Todd Haynes’ new picture Wonderstruck, about a pair of deaf children in different time periods making pilgrimages to Manhattan, is a curious disappointment with little cumulative dramatic impact. It strives for magic, wonder and to transport us, but as a story it never delivers…
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While many of us fondly recall Winne-the-Pooh as indelible nostalgia and a collection of some of the most enduring characters in all of children’s literature, far fewer are aware of the story’s bittersweet origins. In director Simon Curtis’ new picture, Goodbye Christopher Robin, an…
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One of the best studio movies of the year, Only the Brave is a movie about heroism, family and commitments that breathes life into a familiar movie formula, done here with terrific writing, acting and a genuinely gripping final act. It’s the type of…
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A portrait of childhood as an escape from the hard realities of socioeconomic misfortune and emotionally ill-equipped parents, Sean Baker’s The Florida Project is an observation of a handful of South Florida motel denizens trying their damndest to survive while their children somehow manage to…
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A magnificent technical achievement, Blade Runner 2049 must be seen on the big screen for is visual and aural accomplishments which are, frankly, staggering. As directed by Denis Villeneuve, shot by Roger Deakins and scored by Hans Zimmer, it’s as intensely cinematic as anything…
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The ad campaign is selling Battle of the Sexes as a high comedy, but it’s also a complex behind-the-scenes relationship drama as much about tennis legend Billie Jean King’s hidden identity politics as the overt social ones driving the plot. Directed by Valerie Faris…
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It isn’t Shakespeare, but rather a wicked subversion of Jane Austen on order in the terrific new Lady Macbeth, a tightly coiled portrait of a desperate Victorian housewife who goes to, well, drastic measures for liberation. The picture has the tasteful elegance of any…
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Luc Besson’s epic folly Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a work of unbridled “creativity” that left me agog—and not happily—at its high-concept silliness performed with all the energy of rigor mortis by two sullen, miscast stars without clue what kind…
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