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The Little Mermaid
(2023)
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Noëlle D. Lilley
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Overall, it’s a visually gorgeous film, buoyed by a strong ingenue in Bailey with enough laughs for the kids and the nostalgic adults—just don’t expect anything new.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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Kandahar
(2023)
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Joey Shapiro
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If I’m going to watch this man retcon the war on terror to look heroic, it should at the very least be over-the-top enough to be entertaining.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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Fast X
(2023)
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Joey Shapiro
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Fast X continues the franchise’s mission to scale bigger and campier heights, and there are moments that will have you full-volume hooting and hollering in your seat, but it’s undone by the gravest sin of this cinematic universe: it breaks up the family.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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All Man: The International Male Story
(2022)
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Maxwell Rabb
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All Man: The International Male Story offers a touching retrospect of this nearly forgotten landmark of men’s fashion.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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The Boogeyman
(2023)
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Joey Shapiro
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It fits neatly into this lineage of trauma monster movies like Smile, Men, and Hatching...thankfully, despite the lack of subtlety inherent to that approach, it’s probably the best of the bunch so far.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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Past Lives
(2023)
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Maxwell Rabb
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Celine Song’s debut film is, without a doubt, one of the best films of the year.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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The Quiet Epidemic
(2022)
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Kathleen Sachs
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It’s hard to deny that CLD and the controversy surrounding it evoke many existential questions about the reality of suffering that are best served by this particular medium.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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Reality
(2023)
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Dmitry Samarov
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By presenting testimony without editorializing, the film becomes a searing indictment of a country that routinely punishes low-level true believers while rewarding traitors and opportunists up the food chain for their treachery.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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Shooting Stars
(2023)
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David Riedel
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This adaptation of Lebron James’s and Buzz Bissinger’s 2009 book would have done better as a six-to-eight-hour limited series. There’s a compelling story here, but this version isn’t it.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
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Josh Flanders
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It’s hard to follow up such a success, but Across the Spider-Verse (the second of a planned trilogy) takes the action and the story to the next level and may just be a superior film.
Posted Jun 03, 2023
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About My Father
(2023)
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Andrea Thompson
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By the movie’s end, the real joke is how far it takes smiling white obliviousness...
Posted May 31, 2023
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Master Gardener
(2022)
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Maxwell Rabb
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Gardener’s entire premise hinges on this disquieting revelation, and unfortunately, the film falls short of enduring impressions...
Posted May 24, 2023
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Love to Love You, Donna Summer
(2023)
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Jamie Ludwig
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This is a daughter’s exploration of who her mother was at her core, and why she lived her life and made her choices the way she did.
Posted May 24, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Dmitry Samarov
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Definitely one to watch the way most people do with SNL: wait till the highlights hit YouTube and skip the rest.
Posted May 24, 2023
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Alam
(2022)
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Adam Mullins-Khatib
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Khoury’s Alam is an affecting and effective film firmly fixated on contradictions and how we navigate them to create a sense of self.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
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Josh Flanders
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While better than most recent Marvel or DC films, it definitely lacks the fun, buddy-film aspects and sincere relationships of the original in lieu of an exhausting mission-based story.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Peter Pan & Wendy
(2023)
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Colleen Morrissey
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Peter Pan & Wendy is a puzzlingly bland take on one of the liveliest children’s stories of all time.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Waiting for the Light to Change
(2022)
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Kathleen Sachs
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This award-winning drama has a patient, character-focused script.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Book Club: The Next Chapter
(2023)
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Marah Eakin
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This one’s more of a mindless beach read than a Pulitzer Prize–winning page-turner.
Posted May 17, 2023
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What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?
(2023)
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Donald Liebenson
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It’s a long overdue vindication for the band.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Tantura
(2022)
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Maxwell Rabb
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The documentary reevaluates the standards of truth, interrogating Israel’s dismissal of these events to begin a new, compelling conversation about Tantura.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
(2023)
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Tarek Fayoumi
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The unforgettable documentary demonstrates realism and emotion, while never going too far down the rabbit hole of sadness, finding the light in Fox’s life as well.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Love Again
(2023)
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Marah Eakin
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It’s got a Hallmark-level plot, and in other hands, perhaps the movie could be a little charming.
Posted May 17, 2023
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The Mother
(2023)
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Noah Berlatsky
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So yes, this is a genre exercise and nothing else. But, to be fair, if you’re doing the thing, there’s a certain virtue to just unapologetically doing the thing.
Posted May 12, 2023
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4/4
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Farewell My Concubine
(1993)
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Fred Camper
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It is [Chen's] controlled, poetic, even visionary use of his medium that gives the film power and meaning.
Posted May 02, 2023
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R.M.N.
(2022)
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Noah Berlatsky
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The film’s rejection of bigotry is undermined by its own uncomfortable assumptions about whose story is worth telling and who gets to represent the community.
Posted Apr 29, 2023
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Polite Society
(2023)
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Andrea Thompson
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It’s a delightfully kick-ass ode to sisterhood, whether familial or found.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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Judy Blume Forever
(2023)
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Becca James
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Stirring, essential, and sincere, Judy Blume Forever is just as enjoyable as Blume’s oeuvre has always been and will always be.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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Everything Went Fine
(2021)
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David Riedel
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Everything Went Fine is well made without being entertaining—though entertainment doesn’t seem to be its goal—and it will reward patient audiences who appreciate a deliberate march toward an inevitable conclusion.
Posted Apr 28, 2023
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Personality Crisis: One Night Only
(2022)
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Dmitry Samarov
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What raises this above the typical nostalgia-logged music doc is the clear sense that Johansen is not reliving his long discography onstage but continuing to live it in that moment.
Posted Apr 26, 2023
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Evil Dead Rise
(2023)
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Joey Shapiro
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The first sequel in a full decade, this should feel like getting an Evil Dead reunion, but instead it’s more akin to a so-so tribute band.
Posted Apr 26, 2023
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Beau Is Afraid
(2023)
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Maxwell Rabb
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Its paranoiac surrealism mutates from its most enticing feature into its greatest shortcoming during its three-hour runtime. That said, it’s clear that Aster is experimenting with his artistic vision, and it’s likely to produce excellence another time.
Posted Apr 26, 2023
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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
(2023)
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Catey Sullivan
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Like the book, the Lionsgate movie offers a gently informative, often hilarious, and always empathetic depiction of a sixth grader yearning for, getting, and celebrating her first period.
Posted Apr 26, 2023
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Chevalier
(2022)
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Alani Vargas
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While the film plays loosely with the facts, Harrison plays Bologne in a way that garners empathy and makes you root for him, even when he’s not the most pleasant.
Posted Apr 17, 2023
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Hilma
(2022)
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Dmitry Samarov
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In a Q&A after a recent screening, Olin admitted that they only learned about the painter a couple years before making this film. It shows.
Posted Apr 15, 2023
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Mafia Mamma
(2023)
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Maxwell Rabb
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It moves tactlessly from scene to scene, adorned with outrageous shoot-outs and lousy jokes, producing a feverish cinematic experience.
Posted Apr 15, 2023
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Renfield
(2023)
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Andrea Thompson
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Get ready, because there’s yet another new take on Dracula. But no need to brace yourself, because Renfield feels surprisingly fresh.
Posted Apr 15, 2023
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie
(2023)
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John Wilmes
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Among the many errors of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, screenwriter Matthew Fogel plops him and his brother Luigi into a milquetoast Brooklyn family that doubts them and disrespects their small-business dreams.
Posted Apr 15, 2023
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Tommy Guns
(2022)
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Noah Berlatsky
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Conceição has created a smart, strange film that is disjointed because colonialism is a thing of disjointed desires, histories, and deaths.
Posted Apr 15, 2023
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The Worst Ones
(2022)
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Dmitry Samarov
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The line between fact and fiction always blurs when a camera is pointed at people, but in Lisa Akoka and Romane Gueret’s arresting new feature, it’s more like a game of three-card monte.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Tori and Lokita
(2022)
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Maxwell Rabb
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Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne specialize in social realism, unwaveringly committed to their characters and craft, and Tori and Lokita is no exception.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Spinning Gold
(2023)
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Marah Eakin
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The movie suffers from a lack of objectivity about its subject as well as from a lack of vision about the film’s true direction...
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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One True Loves
(2023)
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Noah Berlatsky
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At its core, One True Loves isn’t really a zany screwball film. It’s a dramatic weeper with surprising heart.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Air
(2023)
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Maxwell Rabb
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Affleck’s return to the director’s chair is an exceptional success, stimulated by its script and cast.
Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods
(2023)
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Adam Mullins-Khatib
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The original film left nothing of substance for this superhero sequel.
Posted Mar 25, 2023
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John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
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Josh Flanders
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You would think that by John Wick 4 the franchise would be tired and out of tricks—and you would be dead wrong.
Posted Mar 25, 2023
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Country Gold
(2022)
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Noah Berlatsky
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The fame-corrupts-the-innocent plot is an elaborate send-up, as is just about everything in the film, which hovers somewhere between a surreal Christopher Guest mockumentary and Hal Hartley’s deadpan irony.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Steamboat Bill, Jr.
(1928)
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Dave Kehr
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Buster Keaton’s beautiful 1928 comedy equates parental rejection with the most violently destructive forces of nature; behind the elegant slapstick is an eloquent fable of survival.
Posted Mar 21, 2023
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
(2023)
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Jonah Nink
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Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves may be a dice roll in a few ways, but critical hits save it from being skippable.
Posted Mar 21, 2023
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Starship Troopers
(1997)
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Lisa Alspector
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Director Paul Verhoeven blends the conflicting elements of intentional camp and perverse sincerity into a single tone—and he doesn’t resort to simple irony.
Posted Mar 16, 2023
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