As movie-movie in-jokes go, David Leitch’s divertingly bombastic The Fall Guy has as much genuine reverence for its subject as gentle cynicism for its industry. That it (ever so) works is a testament to the aggressive charm offensive of star Ryan Gosling, driving a…
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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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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 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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The Amaranthus caudatus, dubbed Love-Lies-Bleeding, is a plant of exotic allure, its cascades of crimson blossoms flourishing rapidly under the summer’s warmth. Yet this fiery spectacle is fleeting upon the arrival of first frost, a reminder of ephemeral beauty that brilliantly blazes before quickly…
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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…
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Dune: 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…
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