Monkey Kingdom documentary review: growing up in the jungle
Simplistic, but a charming and child-friendly introduction to our cousins in the wild that no zoo could provide, with a monkey heroine whom kids will cheer.
reviews
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.”
Camp X-Ray movie review: all of us behind bars
Superbly unsettling. Pointedly highlights how incarceration dehumanizes inmate and guard alike. Kristen Stewart’s steeliness is perfectly suited to its ironies.
A Perfect Day movie review: war is hellacious
This compact little satire — set in 1990s Balkans — is a small, personal story about huge unfairnesses and injustices. Bleakly, bitterly, blackly funny.
Carol movie review: flung out of space
Flawless in every way: sumptuous visually and emotionally. One of the more mature and sophisticated romances the big screen has ever seen.
The Danish Girl movie review: sometimes it’s hard to be a woman
Safe, conventional, and not particularly sympathetic to women, cis or trans. Mistakes the external signifiers of femininity with actually being a woman.
The Hateful Eight movie review: all hat, no cattle
Inexcusably self-indulgent. Tarantino gratifies his enormous self-love and his amusement at his own genius at the expense of all else.
Anesthesia movie review: getting unnumbed to pain
The beautiful performances and raw intimacy are definitely worth your time, but its wispy good intentions ultimately dissipate into thin air.
A War (Krigen) movie review: the heat of battle and the cold light of day
Emotionally tense and smartly nuanced exploration of an ordinary man under extraordinary pressure; a war movie for how we have redefined war today.
Spotlight movie review: all the pope’s men
An elegy for old-school reportage and the people who pursue it, and a journalistic procedural with a snappy rush of urgent discovery and consequence.
