Josh Larsen

As someone with only a basic knowledge of Bob Dylan, I can’t say I came away from A Complete Unknown with much more of an understanding of the man, his music, or his cultural significance.

As for the werewolf effects, I appreciate that they appear to mostly rely on practical elements, but the end result still leaves you wanting: this wolf man is less rabid animal than angry burn victim.

Nickel Boys overflows with formal ingenuity and daring.

Soderbergh, who serves as editor, cinematographer, and director, gets significant mileage out of the visual conceit alone.

Nasty stuff—of the sort, lord knows, that I’ve praised plenty in my time. But in this case the return on icky investment just isn’t there.

The movie has a self-aware streak that isn’t too self-impressed, as well as an amusing flair for the absurd.

Torres gives a performance that gains strength even as Eunice increasingly trembles; this is no stoic, generic portrait of resilience, but one that’s always counting the cost.

You can feel the warm ocean breeze against your cheek while watching Moana 2, so supple and visceral is the animated artistry on display.

The Brutalist is a momentous movie, if not quite as momentous as it thinks it is.

The techniques ultimately reveal the way art can foster the sort of emotional connection that is vital to the human experience.

Nosferatu feels unique compared to other Dracula variations in the way this world appears drained—of color, light, nearly life itself. It’s as if blood has been sucked from the very images.

Much of what makes a great Pedro Almodovar film can be found in The Room Next Door: a layered narrative, a thoughtful color scheme, a focus on women, and an intense interest in sex and/or death. But a certain vitality is strangely missing, and not because of the subject matter.

Harrowing, certainly, but also a beautiful promise of renewal.

Plummer, so good in Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete (another horse movie of a sort), shines here, especially in one of those final shots that holds on an actor’s face and asks them to seal the movie’s deal. Plummer does, with flying colors.

A powder keg of movie-musical performances, Wicked balloons the Broadway sensation in unnecessary ways—this is only Part I, despite the fact that it runs nearly three hours—but I hardly minded thanks to the dynamic force of its two leads.

As long as the movie remains a lightly comic meditation on aging, relationships, and time—say, a junior Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—it’s fantastic and frequently moving. But large chunks veer into television-drama territory, where the movie operates in a more generic register.

Washington has the most fun, swishing about in dangling jewels and flowing robes, while Mescal—one of our best young actors—struggles to define Lucius outside of Crowe’s shadow. As for the relentless fights and battles, I found them to be increasingly tedious—even the wild ones with animals, given their reliance on CGI effects.

Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) lets the racial tension largely simmer beneath the surface (Terry is Black), leaning into his trademark, straight-ahead propulsive style.

Educational, intimate, and transcendent, Dahomey is a minor treasure of its own.

There’s a beating heart to the film, but it’s faint.

Even as the movie itself unnecessarily spirals further into madness and attendant plot holes—perhaps inspired by the wackadoo escalations of recent horror such as Malignant, Barbarian, and Longlegs—Grant makes for a genially deranged host.

Anora is a tale of two shots: its first and its last.

Unfortunately, as nuanced as writer-director Azazel Jacobs’ script is about sibling relationships and impending morality, it never allows this cast to break out of these types that are established in the opening scene.

Blitz gets a little preachy at times (perhaps another Dickens influence), but there is also a stark honesty about the dread and difficulty of living as a civilian under siege—as a person of color or not. And of course McQueen manages instances of jaw-dropping imagery.

This is a movie that has the courage of its own convictions, but also the playfulness to wear them lightly on its ridiculously embroidered sleeves.

There’s a fleshiness to the material that you can almost feel, as if you were stroking your own face.

There is no doubt the material is elevated by the interplay between Fey and Poehler.

It’s the performances that ultimately carry the film.