Writer-director Leigh Whannell makes art out of pulp in Upgrade, the year’s most inventive and entertaining movie, a mash up of Verhoeven, Cronenberg, Cameron, Crichton and a touch of Clarke. A freewheeling, near future, sci-fi actioner that manages to incorporate a spectrum of influences…
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Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, about a reverend’s crisis of faith, is the most narratively and thematically ambitious American film this year. A meditation on spiritual ennui and glimpse into the mind of a bleak character peering into the abyss without comfort, Schrader’s film is…
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At 72, Paul Schrader has crafted one of his finest pictures in First Reformed, the story of a bereft reverend, played by Ethan Hawke, who undergoes a dark night of the soul before perhaps—or not—achieving transcendence. One of the few great pictures this year…
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One might imagine that any movie written by Ian McEwan based one of his novels and starring Saoirse Ronan would be a high-toned, psychologically complex and absorbing trip. Yet in the case of On Chesil Beach, one would be wrong. In a tedious misfire,…
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Book Club, director Bill Holderman’s sweet, funny new comedy about four lifelong friends unexpectedly liberated by Fifty Shades of Grey, says it’s never too late to rediscover yourself—and love. But the real story in this glossy, zippy movie starring Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice…
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In his last three films—Gloria, A Fantastic Woman and now Disobedience—Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Lelio has explored the struggles of outsiders standing aside of established communities, mores and social constructs. In the process, he has also written a collection of indelible female characters who embrace…
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