Movie Reviews (Chronological)
A loud recommendation for All Quiet on the Western Front
Do we need another epic war movie in 2022? Yes, if it serves to strip away any sense that battlefields are about heroes or glory. All Quiet has always been about telling the truth, and this new German-made adaptation on Netflix is no exception.
Sinead O’Connor was right all along
It has taken three decades — 30 years to the month! — for the truth to come into focus. In the early ’90s, Sinead O’Connor risked her career to speak truth to power. She was condemned by Christians, by pop culture, by almost everyone. And now we’ve seen her laments justified, her prophecies coming true. Here, thank God, is a movie that loves her and grieves for her.
In Roger Michell’s final film*, Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren are in trouble with the law
Roger Michell’s final film* is an endearing epilogue to an impressive career, but even the headliners Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren can’t make this one memorable.
Mrs. Harris goes to the land of pure imagination
The great Leslie Manville proves that she can make even a cloying crowdpleaser like this worth watching. You might find this “power of positive thinking” fairy tale a blessed relief it is from the punishing darkness and violence of almost everything else this summer. (Or, if you’re like me, you might find it too sticky sweet for its own good.)
Moretz is magnificent as the gremlin-fighting Maude
This isn’t a one-woman show, but it’s close: Chloë Grace Moretz gives this cartoonish action film a far stronger central performance than it needs, and that turns an otherwise forgettable action thriller into surprisingly compelling experience.
Hilarity and hardship: an unforgettable Iranian road movie
The son of the great Jafar Panahi has become a promising filmmaker himself. Panah Panahi’s first movie takes backroads that lead to laughs, surprises, and troubling revelations.
My multi-viewings of the year’s best multi-verse movie
A conversation between moviegoers Cravis Frankly and Jeffrey Overstreet about the most complicated and most exciting multi-verse movie of the year.
Making Marcel the Shell my new mentor…
Marcel is the kind of film that I suspect Jim Henson would have loved: It’s childlike, playful, hopeful and wise — and all of this without ever stooping to sentimentality. Its characters seem to have been brought to life with patience, attention, and love. Just as I have learned more from Kermit the Frog about living a meaningful life than I have from most movie characters, I’m adopting Marcel as a mentor during dark times.
Emergency is not what it looks like
Can this friendship survive the worst night ever? Kunle and Sean — and, to a degree, the cannabis-clouded Carlos — are spiraling down into crisis as they try to save a stranger in this funny but sobering “calamity comedy.”
Cronenberg’s performance-art surgery
In Cronenberg’s latest sci-fi nightmare, human bodies are evolving and surgeons are bringing brand new organs out into the spotlight… in public, as performance art. It’s unsettling. It’s meaningful. And it’s hilarious.