Examining the considerable contributions made by Native Americans to America’s popular music, the documentary “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World” is celebratory as it fills in missing chapters in the story of rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, blues, and soul. But it also doesn’t shy away from our country’s horrific legacy of discrimination against its […]
Movie Reviews
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Film review: ‘Landline’
Following up their daring and all-around extraordinary romantic comedy “Obvious Child,” writer-director Gillian Robespierre and actor Jenny Slate reteam for the authentic, heartfelt, and often very funny “Landline,” a melancholy comedy about a Manhattan family in crisis. Dana (Slate) is experiencing some insecurity in her relationship with her sweet, but not very exciting fiancรฉ, Ben […]
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Film review: ‘Lady Macbeth’
What starts off as a genteel period film, the chilling “Lady Macbeth” gradually reveals the irreparable rot at its core. Set in 1865 rural England, the film tells the story of 17-year-old Katherine (Florence Pugh), who as the story begins, has been sold into a loveless marriage to Alexander (Paul Hilton), a man more than […]
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Film review: ‘Atomic Blonde’
The stylish “Atomic Blonde” has much in
common with its protagonist: it’s brutal and glamorous, though somewhat hollow
at its core
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Film review: ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’
Luc Besson is an optimist at heart. That defining trait accounts for the candy-colored, utopian vision of the future depicted in the French director’s “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.” It also accounts for the leap of faith that convinced the filmmaker that two relatively untested leads could carry his massively ambitious space […]
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Film review: ‘Girls Trip’
Coming hot on the heels of recent disappointing “women-behaving-badly” comedies “Snatched” and “Rough Night,” “Girls Trip” succeeds in showing those films how it’s done. The movie gives its audience the raucous comedy and heartfelt emotion that those films promised, but only sporadically delivered. “Girls Trip” follows four women, old college friends who’ve fallen out of […]
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Film review: ‘A Ghost Story’
There’s a thrill in seeing a filmmaker truly take a risk; it’s even better when they manage to pull it off. A mournful meditation on love, loss, and the afterlife, “A Ghost Story” isn’t the type of movie most directors would choose to follow their first big-budget, special effects-laden feature. But that’s what David Lowery […]
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Film review: ‘Dunkirk’
Christopher Nolan is sometimes accused of being a cold filmmaker. It’s a side effect of his chilly aesthetic, although anyone who’s seen “Interstellar” knows Nolan can crank up the emotion when he wants to. But a lack of sentimentality serves him well in “Dunkirk,” the British director’s stunningly visceral World War II epic. The film […]
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Film review: ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’
It seems appropriate that I heard news of director George Romero’s passing while leaving a showing of “War for the Planet of the Apes.” Romero was a master at using genre filmmaking as a lens through which to explore social issues like civil rights, consumerism, militarism, and xenophobia. The messages in Romero’s films were rarely […]
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Film review: ‘Maudie’
Wonderful performances from Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke distract from some storytelling shortcomings in “Maudie,” a gentle biopic of Nova Scotian folk artist Maud Lewis. The film opens in the 1930’s rural village where Maud (Hawkins) lives with an overbearing aunt, after her family decided the arthritic Maud would be unable to take care of […]
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Film review: ‘Lost in Paris’
An affectionate ode to screwball and silent film-era comedy, “Lost in Paris” springs from the minds of Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon, a Brussels-based husband-and-wife burlesque duo. Tackling writing, directing, and starring duties, the pair turn a bittersweet romantic fable into an irresistibly charming slapstick confection. The film begins in a snowy mountain town in […]
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Film review: ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’
With three different live-action iterations of the web-slinging hero appearing across six different films over the span of the last 15 years, it was hard to work up enthusiasm for another. But fresh characterizations and an appealing cast set the new Spider-Man film apart.
