Opening Friday, May 25 As corporate custodians of George Lucas’s space-opera vision, Disney executives have actually done an admirable job with the new batch of Star Wars movies. They’ve commissioned clever scripts, hired smart people, and developed some good films. Movie math is always tricky, but surely everyone can agree with the certainty that The […]
Glenn McDonald
Posted inFilm & Television
If the First Deadpool Was a Halfhearted R-Rated Spider-Man, the Superior Sequel Is a Controlled Comic Detonation of the Superhero-Movie Template
DEADPOOL 2 Opening Friday, May 18 A sequel to the surprise 2016 blockbuster, Deadpool 2 is one of those rare follow-ups that improves upon the original, expanding its ideas instead of repeating them. If the first movie was a halfhearted R-rated Spider-Man (it was), then the new one is a controlled detonation of the superhero-movie […]
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Forget Those Avengers. RBG, the New Doc on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Is the Best Superhero Movie of the Year.
RBG Opening Friday, May 11 RBG, the new documentary chronicling the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is way more fun than it might sound. Surprisingly bouncy and engaging, it charts Ginsburg’s gradual ascension from pioneering legal scholar to eighty-five-year-old pop-culture icon. RBG is one of those rare docs that built enough momentum […]
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Cannes Jury Prize Winner Loveless Leaves a Knot in the Stomach and a Chill in the Blood
LOVELESS Opening Friday, March 30 Loveless, a Russian drama that won the Jury Prize at Cannes last year, is a hard, bleak film that leaves a knot in the stomach and a chill in the blood. It’s late in the autumn of 2012, and Muscovites Boris and Zhenya are riding out a brutal divorce. Twelve-year-old […]
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In Japanese Film Oh Lucy!, Dark Comedy and Weird Tragedy Complexly Blend Together
OH LUCY! Opening Friday, March 23 Most movies operate by generating primal feelings: fear, joy, anxiety, amusement. Elicit these in various proportions and your movie will fit into a broad genre, whether it’s horror, comedy, or drama. That’s the usual routine. But some films look past primal feelings to focus on more complicated emotions. They […]
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Movie Review: Lara Croft Jumps Back Into Action in Tomb Raider’s Reboot
Tomb Raider ★★★ ½ Opening Friday, March 16 In 2013, the venerable Tomb Raider video game franchise unveiled its tenth installment in the series, a complete reboot/origin story with a new emphasis on gritty realism and emotional stakes. The new game was clearly designed to retire the persona of the old Lara Croft—a stone-cold fox […]
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Ferenc Török’s 1945 Is a Dark Fable and a History Lesson Wrapped in Fine Cinematic Storytelling
1945 Opening Friday, Feb. 23 A few months after V-E Day, outside a small Hungarian village, two strangers disembark from a train that pours sinister black smoke into the sweltering summer sky. Dressed in somber black suits, the men hire a cart to transport two steamer trunks into the village. Their arrival and the rumored […]
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In Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Annette Bening’s Performance Is a Skillful Tribute to Hollywood’s Golden Age
FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL Opening Friday, Feb. 16 Based on the 1986 memoir by British actor Peter Turner, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool chronicles the final months of actor Gloria Grahame, who charmed audiences in the forties and fifties. Grahame made films with the biggest names in Hollywood, and she won an […]
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Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Is a Tame, Bland Beast
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Opening Wednesday, Dec. 20 A reboot of the 1995 adventure pic starring Robin Williams, the new Jumanji revisits the world of the first story, but with a twist. Once again, a group of kids get magically zapped into a game world, but the gimmick is that each kid assumes the […]
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The Average American Sees Five Thousand Movies in a Lifetime. Half of Them Come Out This Week.
When a movie comes along that doesn’t behave like any of the thousands of movies you’ve already seen, well, that’s cause for celebration. Such is the case with ‘Downsizing’ from director Alexander Payne.
