Dune movie review: dreams of alien worlds
Monumental. Villeneuve tells a familiar story with uncommon elegance and pensiveness, even dreaminess, on a breathtaking scale. A stunningly gorgeous, supremely dignified movie about ugly things.
2021 releases
No Time to Die movie review: no, Mr Bond, I expect you to retire
In the era of COVID and Brexit, much of this overstuffed adventure feels redundant, farcical, inconsequential, and desperate. But Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch show us the way to a future for 007.
Censor movie review: the horror of the persistence of memory
Ambiguous, introspective, thoughtful. As weirdly uncomfortable as horror should be, and rarely is, as it examines how these movies can infect us. Niamh Algar is terrific, and deeply empathetic.
The Many Saints of Newark movie review: far from heaven
The performances are terrific, the evocation of the period striking, but it feels redundant, more GoodFellas-lite than The Sopranos, and with several TV seasons’ worth of story crammed in.
The Card Counter movie review: unnatural stillness at the center of the storm
Grim, mysterious, and unsettling, never more so than when it is quiet and still. But a brutality lurks below its calm, slick surface. Oscar Isaac’s performance is a work of astonishing minimalism.
Copilot movie review: how love warps women’s lives
Tragic anti-romance uses cinematic conventions and the presumptions of fiction to disorient us. Bursts the bubble of a certain kind of movie delusion to highlight a harsh reality of women’s lives.
Cinderella (2021) movie review: from the ashes…
Fairy tale goes jukebox musical with a feminist, gender-fluid spin. Throws irony and sarcasm at heterosexuality, patriarchy, even monarchy. Pretty darn fun, with a sweetly spunky Ella in Cabello.
The Last Bus movie review: middle of the road
British twee is baked into this slight travelogue. Spall’s performance is lovely, and though the film mostly avoids overt schmaltz in favor of mild sentimentality, it’s gentle to the point of inertia.
Together movie review: lockdown love-hate
Fresh, raw, wielding physical and psychological intimacy like a shiv, this is a deeply compelling, empathetic emotional roller coaster fueled by McAvoy’s and Horgan’s intense and cutting performances.
Candyman movie review: say his name… and understand its power
Strikingly original horror with a purpose: to delve into the mythologizing of the past, to explore the boundary between cultural appropriation and artistic inspiration, to heed the lessons of history.
