Letters from Baghdad★★★ ½ Chelsea Theatre, Chapel Hill Describable only as an experimental documentary, Letters from Baghdad tells the story of Gertrude Bell, the British government official, explorer, and occasional spy who helped draw the borders of modern-day Iraq in the years after the first world war. Bell is sometimes called the female Lawrence of […]
Glenn McDonald
Posted inFilm & Television
Eleanor Coppola’s Beautiful Imagery Is Better Than Paris Can Wait’s Thin Story of One Percenters in Mild Crisis
Paris Can Wait Opening Friday, June 16 Very pretty and very slight, Paris Can Wait is the first narrative feature directed by Eleanor Coppola, the eighty-one-year-old photographer and documentary filmmaker who is married to Francis Ford Coppola. Diane Lane stars as Anne, the wife of a busy Hollywood filmmaker, and there’s a scent of autobiography […]
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In Wakefield, Bryan Cranston Plays a Lawyer Who Ghosts on His Whole Life
WAKEFIELD Opening Friday, June 9 In the realm of pop sociology, the term “ghosting” has developed several connotations. As an update of expressions like French Exit or Irish Goodbye, it means slipping out of a party without saying your farewells. It has an even newer application in the dating world, where it means breaking up […]
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About Baywatch—We Have This Theory on Actor Zac Efron’s Inexplicable Success
Baywatch Opening Thursday, May 25 So I have this theory about Zac Efron and his inexplicable success as an actor.
Posted inCulture
Movie Review: Alien: Covenant Gets Psychosexual In a Bloody, Baroque, Deeply Weird Story
Alien: Covenant ★★★★ Now playing It’s generally acknowledged that the creature in the Alien franchise is the scariest monster in all of science-fiction cinema. Based on original designs by Swiss artist H.R. Giger, it’s a triumph of sinister design—a Freudian nightmare of biomechanical sex and death. Alien: Covenant, the latest installation by veteran sci-fi director […]
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Film Review: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
KING AUTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD Now playing
Posted inCulture
Movie Review: In King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Guy Ritchie Gets Medieval on Our Collective Asses
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword ★★★ Now playing In the would-be franchise starter King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, director Guy Ritchie gets medieval on our collective asses by twisting Arthurian legend into a British caper film. Hunky Charlie Hunnam is our hero, Jude Law is the baddie, and the future Knights of the […]
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Movie Review: Land of Mine Is Both a Classic War Film and a Powerful Anti-War Statement
Land of Mine ★★★★
Posted inFilm & Television
Director Marc Webb Squeezes New Life Out of Old Story Beats in Gifted
GIFTED1/2 Now playing So this happens sometimes at the movies: a film comes along and does things you’ve seen a hundred times before. You know you’re being worked over emotionally, with cinematic tricks and techniques that have been around forever. But the story soars anyway, and you walk out genuinely moved and entirely satisfied.
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