Theeb movie review: a tiny slice of the Great War, through a child’s eyes
A gorgeous, cracking adventure with a smart ring of authenticity, full of pulpy twists and perils, and with a sweetly naive but gruffly charming young hero.
drama
Youth movie rating: red light
Overwrought nine-tenth-life crisis drama; not even a great cast can create sympathy for the artistic and existential turning points on arty display.
Mustang movie review: the “wife factory”
Smart, perceptive, keenly observant, heartbreaking: how the world crushes girls and turns lively people into automatons merely because they are female.
Exposed movie review: cover it up, burn it, bury it, never look at it again
To call it disjointed is an understatement: Exposed is unintelligible. It feels like two completely different movies inelegantly Frankensteined together.
Anomalisa movie review: maximal mundanity
An astonishing, even perception-altering experience that represents a startling use of animation to tell a story that no live-action film could tell.
Son of Saul movie review: how to remain human
Did you think you had heard all the unbearable stories about the Holocaust? You hadn’t. Hard to watch, but an essential installment of Holocaust cinema.
My All American movie review: football fundamentalism
Not an inspirational football movie but the highlights reel from one, with a golden boy who is his own manic pixie dreamboat. The worst sort of hagiography.
Woodlawn movie review: Jesus is an Alabama football fan, obvs
A film taken with the singular American delusion that Jesus loves football… though it also throws in a new delusion: Jesus hates the U.S. Constitution.
Freeheld movie review: lovers *and* fighters
May be a familiar David-versus-Goliath tale, but it is also an inspiring and hugely emotional experience, due in large part to the powerful performances.
The Finest Hours movie review: that sinking feeling
See this for Casey Affleck: he exudes a classic cinematic masculinity here. Alas, the rest of the film is old-fashioned in ways that are downright stodgy.
