Film Reviews

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Ms. Ginsburg Goes to Washington

Ms. Ginsburg Goes to Washington

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Vice Can’t Make Sense of Dick Cheney, but It Can Give You a Headache

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 24, 2018

Don’t look to Vice for psychology or even a sense of presence; McKay uses the Cheneys’ grim unknowability as an excuse not to bother going for either
Welcome to Marwen Crashes Into the Limits of Hollywood’s Imagination

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 21, 2018

At times, as it dissolves between scenes of its cast as literal toy dolls machine-gunning Nazis in the made-up Belgian town of Marwen, Zemeckis’ movie seems an inquisition into the limits of the director’s own imagination
Ben Is Back Pits a Dazzling Julia Roberts Against the Opioid Scourge

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 18, 2018

With the quickest blink or nervy glance, Roberts communicates to us both what her character, an ordinary woman named Holly Burns, has convinced everyone around her to think she’s feeling but also all of her secret doubts, fury and anguish
Emily Blunt Rules, and Mary Poppins Returns Is Not at All Atrocious

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 18, 2018

True to the spirit of the chipper, somewhat aimless live-action Disney day killers that inspired it, Rob Marshall’s Mary Poppins Returns gets better the further it wanders from its actual story.
Aquaman Proves Superheroes Are Better Down Where It’s Wetter

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 17, 2018

Not incidental to Aquaman’s pleasures is its vision of a mixed-race hero, played by a mixed-race actor, fighting to protect and understand clashing aspects of his heritage
In Mary Queen of Scots, Great Women Face Hard Truths About Wielding Power

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 17, 2018

The actresses share only one scene in the film, but Mary Queen of Scots sets them up in counterpoint, two divergent approaches to the question of how women who wield power can actually govern the men around them
Cities Roll, Fight and Eat Each Other in the Otherwise Meh Mortal Engines

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 12, 2018

The film plays as if a three-hour epic has been sliced down to size in the editing, but only the scenes establishing character and context have been cut
Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma Is a Masterpiece of Memory

By Yolanda Machado
Dec 12, 2018

The writer-director shot Roma in chronological order, without showing the cast the script, unveiling it to the actors the same way it is for the audience, piece by piece, a chance to marinate in each moment as it plays out
Lee Chang-dong’s Burning Torches Sex, Obsession and Class

By Bilge Ebiri
Dec 11, 2018

Lee Chang-dong’s dexterity with the telling minutiae of human interactions ensures that Burning makes for an emotionally gripping film
Emma Stone and The Favourite’s Royal Women Scheme Deliciously

By Bilge Ebiri
Dec 11, 2018

It’s the early 18th century, there’s a war on with France, and the persistently ill, somewhat childish Anne struggles both to assert her authority and to preserve her kingdom and her crown
Into the Spider-Verse Is the Best Superhero Movie Since The Dark Knight

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 10, 2018

It sets a host of alternative Spider-folk running amok in the New York City of Brooklyn teen Miles Morales, the mixed-race Spider-Man (his father is black and his mother Latinx) invented for the comics in 2011 by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli
Kore-eda’s Big-Hearted Shoplifters Toasts the Family That Steals Together

By Bilge Ebiri
Dec 10, 2018

Based on a collection of true news items about exactly what the film’s title promises, Kore-eda’s story centers around a household that at first might appear to be a somewhat ordinary family that has merely fallen on hard times
In Monrovia, Indiana, Midwestern Politeness Tumps Frederick Wiseman

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 5, 2018

The film’s most arresting, revealing passages — the only scenes where anyone disagrees with anyone else about anything at all — concern the town council
As Fascism Rises, Schindler’s List Has Become Almost Radical

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 4, 2018

Today, I’m still awed by the film’s scope and scale, by its relentless energy and attention to detail, by its interest in faces and names and coats and belongings
With Mowgli, Netflix Has Its First Blockbuster

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 4, 2018

This time, though, the lessons are urgent, the jungle threatened by man, the wicked tiger Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) a true terror vowing to one day taste that boy’s blood
Savory Chef Flynn Reveals the Promise and Price of Being a Teen Wonder

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 3, 2018

... It’s a mother’s story, with Yates following not just Flynn but also Meg McGarry, a filmmaker herself, who has been documenting for years her son’s culinary blossoming — and her encouragement
Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate Invites Us to Look Through Van Gogh’s Eyes

By Alan Scherstuhl
Dec 3, 2018

Probing the painter’s senses as he tramps about the south of France, Schnabel’s film is drunk with light, a little touched in the head itself, giving over to van Gogh’s perspective through gorgeously disorienting POV shots ...
Searching for Ingmar Bergman Is a Cheery Toasting of a Most Somber Genius

By Alan Scherstuhl
Nov 29, 2018

... The director of Rosenstrasse, Rosa Luxemburg and Sheer Madness is tracking Bergman, toasting him and his work with his collaborators and some high-profile fans
Netflix’s Exquisite Happy as Lazzaro Asks: What’s to Live for After a Life of Toil?

By Alan Scherstuhl
Nov 27, 2018

This time, we meet the sharecropping peasants of the remote village of Inviolata, living lives of seasonal toil, lives that look — except for the occasional radio or lightbulb — like they might have a century or so ago
Hip-Hop Satire Bodied Hits Hard Until It Goes All Serious in the End

By Craig D. Lindsey
Nov 21, 2018

Director Joseph Kahn (who cowrote the script with actual battle rapper Alex “Kid Twist” Larsen), a man who directed many a hip-hop video in his time, knows exactly what cliches and tropes need to be mocked

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