Review: “Wicked: For Good”

When I reviewed Jon M. Chu’s big-screen adaptation of the first half of the hit Broadway musical Wicked around this same time last year, I was surprised to find that it had some merit— in its performances, and its translation, and its broadening of the source material— given my distaste for both the show and […]

Holiday Classics: “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” (1953)

1953’s By the Light of the Silvery Moon, a sequel to Warner Brothers’ hit 1951 nostalgic musical On Moonlight Bay (which I wrote about for this column three years ago), isn’t quite as winsome as its predecessor, but with the same cast reprising their roles, and a story set largely between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it […]

Review: “Wicked”

Jon M. Chu’s 2021 film adaptation of the Broadway musical In the Heights made me suspect that he wasn’t a particularly skilled director of musicals. His long-gestating film adaptation of Wicked confirmed it. It’s a shame, because even more so than Heights, there’s a legitimately great movie musical rocking around inside that two hour and […]

Review: “Joker Folie à deux”

Joker Folie à deux opens with the sort of stylishly vacuous sequence director Todd Phillips is so great at realizing: an animated short modeled after Warner Brothers’ vintage Looney Tunes cartoons starring Joker— the psychopathic clown with a sadistic sense of humor, most known for existing as the arch villain to DC Comics’ superhero Batman— […]

Review: “Mean Girls” (2024)

One afternoon in the middle of December 2018, I hoofed it a good eight blocks across the packed streets of Manhattan as tourists crowded around Rockefeller Center and the department store shop windows to catch a glimpse of the city’s elaborate Christmas decorations to the August Wilson Theatre to watch Mean Girls— not the 2004 […]

Holiday Classics: “Bundle of Joy” (1956)

Last week, I discussed what I referred to as a perfect romantic comedy, 1939’s “Bachelor Mother.” Today, I’m talking about its 1956 musical remake, “Bundle of Joy.” “Bundle of Joy,” also a product of RKO Studios, isn’t without its charms, but it never manages to step out of its predecessor’s shadow. The story is identical: […]

Review: “Neptune Frost”

“Neptune Frost” is the sort of film that needs to be experienced without trying too hard to unravel the intricacies of directors Saul Williams (who also wrote and composed the music for the movie) and Anisia Uzeyman’s complex world-building in their Afrofuturist musical. At the same time, it’s essential to engage with the film with […]

Review: “Cyrano”

“Cyrano,” director Joe Wright’s adaptation of Erica Schmidt’s musical of the same name that’s based in turn on the classic 1897 play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” opens not with its titular character, but with the object of his affections, Roxanne (Haley Bennett). Roxanne has been invited to attend a play by De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn), an […]

Holiday Classics: ”On Moonlight Bay” (1951)

“On Moonlight Bay” has often been written off as a less-impressive copy-cat of another holiday staple, 1944’s “Meet Me in St. Louis.” The reasons for this are obvious, because the two films share some remarkable similarities. Both are musicals set over the course of one year in a turn-of-the-century Midwestern family’s life, divided into chapters […]

Review: “West Side Story” (2021)

The 1961 film version of the 1957 Broadway musical “West Side Story” may be legendary, but it’s the rare movie that practically begs to be remade. The movie, based on the musical with book by Arthur Laurents, music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and choreography by Jerome Robbins, is delightful in some […]