Blitz movie review: the unraveling of propaganda
Picaresque childhood misadventures sketch vibrant WWII London. A movie of brutal randomness, feral intensity, and ferocious intimacy. Wildly human, artistically masterful, and completely magnificent.
war/antiwar
Lee movie review: the things she saw, and the way she saw them
It barely scratches the surface of the enormous audacity of WWII photographer Lee Miller, but still this is an important movie. It’s also joyous filmmaking, with terrific performances all around.
Civil War movie review: a craven view from nowhere
A spineless dystopian action drama that defaults to a dangerously irresponsible both-sides-ism; its pretense of “objectivity” is unfair to the journalist protagonists the film thinks it’s championing.
Dune: Part Two movie review: shifting sands
Ugly, outrageous, brutal, and cynical; a genuinely terrifying film about power and politics as religion and control. There is little escapism here; hits square in the social plexus of horrifying 2024.
Godzilla Minus One movie review: the horrors of the past, reconsidered
The king of all monsters gets a period-piece reboot, and it’s the closest the series has gotten since to the sincere, unironic horrors of the 1954 original. No comfy escape from terrible reality here.
The Creator movie review: meat versus metal
Looks great, but the plot falls apart if you poke it and makes no attempt to grapple with AI’s potential. Instead it renders its robot people as a racialized Other in a clunky metaphor for bigotry.
Oppenheimer movie review: a particle of concern, a wave of complicity
With human paradoxes at its nucleus, this is a riveting portrait, both intimate and epic, of the self-involved men who think they make the world go round… and too often, tragically, do.
Mavka: The Forest Song movie review: the dark of the woods comes too late
Traditional folk music and beautifully animated mythic motifs may be rightfully validating for homegrown Ukrainian audiences, but there’s little else beyond that novelty to capture others’ imagination.
Avatar: The Way of Water movie review: blueface on a blue planet
The filmmaking craft may be (mostly) astonishing. But the craft must always — always — be in aid of a compelling story populated by compelling characters… and that’s not so much the case here.
Top Gun: Maverick movie review: we’re well into the danger zone
With its melancholy regret and bittersweet nostalgia, this is far superior to the 1986 blockbuster. But as the sun goes down on American imperialism here, the last-gasp celebration of it unsettles.
