Marguerite movie review: is ignorance bliss?
A bravura dramedy that beautifully balances tragedy and comedy and asks a tricky question: Is it better to be cynical about art, or happily undiscriminating?
historical
Eddie the Eagle movie review: white man can’t jump, much
Yet another celebration of an overconfident mediocre white man as charming, heroic, and worthy of emulation. It’s inspirational!
Risen movie review: when habeas corpus gets weird
Initially intriguing detective tale of ancient Rome hops genres into fantasy, with a strange manic-preacher-dream-boy seduction of its pragmatic protagonist.
Little Boy movie review: faith-based bomb
A shamefully miscalculated tale of whimsy and come-to-Jesus inspiration with a bizarrely inappropriate haze of Norman Rockwell-esque nostalgia.
Hail, Caesar! movie review: far from perfect, but pretty swell
Full of the Coen Brothers’ usual exuberant joie de cinema, and a helluva lot of fun, but too scattershot to ever settle on saying the things it has to say.
Embrace of the Serpent movie review: mild Amazonian odyssey
More intriguing in its ambitions than in it successes, which are limited, and oddly keeps its distance from the very people it wants to enlighten us about.
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.
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.
