Eiffel movie review: Gustave’s erection
Comfortably unchallenging French romantic drama, though it does Freudian-slip into implying that the engineer was only inspired to erect his soaring tower when an old flame reawakened his, er, heart.
1880s
Tesla movie review: less than electrifying
Hawke is warm and empathetic, but the film’s artificiality is at odds with a celebration of the visionary’s life and work, and finally offputting. I wish this were either more earnest or more bonkers.
The Current War movie review: fathers of invention, in conflict
An electrifying style lights up this geek adventure of the intersections between science, culture, and capitalism in the 19th-century battle to power our world. Cumberbatch and Shannon are brilliant.
Missing Link movie review: unevolved throwback
A quite literally cartoonishly awful protagonist, a plot that makes no sense, lowbrow humor, and terrible gender dynamics add up to an unpleasant retro mess.
Victoria & Abdul movie review: one of her best friends was brown
Charming based-on-fact British costume dramedy gently snarks about power and propriety but cuts a lot deeper when it comes to bigotry and bootlicking.
The Limehouse Golem movie review: riffing on the Ripper
Lush sensationalism and Dickensian social justice collide in 1880s London, and if there isn’t quite enough of either, it’s still a slice of satisfying gothic horror.
Ballerina (aka Leap!) movie review: lowering the barre
Cheesy Euro ballerina-porn cartoon is full of dated animation, cringeworthy attempts at humor, bizarre anachronisms, and a terrible message for little kids.
Hysteria (review)
Breezy, witty, gently naughty. Hello, steampunk orgasm!
John Carter (review)
This dreary Disneyfied inconsequence features all the bigotries of century-old pulp fiction and none of the romance, neither the sexual nor the adventurous kind…
Cimarron (review)
Wichita just ain’t far enough west for Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix). He longs for the untamed frontier. So when the 1889 Oklahoma land rush puts 2 million acres up for grabs, he packs up the wife, Sabra (Irene Dunne), and the kid, Cimarron (which means ‘wild,’ we’re told), and heads off to help build a new world, or, more specifically, the boomtown of Osage, Oklahoma.
