The Founder movie review: look at what the golden arches hath wrought
Rather brilliant and kind of inspiring until it turns frightening and even sinister. A dark tale of the beginning of end-stage capitalism as profit above all.
reviews by genre
The Bye Bye Man movie review: don’t think it, don’t say it, don’t see it
One of the most inept films I’ve ever seen. Cheaply made, poorly directed, badly acted, oddly edited, and ultimately insultingly stupid.
La La Land movie review: city of stars, shining just for us
A marvel. Funny and exuberant and bittersweet and cliché-busting and unexpected as hell. We are going to need more movies like this one.
Zero Days documentary review: the code war has begun
Fascinating and horrifying. A gripping detective story and an impassioned call for public debate over terrifying weapons that have already been loosed.
Silence movie review: not golden
This overlong, underpowered tale of Christian martyrdom, in which iconography and allusion stand in for character, is a challenge to even the Scorsese faithful.
Live by Night movie review: criminal tedium
Commits the cardinal sin of cinema: it’s boring. Feels like two hours of highlights from a 20-episode miniseries that only hint at a rich story tapestry.
Operation Avalanche movie review: to the moon?
This Apollo-era would-be suspense-thriller mockumentary is more an exercise in “look how film-school cool and clever we are” than anything else.
Monster Trucks movie review: what a car-tastrophe
What if “monster trucks” actually meant — wait for it — that there were monsters in the trucks? From an idea by a four-year-old (really), and it shows.
A Monster Calls movie review: the monster is within us all
A fairy tale of the Grimm sort: no happy ending, no heroes or villains, just hard truths about life and human nature. Important, beautiful, heartbreaking.
Collateral Beauty movie review: there is no beauty in this
Appalling and sadistic. How can anyone who is not a sociopath look at this horrible attempt at feel-good fantasy and say, “This is fine, this is healthy”?
