It’s a cool idea: cast Tracee Ellis Ross as a pop superstar very much in the mold of her mother, diva supreme Diana Ross. Just don’t expect an imitation. In her first major musical role, the Golden Globe-winning star of ABC’s Black-ish acts and sings her role with a blazing …
Read More »'Giri/Haji' Is Your Next Binge-Watching Obsession
Let’s say you are sitting down on your couch to watch TV — a common occurrence, now more than ever! — and are having trouble deciding what, exactly, you’re looking for in regards to an evening’s entertainment. You’re thinking you’d like something with action, maybe some tough-guy posturing and a …
Read More »'Dispatches From Elsewhere' Review: A Journey Into the Weird Beyond
You know those days when you step out the door and it feels like the humidity has slapped you across the face, just in case there was any doubt how hot it was outside? That’s exactly how the quirkiness of AMC‘s new series Dispatches From Elsewhere hits you. From the …
Read More »'The Assistant' Review: A Quietly Devastating Portrait of the MeToo Era
You never see Harvey Weinstein in this movie. He’s never even mentioned. Yet the presence of the disgraced Manhattan film mogul and accused sexual predator is all over The Assistant, a darkly compelling, forensically detailed shocker from Australian writer-director Kitty Green about one young woman’s experience working for a monster. …
Read More »'Just Mercy': A Real-Life Legal Drama About an American Hero
Just Mercy isn’t what you would call groundbreaking — you’ve seen this kind of legal drama before, many times over. But the hard truths about racial injustice in its fact-based storytelling come through loud and clear, thanks to stellar performances from Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx. Jordan plays Bryan …
Read More »Greta Gerwig Delivers a 'Little Women' for a New Generation
It’s the Louisa May Alcott novel that most women cherish and some guys approach like Kryptonite. Thankfully, writer-director Greta Gerwig has not betrayed the feminine gaze that made the two-volume 1860s novel a literary landmark. Far from it. Instead, she shows why this story of four sisters and their mother, …
Read More »Review: 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' Is a Three-Alarm Romance
Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire isone of the most beautiful and transporting films you will ever see. The titular subject is Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a reluctant bride-to-be who refuses to sit for a wedding portrait commissioned by her French Countess mother (Valeria Golino) in 1770. Subterfuge is …
Read More »'Waves' Review: A Family, Two Stories and One Major Young Filmmaker
This emotional typhoon unleashed in Waves is the work of Trey Edward Shults, 31, the Texas-born writer-director marked as a talent to watch thanks to his first two features: the blistering family melodrama/portrait of an addict Krisha (2014) and the blistering family melodrama/psychological horror movie It Comes at Night (2017). …
Read More »'Yesterday' Review: In a Beatles-Less World, Love Really Is All You Need
Imagine that the world has blacked out for a snap. When everything comes back, you find yourself in a timeline where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr hadn’t come together to form the Beatles? You could try to find this quartet of Liverpudlians and hope that lightning …
Read More »'The Souvenir' Review: A Filmmaker Looks Back and Makes a Masterpiece
Remember the name Honor Swinton Byrne — her star is born. In The Souvenir, she plays Julie, a film student in 1980s London who’s being set up to learn a lot of things the hard way. Written and directed by the bracingly brilliant Joanna Hogg, this delicate, dazzling memoir traces …
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