is never in question, but the film treads so lightly over […]

Review: “Babylon”

“White elephants—the God of Hollywood wanted white elephants, and white elephants he got—eight of ‘em, plaster mammoths perched on mega-mushroom pedestals, lording it over the colossal court of Belshazzar, the pasteboard Babylon built beside the dusty tin-lizzie trail called Sunset Boulevard. …Belshazzar’s Feast beneath Egyptian blue skies, spread out under the blazing Southern California morning […]

Review: “Avatar: The Way of Water”

If there are two things that James Cameron likes, it’s developing cutting-edge technology to deliver massive theatrical spectacles, and water. Frequently for the filmmaker, who got his start directing special effects on movies like “Piranha II: The Spawning,” those two things go hand in hand. Consider, for example, the 1997 drama “Titanic,” for which Cameron […]

Review: “Strange World”

It stings when a movie with nothing but pure intentions stumbles and falls on its face. But positive messaging does not automatically a good movie make, and it’s difficult to recall the last time a film from Disney Animation arrived with so little fanfare as “Strange World.” Perhaps the studio’s 61st feature never really stood […]

Review: “Bones and All”

“Let’s be people.” Those simple words, uttered by Maren (Taylor Russell) to her partner Lee (Timothée Chalamet) toward the end of director Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All” carry added weight because we know, by this point, that neither of them are what you might call normal people. Maren and Lee are lovers on the run, […]

Review: “Please Baby Please”

As young men clad in leather jackets leap and twirl down a dark street, the opening scene of “Please Baby Please” immediately draws a visual parallel to the classic romantic musical “West Side Story,” which begins with rival gang members dancing around the city until they meet and conflict ensues. But Amanda Kramer’s “Please Baby […]

Review: “She Said”

It goes without saying that the New York Times’ October 2017 breaking of their investigation into sexual misconduct by influential Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein is the single most influential piece of journalism of the last decade. Investigated by Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the story’s publication resulted in 82 women coming forward […]