Jeffrey Zhang
Tomatometer-approved critic
Jeffrey Zhang is a critic and writer living in New York. He is the editor and chief critic for Strange Harbors, a site that covers film, television, and popular culture.
Movies reviews only
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John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) |
The type of exhilarating, metal-as-hell ballet of bullets that blows the doors off action filmmaking. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Mar 25, 2023
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Evil Dead Rise (2023) |
Evil Dead Rise will have you hooting and hollering through a tidal wave of blood and guts, beckoning you with the immortal words of Ashley J. Williams: “Come get some.” - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Mar 19, 2023
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) |
It certainly feels like replacing the low-stakes caper energy of the Ant-Man movies with tedious, wheel-spinning teases of what comes next is a grave miscalculation. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Feb 14, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin (2023) |
Crackling with confident, formal prowess and visual electricity, M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin is the director’s best film since 2004’s The Village. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Infinity Pool (2023) |
It’s easy to take umbrage at more “rich people behaving badly” narratives, but Cronenberg is so blisteringly capable of constructing his own grotesque, hedonistic netherworlds that it’s hard to care too much. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 30, 2023
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Skinamarink (2022) |
Skinamarink is horror as a time machine: a laser-guided missile aimed to unearth a narrow sliver of nighttime willies from days long past... - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 16, 2023
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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) |
Its wild spectacle, unbelievable detail, and technical wizardry will blast the eyeballs out of your sockets, but its honest and sincere undercurrents just might be its secret weapon. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Dec 13, 2022
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The Fabelmans (2022) |
The Fabelmans is therapy via soundstage: an artist’s heart, soul, hopes, and regrets laid bare for the entire world to see. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Nov 17, 2022
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) |
[Ryan] Coogler strikes an affecting balance between spectacle and elegy. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Nov 09, 2022
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Black Adam (2022) |
Goofy, unpretentious crowd-pleaser mode isn’t exactly a bad look for Black Adam. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Oct 27, 2022
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Decision to Leave (2022) |
Decision to Leave is a sensual puzzle box — and one of the year’s best films. Tang Wei is sensational. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Oct 14, 2022
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
The Banshees of Inisherin is tragicomedy at its finest, a specific slice of a combusting amity that just so happens to capture a wide swath of the human condition. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Oct 13, 2022
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Don't Worry Darling (2022) |
There’s just no hiding the massive chasm between how smart Don’t Worry Darling thinks it is and how smart it actually is. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Sep 30, 2022
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Sanctuary (2022) |
Explores the whirlwind disintegration of a relationship that slowly chips away at the barriers between fantasy and reality, class and control. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Sep 30, 2022
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Pearl (2022) |
Pearl is the perfect companion piece to X, scratching an entirely different itch than its grimy predecessor. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Sep 24, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
Glass Onion is a layered machine hiding a trove of interlocking rewards, immensely satisfying when the pieces reveal themselves, but even more so when it’s all blown to bits. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Sep 15, 2022
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Barbarian (2022) |
There’s something sinister - and savage - broiling underground, and it can’t wait to reveal itself to you.
- Strange Harbors
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| Posted Sep 11, 2022
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Prey (2022) |
The latest installment in a flagging franchise, Prey weaponizes its simple formula into a sleek, sci-fi action missile. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Aug 03, 2022
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Bullet Train (2022) |
From its Tarantino pastiche that’s much less clever than it thinks it is -- and much more convoluted than it has any right to be -- to its interminably droning attempts at comedy, Bullet Train feels more like a chore with every stop it makes. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Aug 03, 2022
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Nope (2022) |
A movie about making movies, the pieces of ourselves we feed into the Hollywood meat grinder, and our indomitable obsession with spectacle and its capture. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jul 20, 2022
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Elvis (2022) |
Austin Butler, almost feral with his presence, is a perfect fit for this bombastic odyssey. He kills it. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jul 18, 2022
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Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) |
Its fleet adventure feels like a tonic, free from multiverses, cameos, and the seemingly requisite MCU buildup to the next “thing.” - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jul 05, 2022
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The Black Phone (2021) |
A horror movie as rote, low-impact vapor... - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jun 30, 2022
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Crimes of the Future (2022) |
Sure, there’s sex, there’s surgery, and there’s Carol Spier’s signature fleshy apparati, but the true pleasures of the film lie elsewhere. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jun 18, 2022
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Top Gun: Maverick (2022) |
Like its eponymous ace, it’s a dying breed, but there’s no way it’s going out in gasps or sputters. Not while Tom Cruise still draws breath. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted May 12, 2022
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) |
Multiverse of Madness feels uncharacteristically accommodating of the whims of one Sam Raimi, complete with genuinely gleeful horror, shockingly brutal violence, and a terrifying surprise villain. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted May 04, 2022
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The Northman (2022) |
A sweeping tale of laser-focused retribution, woven into the alien tapestry of ancient Nordic myth. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Apr 26, 2022
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X (2022) |
"Skewers the soured tropes and sex stereotypes of a certain slasher era..." - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Mar 21, 2022
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Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) |
A thoughtful family drama detonated into brain-melting, action sci-fi absurdity. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Mar 16, 2022
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Watcher (2022) |
A creepy technical exercise...ultimately undone by its clench-fisted resistance to budge from textbook tropes. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Mar 13, 2022
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The Batman (2022) |
Matt Reeves' The Batman is an invigorating balm for superhero fatigue. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Feb 28, 2022
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Kimi (2022) |
Leave it to Steven Soderbergh to craft a pandemic tech thriller that is not only immensely watchable, but a paragon of the 90-minute hair-raiser. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Feb 11, 2022
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Resurrection (2022) |
Resurrection unspools a single mother's crushing secret in a steely structure that belies its brazen, outrageous horror. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 27, 2022
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Dual (2022) |
Detached, darkly funny performances jangling around in a heightened reality... - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 26, 2022
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Master (2022) |
Master finds immense power where most social horror films can't or won't these days: in its own contemplative ambiguity. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 26, 2022
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The Princess (2022) |
"...very little new to offer when it comes to one of the most-scrutinized public figures in human history." - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 26, 2022
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Fresh (2022) |
Fresh is a stylistic blast, even if it never lives up to its queasy potential or its electric performances. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 26, 2022
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After Yang (2021) |
It's a story of "technobeings," artificial intelligence, and clones, but also one that lyrically navigates the depths of loss, discovery, and memory. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 24, 2022
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Scream (2022) |
Lands its hits with ruthless efficiency where they count: a rollicking whodunnit that will leave you guessing until the end, and nasty kills that will sate your inner gore-fiend. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Jan 13, 2022
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The Matrix Resurrections (2021) |
The Matrix Resurrections inspects its own place in pop history while thumbing its nose at the very system that birthed it. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Dec 21, 2021
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Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) |
It's anything but artful, but there's no denying the power of its crossover charms... - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Dec 20, 2021
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Benedetta (2021) |
As our entertainment becomes more homogenized and Puritanical, the more precious films like Benedetta become; they're not only art, but deliverance. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Dec 14, 2021
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West Side Story (2021) |
West Side Story traffics in a simple, visceral pleasure: watching a master filmmaker, at the top of his game, work his magic with a stunning cast that can sing, act, and dance. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Dec 02, 2021
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Spencer (2021) |
Powered by a singular, searing performance by Kristen Stewart, Spencer aims not for imitation or adherence to history, but persuasive evocation. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Nov 25, 2021
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Eternals (2021) |
An ambitious mess and a fascinating failure - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Nov 11, 2021
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Last Night in Soho (2021) |
Over-polished, sanitized, and ultimately toothless, Soho's fawning love letter to genre quickly curdles into shallow pastiche. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Nov 04, 2021
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Dune (2021) |
It's difficult to defy the gravitational pull of Dune,'s meticulous world-building and gorgeous craft, even as it keeps its characters in the shadows of its sprawling grandeur. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Oct 21, 2021
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The Power of the Dog (2021) |
Upending the rawhide masculinity of turn-of-the-century Montana, The Power of the Dog's seeping venom sneaks up on you in an arresting slow burn. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Oct 15, 2021
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No Time to Die (2021) |
In many ways, No Time to Die is a perfect microcosm of the Craig films: parts of it are undeniably great, but it's also wildly uneven and frustratingly tepid in places - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Oct 09, 2021
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V/H/S/94 (2021) |
Running the gamut of sewer-dwelling cryptids, haunted wakes, and outrageous mad scientists, there's a little something for everyone within the creepy walls of V/H/S/94. - Strange Harbors
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| Posted Oct 06, 2021
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