The Batman movie review: to bat, or not to bat
No snark, no spandex pantomime spectacle. Just noir mystery, Pattinson’s sad recluse a detective in a cesspit of corruption. Relentlessly grim, all darkness and despair, not escapist but of our time.
reviews
The Burning Sea (Nordsjøen) movie review: nightmare (fossil) fuel
Not terribly disastrous… until it is. Then movie-movie melodrama gives way to eco-cataclysm and new realms of planetary existential nightmare. I cannot recall a movie’s ending haunting me this much.
Cyrano movie review: out of tune
Peter Dinklage is wonderful, but this feels like a suggestion of a movie, not an actual one. It’s not romantic; there’s no humor, no absurdity. Its unpleasantness is as puzzling as it is inescapable.
Dog movie review: magic mutt
Wounded veterans in reluctant-buddy road trip. Allegedly a comedy, but I don’t see much evidence for that. The schmaltz may be slightly more convincing than the comedy, but it’s a low bar to get over.
Death on the Nile movie review: Kenneth Branagh steps in the same river twice
This should be salacious! We should revel in the seething jealousy and simmering resentments! But there’s not much suspense or engagement in waiting for someone to die, nor in finding out whodunnit.
Blacklight movie review: turn it off
Feels less like a movie than it does a hostage video. Poor Liam Neeson isn’t trying to hide how exhausted and trapped he is in his cinematic hamster wheel of cheap, violent revenge thrillers. It’s sad.
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché documentary review: a howl out of the past for today
A loving appreciation, but never a blinkered one, of the punk philosopher, a woman ahead of her time and still timely: iconoclastic, creative, ever-searching, a cultural observer who saw deep and far.
Maxima and Mothers of the Revolution documentaries review: women getting it done
Two new documentaries tell inspiring stories about ordinary women radicalized into revolutionary action, from anti-nuke protests in the 1980s to anti-corporate and anti-corruption activism today.
Flee documentary review: home is when you don’t have to run away
Impossibly, heartbreakingly poignant, rooted in tough emotion and hard realities. A deeply humane movie that makes an unspoken, effortless plea for compassion for refugees’ distress and desperation.
A Taste of Hunger movie review: salt fat acid heat
Contemplative and tenderly observed, a slow-burn romantic and family drama about two complicated, difficult people and what they’re willing to risk to achieve their dream. Plus: Scandi food porn!
