Compulsively compelling Eileen—an offbeat period character study turned thriller of a shy young secretary at a Massachusetts juvenile correctional facility seduced by the allure of a newly appointed psychiatrist—is either an impressive genre straddler or an uneven potboiler. I couldn’t decide which (and perhaps…
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Saltburn, a not exactly eat-the-rich skewering by way of Patricia Highsmith, is a glossy shockwave that finds Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell casting a seductive spell before twisting her sophomore picture into a somewhat reductive narrative knot. Despite a bigger budget and plenty of talent…
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Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein picture Maestro, the actor-director’s follow-up to his lauded 2017 version of A Star is Born, finds him confidently back in the musical arena for an unexpected, eras spanning scenes from a (musical) marriage. A Leonard Bernstein biopic turned domestic drama?…
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Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the legendary Corsican-born general who reigned as French emperor for a decade, does little to illuminate the man or the leader. Scott’s 158-minute historical saga, a surprisingly tedious grind from an indisputably master director and world-class actor,…
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Nicolas Cage continues his hot streak comeback—see also 2021’s Pig and 2022’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent—with one of his very best performances in the surprising new sleeper (no pun intended) Dream Scenario, an inventive new picture about an everyman schlub who gets…
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Todd Haynes’ May December, about an actress researching a notorious marriage in hopes of delivering an “honest” onscreen portrait, is mired with half-formed characters and little insight into either the artistic process or its sensational subject matter. Haynes, the visionary indie filmmaker who graduated from…
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The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s wry, heartfelt new picture starring Paul Giamatti as an irascible New England boarding school instructor supervising a left behind student over Christmas break in 1970, is as much a loving nod to an era as a tale of a teacher…
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Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, about the domestic entrapment felt by a young Priscilla Beaulieu (and later the married Priscilla Presley) during her fourteen formative years with Elvis, offers few new insights in attempting to illuminate a complex and very public relationship. As written by producer-director…
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Just in time for Halloween comes Argentine shocker When Evil Lurks, a nastily blunt and mostly effective picture deploying an escalating series of demonic possessions as a metaphor for contagion, community distrust and questionable parenting. Modestly scaled yet pungently atmospheric, it has enough tension…
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Stick to the plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise. Trust no one: Words to live by and a mantra for a best in the business assassin whose carefully constructed world crashes down after a botched hit in David Fincher’s superbly constructed thriller The Killer. Played with…
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