Best original organ
For fans of writer/director David Cronenberg’s films, his newest, Crimes of the Future, is cause for celebration. It’s 100 percent unadulterated Cronenberg, and marks a return to the sub-genre he […]
Failed mission
Director Juan Jose Campanella’s “Night Sky” grounds its fantastic premise heavily in the everyday. This is a venerable dramatic tradition, and an intelligent approach, especially when science fiction has become […]
Country creeper
Director Alex Garland’s tersely titled new horror film, Men, is the kind of movie we need more of: unpredictable, relatively inexpensive, and risky. Garland (Ex Machina) builds a genuine sense […]
Heads will roll
Set in ninth- and 10th-century Europe, Robert Eggers’ brutal revenge saga The Northman is a lavish, sweeping film, but its unrelenting gore will undoubtedly repel many viewers. Loosely based on […]
All this and more
Co-directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once is a relentlessly entertaining, hilarious parody of the nonstop kinetics and overused “multiverse” concepts of recent comic book and […]
I, robot
Whether you love or hate Andy Warhol’s work, his impact on the arts as a provocateur, businessman, and impresario is immeasurable. Andrew Rossi’s six-part Netflix series “The Andy Warhol Diaries” […]
Robotic delivery
If Terry Gilliam remade “The Jetsons,” it might go something like Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Bigbug. This French science-fiction comedy takes a generally dark movie sub-genre—robot servants revolting against their human masters—and […]
Direct miss
In Adam McKay’s satire Don’t Look Up, astronomy grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), discover a “planet-killing” comet that’s hurtling toward Earth. […]
Belly up
Adapted from J.R. Moehringer’s memoir, director George Clooney’s The Tender Bar is story worth telling—and at times it’s well-told. But the film never fully coalesces, and it feels like a […]
Carnival swindle
From start to finish, Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is a dreary, plodding, flashy reminder of why filmmakers should leave great movies alone. The William Gresham novel was adapted into […]