From its well-cut trailer, The Alto Knights appeared to have all of the requisites of a good studio entertainment—Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson helming, star Robert DeNiro back in beloved mafioso mode and screenwriter Nicolas Pileggi (Goodfellas, Casino, The Irishman) penning another true tale of wise-guy intrigue. Yet watching The…
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There won’t be a better movie performance this year than Jonathan Majors’ work in Magazine Dreams, the beleaguered indie that captured the 2023 Sundance Jury Prize and was headed for awards season consideration—that is, until Majors’ subsequent, high-profile domestic assault arrest and misdemeanor conviction saw…
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With his new spy thriller Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh handily demonstrates that intelligent, made-for-adults entertainment isn’t yet dead. It’s been some time since an American film has made us sit up, lean in and follow a plot that puts us through the paces, and…
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American filmmakers have mostly abandoned incisive political cinema. A few years ago, I lamented this to Oliver Stone, who plainly noted that neither studios nor audiences want political thrillers or government critiques anymore. The new Mickey 17, however, sees a world-class Korean filmmaker using…
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If a horror movie scares you, swell. If not, no sale. And last year, Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, about a heartland satanist spree killer, was an A24 marketing success (“Scariest Movie Ever!”) and a shivery chiller courtesy of an all-in Nicolas Cage as its titular…
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Whether scrappy indie (Terrifier, Late Night with the Devil, Strange Darling), studio gloss (A Quiet Place: Day One) or awards prestige (The Substance, Noseratu), horror films almost always bank tremendous profits. Last year alone they bludgeoned near a billion dollars from moviegoers with a…
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Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths reunites the legendary British auteur with actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who received an Oscar nod for his searing 1996 drama Secrets and Lies, in which she played the accomplished adult daughter of a downtrodden mother who gave her up at birth. That mother, indelibly…
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The opening sections of Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here, the real-life story of a Brazilian family torn apart by political persecution circa 1971, depict a tight-knit community of parents, children and friends suspended in a fleeting idyll, one to be tragically frozen in photographs,…
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One of Them Days, a raucous comedy powered by a pair of exuberant performances, is a female buddy picture that gets significant comic mileage from the pairing of stars Keke Palmer and musician SZA as L.A. besties and roommates on a slapstick odyssey to…
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In The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson has what feels like a late-career renewal, even if the character she plays—a Las Vegas career showgirl in a fading spotlight—sees her own options begin to dim. You can feel Anderson, in this modest character study, really showing…
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