Legend movie review: badfellas
Tom Hardy is fab, but this is GoodFellas-lite, depicting violent sociopaths as glamorous, even amusing, and lacking all understanding of what made them tick.
1960s
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie review: Cold War, lukewarm
Guy Ritchie’s spy-themed GQ fashion shoot. Pure popcorn nonsense, sleek and chic and vaguely funny, but instantly forgettable.
Best of Enemies documentary review: “the practice of malice”
A brilliant, hilarious, exhilarating look at the Gore Vidal v. William F. Buckley paradigm-busting 1968 debates that changed TV journalism for the worse.
Tomorrowland (aka Tomorrowland: A World Beyond) movie review: back to the future
It gets a tad heavy-handed, but my eyes welled with tears of geeky joy at the film’s embrace of an optimism it steadfastly refuses to see as old-fashioned.
The Grand Budapest Hotel movie review: best exotic nonsense
A grownup storybook of a movie spun out of candy-colored nonsense that challenges you to embrace its falseness and deny its romance.
Ida movie review: alas poor Poland?
A beautiful film, and a mysterious one. I don’t quite know what to make of it, but I have been seduced by its evasive intrigue.
Selma movie review: the march of time is slow
A magnificent film, vital and alive, with the most profound sense of immediacy I think I’ve ever felt in a historical story.
Get on Up movie review: James Brown’s bad self
Solid biopic of the godfather of funk and soul, but there’s not much genuinely memorable about it beyond Chadwick Boseman’s stunning breakout performance.
Yves Saint Laurent movie review: underdressed
This biopic of “fashion’s little prince” offers all the elegant precision of a fashion shoot — it’s beautiful, and cold — but lacks a lot of necessary context.
Jersey Boys movie review: it’s not only rock ’n’ roll…
Director Clint Eastwood’s discomfort with his own material is enormous and obvious. Does he just not get pop music, or is he actively disdainful and suspicious of it?
