Along the lines of ‘Wicked’ and ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, director Karen Maine’s ‘Rosaline’ offers a unique take on an established literary work. (This time, it’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’.) Unlike those examples, however, this thing starts wearing out its welcome fairly early on, relying on the same joke over […]
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Till
Danielle Deadwyler leads the way in this harrowing and all-too-relevant look back at the horrific 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi and its crucial aftermath. Co-written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu (‘Clemency’), the film is as important as it is beautifully crafted, and Deadwyler is flat-out incredible—along with […]
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Halloween Ends
The David Gordon Green-helmed trilogy comes to an end with a sometimes-fun but ultimately unsatisfying conclusion, as Jamie Lee Curtis—playing Laurie Strode one last time—ties a ribbon on the whole pesky Michael Myers thing. Sure, it’s a solid slasher in its own right, but is this really what we’ve been […]
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Tár
In his 20-year career behind the camera, Todd Field has written and directed the excellent films ‘In the Bedroom’, ‘Little Children’, and now the equally (if not more) stunning ‘Tár’. Each is arguably better than the other (though all are as first-rate as they come). Perhaps everything has just been […]
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Triangle of Sadness
It won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes, and it’s not hard to figure out why. Writer-director Ruben Östlund (‘Force Majeure’) has crafted a wild and oh-so-cringy satire that skewers the ‘haves’ of the world. Set on board a luxury yacht, it follows a gaggle of uber-wealthy elitists and then […]
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Amsterdam
If ever a movie had a pedigree for success, this one would be right up there… but no. Writer-director David O. Russell gathered Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Zoe Saldana, and tons more for a re-telling of the real-life 1930s conspiracy to remove FDR […]
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The Trapped 13: How We Survived the Thai Cave
I’m not sure how many times you can tell the same story—as amazing and globally captivating as it was—but this latest film about the 2018 Thai cave soccer team rescue is the first to let us hear from the boys themselves. That alone makes ‘Trapped’ worth the watch, but Thai […]
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Mr. Harrigan’s Phone
Another Stephen King adaptation and another collective ‘meh’. Based on the 2020 short story, this tale of a kid whose elderly benefactor helps him out from beyond the grave, simmers along just fine… but never really comes to a full boil. Director John Lee Hancock (who also adapted the screenplay) […]
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The Good House
Sigourney Weaver serves up an award-worthy performance in this tragi-comic adaptation of Ann Leary’s 2013 beach read novel. Starring as a functioning alcoholic struggling to stay afloat in a sleepy New England town, Weaver reunites with Kevin Kline for the third time (‘Dave’, ‘The Ice Storm’), and their chemistry alone […]
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