Miles Ahead movie review: where the music takes you
A fantasy about Miles Davis’s life and music; loose, free-flowing, a kind of cinematic jazz. An astonishingly assured directorial debut from Don Cheadle.
music
Love & Mercy movie review: strange vibrations
Intense, unconventional, often uncomfortable portrait of Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson that transcends the typical clichés about madness and creativity.
Rock the Kasbah movie review: whitemansplaining, the movie
Behold Bill Murray as the white savior barreling into a foreign land and teaching the ignorant natives how to be better people. Obnoxious and tone deaf.
What Happened, Miss Simone? documentary review: this is what happened
Powerful, intimate, and fresh. We desperately need to hear more women talking about being driven in an inexorable way toward a passion.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip movie review: born to be mild
Instantly forgettable but inoffensive fluff… you know, for kids. And “inoffensive” is better than can be said for many movies aimed at children.
Tumbledown movie review: letting go of the past
A portrait of grief that borrows the conventions of romantic comedies. There may not be a lot of passion here, but there is plenty of pleasant zing.
Jem and the Holograms movie review: rock ’n’ roll fantasy
Utterly implausible on every level, and ultimately rather insulting: a bit of glitter and lots of hugs are the sum total of its “girl power.”
Janis: Little Girl Blue documentary review: the painful soul of the music
A compassionate, intimate unpacking of the legend of Janis Joplin that reveals the troubled influences on the force-of-nature singer she willed into being.
Ricki and the Flash movie review: rocking (down and) out
There’s some good stuff here, like the prickly relationships between women at odds with one another, but too much feels too contrived to fully satisfy.
Straight Outta Compton movie review: men’s anger, but only when it makes them righteous
The seething rage radiating from the screen elevates this above similar movies. But that rage is truncated in ways that are hard to ignore.
