Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a masterclass in building movie atmosphere from one of contemporary American cinema’s most distinctive young auteurs. With just four films, Eggers has carved out a signature as an exacting writer-director with a personal stamp, blending meticulous attention to folklore and…
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You have to hand it to Luca Guadagnino, who this year delivered a one-two punch in the sensual pro-tennis roundelay Challengers and now the equally sexy, dreamlike Queer, his new adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ partially autobiographical 1985 novel (first written in 1952) of…
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A thirty-something coworker recently vented her frustration with society’s suffocating insistence that motherhood is the pinnacle of a woman’s fulfillment. This came after enduring yet another round of nosy relatives asking, “When are you starting a family?” paired with the patronizing, “You’ll change your…
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Pablo Larraín’s Maria is foremost a vehicle for Angelina Jolie, bringing vocal precision and quietly regal vulnerability to her portrait of legendary mezzo-soprano Maria Callas. A meditation on artistry and decline as Callas drifts through her final days in a haze of memory, the…
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In the Cannes-winning All We Imagine As Light (currently playing at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center), writer-director Payal Kapadia presents a rich tapestry of three Mumbai women whose routine, work-a-day lives take on a poetic grandeur against the grit of their big city existence.…
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Great news for fans of the iconic Broadway sensation Wicked—and honestly, for anyone who loves great entertainment: Jon M. Chu’s highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of the 2003 musical phenomenon doesn’t just deliver the goods; it soars. Arriving as one of 2024’s best studio pictures,…
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In the new thriller Heretic, Hugh Grant makes a deliciously unexpected late career u-turn, his signature affability upended by sinister malevolence (his wit, thankfully, survives the transition). It takes a special performer to so skillfully subvert a public image—toss it, really—in such a decided declaration…
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In their ambitious new novel Disturbing the Bones (Penguin Random House), hit filmmaker Andrew Davis and historian-novelist Jeff Biggers have crafted a high-tech, riveting thriller that interweaves geopolitical thrills and a personal, eras-spanning mystery. This isn’t just a whodunnit; it’s a politically charged race against…
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In less than a decade, filmmaker Sean Baker has graduated from the micro-budget ranks of an iPhone-shot debut to capturing the coveted Palme d’Or at the world’s most prestigious film festival. Yet while his visibility (and likely opportunities) has grown exponentially, his lens remains…
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Edward Berger’s Conclave takes us inside a hermetically sealed world rife with intrigue, that of a Vatican-set papal election following the abrupt death of a beloved pope. While most of us know little about such clandestine machinations beyond the conclusive puff of white smoke,…
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