In the new thriller Heretic, Hugh Grant makes a deliciously unexpected late career u-turn, his signature affability upended by sinister malevolence (his wit, thankfully, survives the transition). It takes a special performer to so skillfully subvert a public image—toss it, really—in such a decided declaration…
Read More
In their ambitious new novel Disturbing the Bones (Penguin Random House), hit filmmaker Andrew Davis and historian-novelist Jeff Biggers have crafted a high-tech, riveting thriller that interweaves geopolitical thrills and a personal, eras-spanning mystery. This isn’t just a whodunnit; it’s a politically charged race against…
Read More
In less than a decade, filmmaker Sean Baker has graduated from the micro-budget ranks of an iPhone-shot debut to capturing the coveted Palme d’Or at the world’s most prestigious film festival. Yet while his visibility (and likely opportunities) has grown exponentially, his lens remains…
Read More
Edward Berger’s Conclave takes us inside a hermetically sealed world rife with intrigue, that of a Vatican-set papal election following the abrupt death of a beloved pope. While most of us know little about such clandestine machinations beyond the conclusive puff of white smoke,…
Read More
How do you make an honest film about Donald Trump when an election is looming and any depiction risks being seen as partisan? Trump is already larger than life—an endlessly debated, dissected and debunked figure. But early in The Apprentice, Ali Abassi’s can’t-look-away tale…
Read More
How many actors can say they have created a character that has made its way into movie history? Sarah Douglas knows exactly what that feels like, her role as the icy, leather-clad villain Ursa in the 1981 classic Superman II a defining figure in superhero films.…
Read More
When Todd Phillips unleashed 2019’s $1 billion global hit Joker on the world the reaction was intensely polarized—passionate devotees plugged into the picture’s meticulous, retro sleazy New York milieu and tortured anti-hero Arthur Fleck, a lost soul mustering an alter-ego vigilante avenger. Others called…
Read More
If ambition equaled greatness, Francis Ford Coppola’s behemoth Megalopolis would be the movie of the year. But outsized vision gets the better of the master filmmaker’s four decade passion project, one reportedly on his mind since he traipsed the Philippine jungles of 1979’s Apocalypse…
Read More
In her shock spectacle The Substance, Coralie Fargeat delivers a bold, blood-soaked critique of the absurd beauty standards imposed on modern women, powered by a trenchant Demi Moore as a discarded former Hollywood star who takes a black market fountain of youth drug with disastrous…
Read More
In Azazel Jacobs’ intelligent, affecting His Three Daughters, a trio of wayward adult siblings gather for the most painful of reasons—to navigate their stricken father’s waning days. It’s a premise worthy of Ingmar Bergman, and the movie, a confined chamber piece featuring open-wound turns…
Read More