Annabelle: Creation movie review: common domestic demon doll
All familiar funhouse spooks telegraphed a mile out, with no spiritual or psychological weight, but with some very young girls terrorized for your entertainment.
curated: Star Trek Continues E09: “What Ships Are For”
I love this series!
Fun Mom Dinner movie review: stay at home, moms
Stereotypes and contrived shenanigans don’t seem to actually offer much catharsis for harried moms seeking escape. And the dads inevitably butt into their me-time.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets movie review: story of a thousand clichés
There is barely an original thought in this wackadoodle sci-fi panto, just a lot of tiresome passé attitudes skidding among bug-eyed-monster set dressing.
I’m on BBC World Service’s “The Arts Hour” on Sunday July 30th
We’ll be talking about Dunkirk, The Beguiled, The Big Sick, and lots of other artsy stuff.
Landline movie review: love in the time before smartphones
A charming delight in a retro timeslip. Gillian Robespierre and Jenny Slate continue their rampage of creating wonderfully, memorably flawed women onscreen.
The Big Sick movie review: girlfriend in a coma, the rom-com
A rom-com for people who hate rom-coms. A painfully funny movie, full of enrapturing emotion that captures the glorious contradictions of all kinds of love.
Hounds of Love movie review: serial-killer porn
Lurid, pointless thriller teases us with a teenaged girl’s sexual and mortal peril, creating awful suspense around her abuse. Her terror is your titillation.
Birthright: A War Story documentary review: how America hates women
An enraging, essential documentary rundown of all the ways that women’s rights, agency, and bodily autonomy are under attack in the US. It’s not just about abortion.
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie review: a brief look at the long and the shorts of it
Sweet, subversive, and absolutely hilarious, at once a snarky superhero sendup and an unironically joyful celebration of friendship and imagination.
