Sicilian Ghost Story movie review: grim failing tale
A cruel film that hopes to use its fantastical surreality to find some sort of redemption in the senseless, violent, and real-life abuse of a child. There is no magic here, and no meaning.
reviews by year
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies movie review: the last action heroes (to get a movie)
The superhero movie we need, and also the one we karmically deserve. A riot of hilariously zippy animation that gleefully shreds the clichés of the genre while also lovingly embracing its self-referential geek experience.
Puzzle movie review: reclaiming the pieces of her life
Kelly Macdonald is exquisite, bringing a lovely freshness and authentic life to a familiar sort of character. Even a script that is often improbable and strained cannot detract from her journey, hard as it tries to.
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.
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.
