In a summer marked by stale spectacles—a Flash in the pan, Transformers flying under the radar and even the crack of Indiana Jones’ bullwhip failing to generate excitement—the extravagant escapism of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One makes for the summer’s best movie and the only…
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The ill-conceived Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny disappoints as a lackluster return for the renowned archaeologist and adventurer. Despite the enduring star power of Harrison Ford, this tired installment fails to generate the same level of excitement that defined its predecessors, devoid…
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Georgia Oakley’s absorbing debut feature Blue Jean is perfectly timed in its story of a closeted lesbian school teacher navigating intricate webs of personal and professional turmoil within the constricting confines of conservative 1980s society. Set against the backdrop of Thatcher-era Britain, where anti-gay legislation casts…
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Can true love overcome the stark differences between the stages of our lives and the roles we assume, or is it destined to remain a moment in time as our futures progress? Does the relentless pursuit of such all-consuming love hold any true significance,…
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Sebastian Maniscalco, currently America’s most popular comedian, amiably approximates himself in the new comedy About My Father opposite a game Robert DeNiro as a movie version of his real-life dad, Salvo Maniscalco. Co-written by the comedian-actor and directed by Laura Terruso, the picture is…
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At 76, Paul Schrader remains the most consistently intriguing American screenwriter working today and perhaps of the last half-century. A standard bearer of the galvanic 70s Hollywood renaissance, his contributions to American film history are lionized and legendary. In the past decade, the filmmaker’s…
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Book Club: The Next Chapter, the follow-up to the popular 2018 romantic comedy that defied ageist Hollywood marketing logic to become a $100 million moneymaker, is a fizzy, funny and frequently wistful comedy featuring a movie royalty quartet looking great and having fun in…
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Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu specializes in hard hitting cultural excoriations that have made him a foremost international voice in both social realism and social critique. His masterful, 2007 Cannes-winning breakout suspenser 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days examined the perils faced by a…
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The first thing to know about Benjamin Millipied’s blazing new Carmen is that it’s a liberal derivation of Bizet’s 1875 masterwork of jealousy, obsession and death. Once Bizet traditionalists depart from expectation, Millipied’s update, which reimagines Bizet’s titular Spanish opera icon though a modern…
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There have been five Evil Dead films in the forty-two years since Sam Raimi’s deliriously unhinged 1983 cabin-in-the-woods demonic possession flick became an instant classic of gore and triumph of tone and craft, a shoestring horror outing made by friends that went on to…
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