Apostasy movie review: witness to the oppression of religion
A scathing critique of inhumanity in the name of religion — in this case, Jehovah’s Witnesses — made all the more chilling by its drab colorlessness and mute suffocation.
2018 theatrical releases
93Queen documentary review: women are doing it for themselves
An enormously entertaining portrait of Hasidic women who started their own all-female EMS team in Brooklyn. Eye-opening and stereotype-shattering.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout movie review: here we go again
Masterful. I had so much fun with this, often laughing out loud in relief when the tension of a breathless action scene finally broke. So why am I feeling a bit meh about it?
The Receptionist movie review: unpretty woman
Gloomy, authentic, essential: this auspicious feature debut from writer-director Jenny Lu is an anti–fairy tale of forgotten women and the false promises of end-stage capitalism.
The First Purge movie review: a ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ for #BlackLivesMatter
This shrewd sci-fi horror franchise is as sharp as ever as it reaches yet further down into the unpleasant flipside of the American myth. A rare prequel that doesn’t feel superfluous.
Whitney documentary review: an 80s icon contemplated, venerated, mourned
Deeply moving, truly tragic; a biography with a keenly journalistic but hugely sympathetic eye. Powerful compassion and a get-up-and-dance deployment of Houston’s music may well bring her a new generation of fans.
Boundaries movie review: family lies
Mildly wacky road-trip shenanigans meet mildly uncomfortable family dramedy. The saving grace? The cast is a joy to spend time with.
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms movie review: the tragedy of the immortal
Epic yet intimate, this is a visually gorgeous and emotionally lush fantasy drama about love and hope set in a violent but beautifully realized invented world.
Eating Animals documentary review: where’s the beef (coming from)?
The philosophical and the sentimental trump the practical in this exposé of factory farming that, while effective in showing us the horrors, offers only simplistic solutions.
The Happy Prince movie review: in the gutter, looking at the stars
Writer, director, and star Rupert Everett’s labor of cinematic love, about the last years of Oscar Wilde, is a small wonder of contradictions: nightmarish yet sanguine, a bit sordid yet full of grace.
