Vox

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating Title/Year Author
4/5 EMMA. (2020) Alissa Wilkinson All of which adds up to a very comical, very humanist take on Emma. EDIT
Posted Feb 20, 2020
5/5 Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) Emily VanDerWerff Sciamma has a keen eye for the ways that women have always cared for each other under the radar of society, dealing with unwanted pregnancies and building little communities in plain sight. EDIT
Posted Feb 19, 2020
3/5 To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020) Constance Grady As she was in To All the Boys, Condor is the beating heart of this movie, and her performance as Lara Jean is deceptively complex. EDIT
Posted Feb 10, 2020
4/5 Horse Girl (2020) Alissa Wilkinson It's a little bit of a thriller, a little bit of a drama, a little bit of a comedy, a little bit of a romance - and wholly its own thing. EDIT
Posted Feb 10, 2020
3/5 Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) Alex Abad-Santos Birds of Prey's most thrilling aspect, instead, is its stylish disregard for pain and the human body. EDIT
Posted Feb 5, 2020
() Alissa Wilkinson For anyone who's lost a parent - and, I suspect, a lot of people who haven't - Dick Johnson Is Dead feels more like a gift than a harrowing viewing experience. EDIT
Posted Jan 26, 2020
4/5 Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020) Alissa Wilkinson Is the movie fiction? Yes, technically. Is it nonfiction? Not exactly. Is it "real"? Absolutely. EDIT
Posted Jan 25, 2020
The Two Popes (2019) Alissa Wilkinson The Two Popes is thoroughly and purposefully fictionalized. But it's also a surprisingly sensitive and often funny take on the promise and perils of leadership, as well as the struggle to serve God when he seems to be silent. EDIT
Posted Dec 19, 2019
Cats (2019) Alissa Wilkinson It's literally incredible. I hope I never see it again. EDIT
Posted Dec 18, 2019
1.5/5 Bombshell (2019) Alissa Wilkinson The level of naiveté required to cap off a story like Bombshell's with an inspiring, "Women rule!" pop anthem is unfathomable to me. EDIT
Posted Dec 18, 2019
1.5/5 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Is this what audiences demand from franchise movies? Films that cater to what's comfortable and capitulates to the most unimaginative fans? EDIT
Posted Dec 18, 2019
2/5 Richard Jewell (2019) Alissa Wilkinson What a disappointing way to undermine your own valid point, in a movie that's otherwise well-acted and competently filmed. EDIT
Posted Dec 11, 2019
4/5 Queen & Slim (2019) Alissa Wilkinson It's a Bonnie and Clyde tale worth telling today. EDIT
Posted Dec 2, 2019
Atlantics (2019) Alissa Wilkinson But it's in the film's exploration of desire that it really sings, and begins to acquire magical realist qualities, as if human desire has the power to push everyday existence into something extraordinary and dangerous EDIT
Posted Dec 2, 2019
3/5 Frozen II (2019) Alissa Wilkinson By my lights, Frozen 2 is still a plenty enjoyable film, even if it lacks its predecessor's subversive spark. EDIT
Posted Nov 21, 2019
2.5/5 Noelle (2019) Emily VanDerWerff Noelle frequently feels like it's running in place, frantically throwing shiny objects in your face in the hope you don't lose interest. But for fans of movie depictions of Christmas, there are worse options. EDIT
Posted Nov 12, 2019
American Son (2019) Alissa Wilkinson American Son doesn't really work as a movie. Its theatricality comes across as forced and curiously inert on screen, at close range to the actors, and its conversations about race and policing in particular feel stilted and contrive EDIT
Posted Nov 4, 2019
2.5/5 Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Dark Fate by and large pulls off recapturing the goofy fun of the original, though with a twist. It evokes the earliest Terminator films, but Dark Fate doesn't want to just rewrite Terminator's future -- it wants to reevaluate its past, too. EDIT
Posted Nov 4, 2019
2.5/5 The Elephant Queen (2018) Alissa Wilkinson The result is a nice story about elephants but not much more, making The Elephant Queen feel a bit like a squandered opportunity. EDIT
Posted Nov 1, 2019
3.5/5 Tell Me Who I Am (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Tell Me Who I Am narrowly but successfully pulls it off by letting the brothers delve into the rawness of their relationship. EDIT
Posted Oct 18, 2019
3/5 The Laundromat (2019) Alissa Wilkinson The Laundromat is unwieldy at times, and its final scene is truly befuddling. But it's worth watching not just for its bitterly entertaining explanation of a densely confusing matter but also the way it illustrates a larger problem. EDIT
Posted Oct 18, 2019
3/5 Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) Alissa Wilkinson It's not entirely clear why a Zombieland sequel was necessary, but everyone looks like they're having fun, and sometimes that's enough. EDIT
Posted Oct 17, 2019
3/5 El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) Alissa Wilkinson ... the fun comes from seeing your favorite characters again, not finally resolving missing pieces that have tortured your sleep for six years. And on that front, El Camino delivers. EDIT
Posted Oct 11, 2019
1/5 Gemini Man (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Gemini Man is a demo reel for some fancy new movie technology, an EPCOT attraction dressed up as an action flick. EDIT
Posted Oct 9, 2019
2.5/5 The King (2019) Constance Grady [The King] is filled with macho posturing about war and kingship and the nature of power and how really, it's extremely virtuous to be extremely boring, and there is hardly any sense of humor to be found onscreen at all. EDIT
Posted Oct 7, 2019
3.5/5 Dolemite Is My Name (2019) Alissa Wilkinson [Dolemite Is My Name is] a vivid depiction of the challenges that black entertainers have faced, particularly in Hollywood. And it is, to everyone's delight, a great Eddie Murphy performance. EDIT
Posted Oct 4, 2019
1.5/5 Lucy in the Sky (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Lucy in the Sky feels unfocused, distracted, and tonally uncertain. EDIT
Posted Oct 4, 2019
4.5/5 The Irishman (2019) Alissa Wilkinson [The Irishman] is lively and wry and very funny, but at times it also feels like a confession, a plea for grace, not just from its protagonist but from the filmmaker himself. EDIT
Posted Sep 30, 2019
3.5/5 Judy (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Judy is mostly a pleasure, even in its most tense moments, especially because [Renée] Zellweger performs several full numbers that give you a sense of the magic [Judy] Garland brought to the stage. EDIT
Posted Sep 27, 2019
4/5 Waves (2019) Alissa Wilkinson What sets Waves apart is its complex understanding of what it actually means for love to conquer fear and hatred. EDIT
Posted Sep 19, 2019
4.5/5 Ad Astra (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Ad Astra is beautiful, contemplative, and loaded with meaning -- not an action movie, but one that leaves you with plenty to ponder. EDIT
Posted Sep 19, 2019
5/5 Parasite (2019) Alissa Wilkinson While it's hugely entertaining, Parasite is also thought-provoking. By the time the catharsis arrives, you think you're at the end of the film, but a coda adds a new wrinkle to the whole thing. EDIT
Posted Sep 13, 2019
5/5 Marriage Story (2019) Alissa Wilkinson To get a story like this right requires a sense of the comical and the absurd along with the devastating -- and Marriage Story delivers. EDIT
Posted Sep 13, 2019
4.5/5 Hustlers (2019) Emily VanDerWerff Hustlers asks what a movie like Goodfellas looks like with women at the center of the story. EDIT
Posted Sep 12, 2019
4/5 Knives Out (2019) Alissa Wilkinson It's a worthy tribute to Agatha Christie, a light but pointed rebuke, and a delectable time at the movies, too. EDIT
Posted Sep 12, 2019
2/5 The Goldfinch (2019) Alissa Wilkinson [Donna] Tartt's novel comes in at such great length because it's trying, for better or worse, to emulate that artistic technique. And in sticking so closely to the plot of the novel, The Goldfinch loses the story, and the soul, of its source. EDIT
Posted Sep 11, 2019
2.5/5 Joker (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Joker is a tightly directed mood piece with an unforgettable performance at its center, but it's not much more than a mask, with nothing but banality behind. EDIT
Posted Sep 10, 2019
3.5/5 Jojo Rabbit (2019) Alissa Wilkinson With rising tides of hate and ignorance, where demagogues have groupies and neo-Nazis are easy to find on the internet, preying on the weak, what Jojo Rabbit has to say is both hysterically funny and grim as hell. EDIT
Posted Sep 9, 2019
3/5 Just Mercy (2019) Alissa Wilkinson In spite of its shortcomings, Just Mercy is still the sort of film that's worth watching and absorbing and discussing, because the story it tells has not stopped being relevant in the decades since [Bryan] Stevenson and [Walter] McMillian met. EDIT
Posted Sep 9, 2019
4.5/5 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) Alissa Wilkinson A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood sneaks around the barriers we throw up in adulthood, finding the kid inside of us who just wants to know we are loved. EDIT
Posted Sep 9, 2019
3.5/5 It: Chapter Two (2019) Aja Romano While Chapter Two works perfectly fine as a complement to Chapter One, it still falls short in that the closer our heroes come to triumphing over "It," the further they get from a satisfying conclusion. EDIT
Posted Sep 6, 2019
3.5/5 Jawline (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Jawline is both disturbing and empathetic, and an important peek into the glory and angst of being a teenager on the internet today. EDIT
Posted Aug 22, 2019
Woodstock (1970) Alissa Wilkinson [Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music] is an outstanding documentary, a joyful musical experience and a playful artifact of an era, even at its butt-busting length. EDIT
Posted Aug 21, 2019
3/5 Ready or Not (2019) Alissa Wilkinson Ready or Not looks and feels like a straight-ahead horror thriller, but the opportunity to do something truly mind-bending is squandered. EDIT
Posted Aug 21, 2019
4.5/5 American Factory (2019) Alissa Wilkinson American Factory tackles the challenges of globalization with much more depth and nuance than most reporting on the topic, precisely because it steps back to watch a story unfold over time and resists easy generalizations. EDIT
Posted Aug 20, 2019
1.5/5 Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) Alissa Wilkinson There's a story buried in here about a woman with a seemingly happy life who's nonetheless lost her sense of self, but it feels too pasted together from disparate parts to not leave the audience just scratching their heads by the end. EDIT
Posted Aug 19, 2019
3.5/5 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) Aja Romano Given that I was mainly expecting monsters with a side of more monsters, I can't complain too much. I got what I came for, and this is certainly not the first horror film to serve a sloppy social allegory along with its chills. EDIT
Posted Aug 9, 2019
() Caroline Framke Haddish unleashes hilarious, filthy, and even moving anecdotes to tell the story of her life to this point, without anything holding her back, at long last. EDIT
Posted Aug 6, 2019
Tig Notaro: Boyish Girl Interrupted (2015) Caroline Framke Where "Live" saw Notaro reeling from a bruise, Boyish Girl Interrupted celebrates the healing. Notaro found a way to build upon her previous set without dismissing it entirely, and her joy at cracking that code radiates from every punchline. EDIT
Posted Aug 1, 2019
3/5 The Great Hack (2019) Alissa Wilkinson The Great Hack isn't revealing much that hasn't been reported elsewhere, but it's powerful in the ways it does so. EDIT
Posted Jul 25, 2019