The Last Tree movie review: boy interrupted
An astonishingly beautiful coming-of-age story of startling specificity and intense intimacy, yet universal in its compassionate depiction of a child’s perspective dawning on mature self-awareness.
historical
Shirley movie review: lost girls gone mad
A beautiful-ugly film, a work of domestic gothic grotesquerie, of women’s suffocation and sacrifice, pain and isolation. Elisabeth Moss’s performance is next-level glorious in its wackadoo intensity.
13th documentary review: American slavery never ended; here are the receipts
Brutal, necessary watch for all who want to understand why America operates with impunity re its horrendous treatment of Black people. Incisive and shocking, moreso now than when it debuted in 2016.
The Vast of Night movie review: and vast of perspective
Striking sci-fi mood piece, all eeriness and ookiness, wonder and dread. Explicitly Twilight Zone–esque, summoning a midcentury-America innocence in order to shatter its narrowness (and our own).
Spaceship Earth documentary review: under the dome, and under a scrutinous eye
Was Biosphere 2 scientific adventure or eco-entertainment? This is a gripping portrait of the billionaire’s folly/performance-art project, a hippie SF soap opera with unsettling resonance for today.
How to Build a Girl movie review: instruction manual not included
The hypocrisy of the world’s expectations of girls gets a gently sardonic knock via an audaciously confident young woman battling to be herself. This is a lovely, goofy movie, easygoing and chaotic.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century documentary review: eat the rich (cuz they’re eating us)
Attention, social justice warriors. French economist Thomas Piketty’s howl-of-rage academic treatise is now a hugely engaging documentary, eye-opening and brutally entertaining. Man the barricades!
Bad Education movie review: school for scandal
A laugh-until-you-cry dramedy burlesque, brilliantly structured and horrifically compelling, about the endless grift that passes for an economy in America. Hugh Jackman is at the peak of his powers.
To the Stars movie review: run into the ground
Coming-of-age melodrama about misfit girls is at first passingly diverting, but it whips up mystery and suspense where it shouldn’t be, diminishing and minimizing an already neglected kind of story.
True History of the Kelly Gang movie review: toxic came the masculinity
Revisionist tale of the Australian folk hero rages against the dark forces that shaped him: emotional and economic neglect and abuse forged in patriarchy and colonialism. Electrifyingly punk and vulgar.
