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Angelina Jolie Has Style Trouble in “Couture”
The compressed script and the snippety editing sometimes lead to unintended comedy, as in a scene where Maxine watches Christine, the…
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movie reviews
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“Mudville,” Reviewed: An Atlanta Filmmaker’s Expansive D.I.Y. Family Drama
The other day, I suddenly remembered a film I’d seen and admired ten years ago, “The Arbalest,” which, as a juror at the 2016 South by…
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“Our Land” Is a Blistering Denunciation of Colonialist Oppression
But for decades, as some of Martel’s interviewees note, their presence on the land has come under threat from the Amíns of the world: we…
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“Mother Mary” Is “Unfulfilled and Unsatisfying”
Another set of flashbacks, showing Mother Mary performing onstage, doesn’t help from a dramatic perspective, and it does the character no…
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“Blue Heron” Is an Exalted Drama of Troubled Childhood
The movie’s fluid observational construction conjures drama by compounding micro-incidents; its narrative emerges from the shaping of…
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“The Drama” Struggles to Justify Its Combustible Premise
Does the movie itself know who she is? I’m not so sure. Emma is a literary editor, though the specifics are awfully vague—a late subplot…
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Sundance Is a Feast of World Cinema
Manuel’s approach to narrative is as original as his sense of cinematic form, and his gift for documentary-style observation is balanced…
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“Melania” Is a Forty-Million-Dollar Journey Into the Void
The First Lady’s lavish new documentary portrays world events as B-roll between wardrobe changes. Source link
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“Dead Man’s Wire” Is a Tangle of Loose Threads
The film draws a link between these journalistic versions and the unfolding action through the character of Linda Page (Myha’la), a TV…
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The Best Films of 2025
This year’s best movies feel plugged in, inextricably connected to forces bigger than the ordinary faces of local and private…
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“Fire of Wind” Is a Bold and Inspired Début
There is a sense of replay in the heightened and artificial diction with which Mateus has her cast bear witness, and this sense is…
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In Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” a Vast Vision Gets Netflixed Down to Size
The first time we encounter the Creature, though, we see almost nothing of him at all: he is a faceless wraith, in a dark cloak and a…
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Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind” Reinvents the Heist Movie
One of the joys of reviewing movies is witnessing a longtime filmmaker’s artistic breakthrough, as has happened with Kelly Reichardt. A…
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The Real Battle of “One Battle After Another”
A first viewing of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” mainly sets up the pleasure of seeing it again. The movie, which runs…
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What to See in the 2025 New York Film Festival’s Second Week
When I’m looking at what’s on offer in the Revivals section of the New York Film Festival—and, for that matter, whenever I see a…
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“The Smashing Machine” Pulls Its Punches
Only two kinds of actors are bad: those who can’t be themselves and those who you wish wouldn’t be. All the rest are likely to shine in…
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What to See in the 2025 New York Film Festival’s First Week
The New York Film Festival, the centerpiece of the city’s year in cinephilia, is a victim of its own success. Many of its most noteworthy…
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“Megadoc” Shows Francis Ford Coppola Going for Broke on “Megalopolis”
Figgis comments that Coppola uses the script as a mere premise, and he likens Coppola’s approach to it as “instinctive,” calling the…
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The Political Trickery of “Eddington”
With this humiliation, Joe snaps, and, in short order, commits several shocking acts of deadly violence. His brazen maneuvers to cover his…
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“Caught Stealing” Makes New York a Comedic Criminal Nightmare
From the start of Darren Aronofsky’s new film, “Caught Stealing,” it’s apparent that it hits the sweet spot of his cinematic artistry—the…
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“Eden” Is a Desert-Island Thriller That Despoils Itself
The new movie “Eden” features bursts of foul temper, wild sex, grisly violence, and nihilist ideology—a departure, you might say, for Ron…
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What The New Yorker Was Watching in 1925
Film criticism at The New Yorker started with a bang: the first movie reviewed in the first issue, dated February 21, 1925, was the German…
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“Honey Don’t!” Revives the Spirit of the Coen Brothers’ Movies
The main elements of Ethan Coen’s new film, “Honey Don’t!,” are sex and violence. Both involve profound sensations and potentially…
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“My Undesirable Friends: Part I” Is a Staggering Portrait of Russian Journalists in Dissent
Because the Russian alphabet has no direct equivalent of the letter “H,” speakers often substitute a “G” sound; “Harry Potter” thus…