In the Name of My Daughter movie review: suspenseless Riviera
Not even Catherine Deneuve can save this dramatically inert soap opera of corruption and obsession, which does not even resolve its central mystery.
crime
The Connection (La French) movie review: not-so-good fellas
With supercool 70s chic and a smart crime thriller vibe, this is a welcome throwback to action dramas of the past, before they chose spectacle over story.
The Loft movie review: cheaters code
Plausibility isn’t in the cards for this odious excuse for a thriller. This is all about sexy danger, for sociopathic, misogynistic values of “sexy danger.”
Every Secret Thing movie review: skeletons in the heart
A slow burn mystery in which the secrets aren’t so much about the crimes it explores but truths of women’s emotional lives that are too often ignored.
Girlhood and Honeytrap movie(s) review: mean girl streets
Two films about poor black teen girls offer harrowing — and very universal — portraits of how our culture tries to crush the spirit out of all girls.
Child 44 movie review: Stalin glance
Overly complicated yet somehow anticlimactic, and constructed more with pat Hollywood pomp rather than the authentic grit it demands.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 movie review: stupor hero
Hard to believe, I know, but this is a real movie that real people have unashamedly put their names to. Because a sweet paycheck trumps human dignity.
John Wick movie review: deadly dancing
Funky-elegant, weirdly funny, visually intoxicating. I love this movie so much for how it’s different about being more of the same old stuff we always love.
The Face of an Angel movie review: fiction is stronger than truth
A contemplative film pondering the nature of the difference between reality and fiction, one with resonance beyond the true-crime story it’s kinda sorta about.
The Voices movie review: losing my cool
A chipper woman-hating comedy about a serial killer… that wants us to feel sorry for him? This is disgusting, repulsive, and enraging.
