The Mule movie review: the old man and the drugs
Welcome to Peak Apologetics for the Bullshit of White Men, replete with many appalling messages about their endless entitlement to redemption and forgiveness. And as a bonus, it’s racist and sexist.
suspense/thriller
Glass movie review: superhero ’splaining
Earnest and humorless, this is a faux-intellectual Comic Book Guy ponderously well-actually-ing us about shallow superhero tropes and clichés as if those are the most intriguing bits of these stories.
Destroyer movie review: holding out for an antiheroine
Nicole Kidman’s pitiless performance completely upends genre expectations in Karyn Kusama’s tense, grim crime noir. Uncompromising and subtly challenging, like a cerebral itch you can’t quite scratch.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web movie review: an itsy-bitsy reboot
A rote crime action thriller — very car chase! such gunshots! — that drains its protagonist of much of the raw power that has made her so fascinating in the past.
Widows movie review: the women left to clean up men’s messes (LFF 2018)
A heist movie that is gripping and badass, elegant and assured. You could ignore all the social-justice-warrior stuff and just enjoy this as a popcorn thriller. But what makes this so special is how it reexamines the genre’s clichés.
Prospect movie review: frontier sci-fi with a working-class vibe
Smart, gritty-stylish indie science fiction that is actually about ideas, and about building a future world that is authentic and lived-in. It has a really memorable teen-girl protagonist, too, who is badass but still a real kid.
Hunter Killer movie review: dead in the water
The Hunt for Red October as made by a Michael Bay wannabe who can’t even rise to the level of giving-a-propagandistic-crap. Absurd geopolitics and laugh-out-loud clichés abound; tension and excitement do not.
Halloween (2018) movie review: all tricks, few treats
A minor fan-fiction take on the franchise’s mythology: Hey, maybe middle-aged Laurie Strode likes guns LOL? Nowhere near as feminist or as psychologically incisive as it thinks it is. And it’s not even scary.
Bad Times at the El Royale movie review: bad times indeed
A self-indulgent, faux-woke mashup of noir crime, black comedy, and Tarantino-esque ultraviolence. Some great performances, including a spectacular feature debut from Cynthia Erivo; shame they’re so wasted.
The Little Stranger movie review: so many ways to be haunted
A glorious gothic conundrum of obsession, delusion, psychological infection, and just possibly actual malevolent spirits. The most haunting aspect of this eerily enrapturing film may be the sly, maddening ambiguity of it all.
