There is nothing wrong with a feel-good movie that does its job well, and that is what you get with Hidden Figures, the inspiring new movie about the real heroes behind NASA’s space race that manages to be both smart and entertaining in its…
Read MoreDenzel Washington brings August Wilson’s celebrated Fences to the screen in a sum-of-its-parts movie adaptation both eloquent and long-winded, thematically expansive yet, at times, claustrophobic. Working from a screenplay completed by Wilson prior to his 2005 death, Washington takes a traditional, almost reverential approach—perhaps…
Read MoreStephen McKinley Henderson and Jovan Adepo on “Eternal” Fences—Fathers, Sons and Lost Dreams Haunt August Wilson’s Landmark American Drama

It’s a rarity in American film to observe some of the best actors working, delivering some of the most powerful dialogue of the last century—and in close-up, no less—but that is precisely what you get in Fences, Denzel Washington’s screen version of August Wilson’s…
Read MoreSpaced out stinker Passengers, which has been pushed hard by marketing its two big stars, is a confused and altogether empty fantasy that takes place on a huge ship careening through deep space. Isolation, love, companionship, stalking—all enroute to a newly inhabitable planet? Why…
Read MoreFair Play to Those Who Dare to Dream: La La Land Director Damien Chazelle and Star Rosemarie Dewitt on Courage of Artists, Lovers

In a bravura act of movie invention, filmmaker Damien Chazelle has fashioned a throwback that’s also contemporary; a musical that is intensely dramatic; a love story of élan and heartbreak; and one of the best-ever movie love letters to starry-eyed, pure of heart struggling…
Read MoreA dazzling achievement in technique and emotion cementing the status of visionary young director Damien Chazelle as a modern auteur, La La Land is the most accomplished movie of 2016 and perhaps the most enjoyable, a musical throwback about Los Angeles dreamers pursuing art…
Read MoreEverything old is old again in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first “spinoff” installment from the beloved franchise and one that is largely unmemorable—save a terrific final act—and so slavish to its alignment with the mythology of that famous faraway galaxy it…
Read MoreFull disclosure—movie and pop star Hailee Steinfeld makes me feel like a teenage girl in all the best ways, not least because she can turn a pop song inside out with fully felt vocals and a music video persona sincere enough to let you…
Read MoreArrival, starring Amy Adams as a linguistics professor called upon to decipher the language of an alien race, is a science fiction film filled with heady ideas, emotional currents and a sense of discovery that engages both the brain and heart as it eventually…
Read MoreThey don’t make them like they used to, except when they do. Hacksaw Ridge is one of the year’s best-constructed, most passionate movies, a true story of uncommon bravery both on and off the World War II battlefield, one of a conscientious objector who…
Read More