Venom movie review: no teeth, no bite
A dull, dated comic-book clunker that is somehow even smaller and lesser than the sum of its noisy, junky, clichéd bits. So perfunctory that it saps even its excellent cast of all their charisma.
reviews by year
A Star Is Born movie review: a perfect movie in all ways
Instantly sweeps us up in its passion, its electricity, its music, and characters to fall in love with. Lady Gaga is a revelation. It’s impossible to believe Bradley Cooper has never directed before. I adore this movie.
All About Nina movie review: a woman owning her anger
Hail Mary, full of rage. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is utterly incendiary in this own-worst-enemy dramedy that gender-flips a tired genre to give angry new voice to a woman speaking her own truths.
Science Fair documentary review: these kids today, with their changing the world…
Meet some of the most brilliant teenagers alive, high-school students from all over the world competing at the World Cup of genius geekery. Funny, sobering, and inspiring.
Little Women (2018) movie review: sisters weird
This modern update of the beloved classic novel is embarrassingly misjudged, so earnest and on-the-nose a transfer to today that the March sisters feel not like modern girls but odd, out-of-step transplants from another time.
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. documentary review: the multiple identities of a modern artist
A tremendous backgrounder, intimate and personal, on the massively popular — and massively political — hip-hop artist. Here is the source of all her anger and passion, and here is why she needs to be heard.
A Happening of Monumental Proportions movie review: no, honey, no
The title is intentionally ironic, and yet still feels like a bad and desperately unfunny joke. The spectacular all-star cast holds their noses and gamely dives in anyway, for the sake of Judy Greer’s directorial debut.
The Little Stranger movie review: so many ways to be haunted
A glorious gothic conundrum of obsession, delusion, psychological infection, and just possibly actual malevolent spirits. The most haunting aspect of this eerily enrapturing film may be the sly, maddening ambiguity of it all.
Tea with the Dames (aka Nothing Like a Dame) documentary review: legends speak
Come sit next to Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, and Eileen Atkins and eavesdrop on their witty banter, amiable swearing, and grand tales of their stage and film careers.
Mile 22 movie review: unfortunately no one can be told what any of it means
Welcome to the first action movie of the Trump era, wherein civil liberties are a distant fantasy and “no man left behind” has been forgotten, yet this is all “a higher form of patriotism.”
