When the great classics of world literature were first being written, they were not meant for students or academics decades or centuries in the future. First and foremost, they were meant to foster a relationship between reader and writer. For Andrew Kaufman, who teaches Russian literature at the University of Virginia, that connection came to […]
If Peter Berg was more interested in emulating Michael Mann than Michael Bay, Mile 22 might be something. An international thriller based around getting a high-value asset from point A to point B through extremely hostile territory within a very narrow window should be exciting from beginning to end, a claustrophobic story in the open […]
Ari Aster’s Hereditary may be the best, scariest, and most effective American horror film in years. Not because it has the loudest scares, not because its ghosts have the creepiest faces, and not because its deaths are the most gruesome (though it does have its share). Writer-director Aster’s feature film debut builds dread at an […]
The will to survive is the single most primal instinct in our nature, one that strips away all of the things we use to define ourselves as individuals. Adrift, based on a true story, follows Tami (Shailene Woodley) and Richard (Sam Claflin) on their struggle to find either land or rescue as [...]
Like its title character, Solo: A Star Wars Story often threatens to go wildly off track and ruin everything it has going for it, before it comes back with charm and skill, ready to save the day despite its rough edges. The second, after Rogue One, of the so-called Star Wars anthology [...]
With Deadpool 2, the deconstruction becomes the norm. That’s not necessarily a bad thing given how bloated and redundant the X-Men franchise has become, and how terrifically its predecessor broke every taboo while delivering a solid film with a real story of its own. But how do you skewer [...]
Credit is due to Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy for their efforts to inject meaningful emotions into broad comedies without punching down or relying on unwarranted meanness for their punchlines. But it would help if those punchlines were funny. Back in 2013, their collaboration on Tammy used [...]
Though Broken Lizard found mixed critical and financial results with its subsequent follow-ups to the 2001 cult hit Super Troopers, you do have to hand it to the guys for wanting to try something different before coming back around to the property that launched their film and TV careers. The [...]
There’s really only one way to sell the story of a Special Forces veteran and anti-poaching commando turned conservationist who’s helping his overgrown gorilla friend overcome anger issues to stop a flying porcupine-wolf and a crocodile-leviathan from destroying Chicago: completely [...]
A dialogue of national reconciliation takes the form of a courtroom drama in Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult, one of this year’s nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. It all begins as a minor conflict between a Lebanese Christian mechanic, Tony (Adel Karam), and a Palestinian engineer living in [...]
Before we get into just how much Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One misses the mark, it’s worth noting that its badness has nothing to do with video games and the people who enjoy them. Critics often come down harder on movies about subcultures they disapprove of or simply haven’t taken the [...]
You have to respect when a director clearly loves the material and subject of his movie, and when a performer is perfectly cast and goes the extra mile to give the character extra weight. You just don’t have to like it. So it goes with Tomb Raider and critic favorite Alicia Vikander, who is [...]
In Red Sparrow, a fallen Russian ballerina (Jennifer Lawrence) is given an impossible choice—to sacrifice her free will and dignity for her country by becoming a “sparrow” trained in the art of exploiting the sexual vulnerabilities of her targets, or lose the apartment and medical coverage [...]
Game Night is a funny, exciting thriller-comedy with fun performances and a story that keeps you guessing. Who in the world saw this coming? Certainly not whoever edited the trailer, which sold it as another underwritten yarn with an on-the-nose title about insufferable schmucks who get in over [...]
With the release of Black Panther, it’s tempting to reflect on how far the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come in 10 years, and how it has essentially reinvented the film industry and become the standard bearer for quality mass entertainment in a genre that has rarely risen above [...]
War has been a part of the human experience for all of recorded history. But what happens when the things that drive us to it are no longer a factor? Resources, borders, languages, religions; if we found ourselves in a situation where none of those things truly mattered, would we still find [...]
The world of Paul Thomas Anderson is one in which the mundane, everyday lives of its characters are already riveting before something positively insane happens. Look at his most recent films—had There Will Be Blood only been about the hunt for oil against a beautifully bleak landscape, you [...]
Forget everything you think you knew about Tonya Harding. While you’re at it, forget everything you’ve seen about I, Tonya, a deep dive into the infamous assault on Nancy Kerrigan leading up to the figure skating competition in the 1994 Olympics. The film is being sold partially as a tabloidy [...]
You can always tell the parts of a film that directors feel personally attached to by what hits the viewer on an emotional level—and what doesn’t make sense on any level. With The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro transports us to a world where love between two outcasts—a woman and a [...]
Not only is Star Wars: The Last Jedi the best entry in the series since 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, it may well be the first to truly break new cinematic ground since the 1977 original. Writer-director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper, the best episodes of “Breaking Bad”) employs the full [...]
Not many people are able to fail their way to success, to turn what ought to have been their most humiliating defeat into fame and profit. Then again, Tommy Wiseau is not most people. A perplexing mix of sincerity and complete mystery, Wiseau gained notoriety as the writer, director, producer [...]
While attempting a brief vacation from being the world’s greatest detective, Inspector Hercule Poirot has been reading the hell out of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. With every page, he cackles in delight, a reaction likely based as much on the opportunity to let someone else tell the [...]
In 2013, one of the deadliest wildfires in recent history claimed 25 lives, 19 of whom were members of an elite squad of firefighters known as the Granite Mountain Hotshots. All but one lost their lives while struggling to contain the blaze, which appeared routine until wind and other factors [...]