At 72, Paul Schrader has crafted one of his finest pictures in First Reformed, the story of a bereft reverend, played by Ethan Hawke, who undergoes a dark night of the soul before perhaps—or not—achieving transcendence. One of the few great pictures this year…
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One might imagine that any movie written by Ian McEwan based one of his novels and starring Saoirse Ronan would be a high-toned, psychologically complex and absorbing trip. Yet in the case of On Chesil Beach, one would be wrong. In a tedious misfire,…
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Book Club, director Bill Holderman’s sweet, funny new comedy about four lifelong friends unexpectedly liberated by Fifty Shades of Grey, says it’s never too late to rediscover yourself—and love. But the real story in this glossy, zippy movie starring Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice…
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In his last three films—Gloria, A Fantastic Woman and now Disobedience—Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Lelio has explored the struggles of outsiders standing aside of established communities, mores and social constructs. In the process, he has also written a collection of indelible female characters who embrace…
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What if we could all be at peak confidence 24/7? Would we finally manifest the lives we so often make excuses not to attain? If we see ourselves differently, will everyone else? We can now forgive Amy Schumer for the lowbrow hijinks of 2016’s…
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Lean on Pete works on the strength of a terrific performance from young star Charlie Plummer as a down-on-his luck teen who befriends a past-his-prime racehorse. The pair teams up for a leisurely trek across the West in a modest movie that has a…
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The central visual motif in A Quiet Place, John Krasinski’s heartland horror story of a distant future where marauding creatures lurk, is the “shhh” of an index finger covering the lips. The actors barely make a sound, and neither does the audience for a…
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Steven Spielberg’s visionary Ready Player One straddles old and new—post-modern and nostalgic—in a conceptual feat of imagination equal parts endearing and fatiguing. Guess which one wins? Despite its loving homage to 80s pop culture, the master has crafted a check-box movie with only a…
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Based on the wildly successful 2012 novel about a disembodied soul that inhabits a new host each day only to fall in love—and want to settle down—with a smart, lonely high school girl, Every Day is, for a movie about teenagers, as ambitiously conceived…
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