The first terrific American film of 2024, Luca Guadagnino’s intoxicating Challengers is the rare, full-throttle piece of adult commercial entertainment—a smartly written, adroitly acted and technically superb piece of electric moviemaking from its opening scene to its perfect final shot. It also gives a…
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In French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast, Leá Seydoux and George MacKay play triple roles in a conceptually audacious roundelay of impossible love and desire across three distinct eras. It’s a film nearly impossible to describe, at once a period costume melodrama, contemporary stalker…
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In the new drama Hard Miles, Matthew Modine gets his best role in years as a transformative youth counselor guiding a cohort of troubled young men on an audacious 762-mile bicycle trek from Watkins, Colorado to the Grand Canyon—a journey designed to promote healing…
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Alex Garland’s button pushing Civil War offers a vision of the United States as hell, a near-future dystopian hallucination of a country torn by militias and warcraft, marked by third-term presidents, secession-driven military factions, guerrilla citizenry and wearily intrepid journalists documenting its descent. Telling…
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Someone once observed that there is nothing in the world worse than going nowhere in life while no one seems to care. In the inspiring new picture Hard Miles (Blue Fox Entertainment, April 19), the true story of Colorado social worker turned bicycling coach…
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As guided tours of hell go, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s searing New York City paramedics drama Asphalt City is too much yet not enough, an overheated descent into a pitch black abyss lacking connective character tissue to be fully compelling, despite convicted performances by stars Tye…
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In Luc Besson’s DogMan (Briarcliff Entertainment, March 29), award-winning actor Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Out of Ebbing Missouri, Get Out, Nitram) takes on an outrageous character in an unpredictable, certain to be cult film. In one of his signature outsider roles, DogMan finds…
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In Late Night With the Devil, the found footage genre is resurrected for a clever, economical throwback thriller about cults, possession and a ratings-chasing, would be Johnny Carson in need of a “sweeps week” score to resurrect his failing show. Written and directed by…
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In Netflix’s Shirley, Regina King embodies the trailblazing Shirley Chisholm, dramatizing her historic 1972 run for the presidency. King brings to life the legendary congresswoman and advocate for social change, portraying her as an undeterred force in politics with a campaign mantra of being…
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In Late Night With the Devil, David Dastmalchian delivers a riveting performance as a 70s-era talk show host whose pursuit of television ratings leads to a chilling supernatural confrontation. His live variety hour takes an enjoyably terrifying turn when what appears to be an…
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