Comedian and writer Julio Torres’ directorial debut Problemista, in which its creator plays an El Salvadoran immigrant in New York City pursuing a labyrinthine American Dream, is a potent social critique cloaked in a fantasia of full flower visual imagination. While there have been…
Read MoreDune: Part Two, Denis Villeneuve’s second installment of Frank Herbert’s landmark sci-fi saga and follow-up to his 2021 introduction Dune, is a bigger, bolder and better movie than its portentous predecessor, featuring gargantuan filmmaking on an “epic” scale and a return to the sort…
Read MoreComedy, as they say, is hard—striking the target just right and knowing when to push a joke or let it speak for itself. If a movie comedy is constantly pushing, chances are the joke isn’t that funny to begin with. Such is Ethan Coen’s…
Read MoreThe Unseen, a thriller about a young man tormented by supernatural entities and an overachieving father, has as much on its mind about malevolent family dynamics as it does those lurking in the otherworld. In a Chicago-set production from a screenplay by actress-producer Jennifer…
Read MoreMy first priority after seeing France’s handsome The Taste of Things, a cuisine as art and love saga featuring the double act of a regal Benoit Magimel and Juliette Binoche, was a direct dash brunch at Chicago’s finest French restaurant. In a recipe combining…
Read MoreCongrats, Departing Seniors: Caps Off to Fresh Teen Slasher Picture Smartly Balancing Humor, Horror
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The eternally successful horror film genre has proven more profitable than perhaps any other given its dependably low investment, high-yield returns and passionate fanbase, always up for their next good scare. And while such scare pictures of late have taken a turn toward high…
Read MoreThe space-set thriller I.S.S. is a modestly effective U.S.-Russia face-off in which a handful of scientists are forced to confront national versus personal loyalties while a war between their respective countries wages on Earth. Set aboard the orbiting International Space Station laboratory 248 miles…
Read MoreA well-meaning educator finds herself in the crosshairs of suspicion in the tightly coiled dramatic thriller The Teachers’ Lounge, a morality play indicting the swift spoils of cancel culture and the discarding of objective truth in a rush to judgment. It also has something…
Read MoreEvil in the Cold Light of Day: Single-Minded The Zone of Interest Tells Us What We Already Knew
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Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest is an austere exercise with a single idea—that evil deeds can be compartmentalized while their perpetrators lead otherwise innocuously guilt-free lives—stretched out for 106 minutes. Deploying a theme applicable to many of history’s villains, Glazer’s glacial treatise on…
Read MoreA Superb Jessica Chastain Confronts Troubled Past in Memory, Michel Franco’s Searing Drama
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Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard superbly navigate challenging psychological terrain in a tough, hopeful picture.…
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