There’s a sense that Fogelman … has been inspired in part by the broken narratives of Charlie Kaufman, as the first 10 minutes of this film feature a story-within-a-story meta fake-out with Jackson as himself, narrating the action of a screenplay written by forlorn drunk Will (Isaac)
Despite the killing-spree craziness of its final reels, much of the film is a how-the-kids-live-now potboiler, replete with guileless dirty talk and immense bedroom windows that seem to have been installed with peeping in mind
But 11/9 plays not like a much-needed blast of truth but like an all-purpose Michael Moore sequel, a self-congratulatory follow-up to several of his films, with Parkland material in the Bowling for Columbine vein, references to Sicko and even excerpts from 1989’s Roger & Me
Roth’s film is a funhouse throwback, a scare-the-kids goof with a top-shelf cast, an antique shop’s worth of creepy windup dolls and more heart than you might expect — and, like those jack-o’-lanterns, it’s got more teeth, too
… Mukwege’s City of Joy is both a hospital for treating physical and emotional wounds and also a sanctuary where victims become leaders of a battle in a fight for humanity
Spastic and impressionistic, Random Acts of Flyness is the free jazz of television, a searing collage of black life in America with a rhythm all its own
The pups, named Primrose and Poppet and Phil and Potomac and Patriot, get dispatched from the organization Guide Dogs for the Blind to the homes of families dedicated to raising them for the first half of their training
The entire town of Bisbee recreated their ancestors’ killing of striking miners.
Cosmatos delivers (as fans say) on the blood and guts, on cathartic slaughter, on the disreputable pleasure of watching a bereaved hero regard a new weapon and envision nasty uses for it
This latest entry, directed and co-written by onetime wise-ass action screenplay wunderkind Shane Black (Iron Man 3, The Nice Guys), wears its self-aware humor as a talisman against the predictability of its plot and the gratuitousness of its carnage
The re-enactment and its subsequent cinematic portrayal were both the brainchild of Greene himself, and they mark the latest chapter in the career of a documentarian whose work keeps finding new ways to probe the gray area between authenticity and performance
The film, I suspect, will have some minor historical value, but I fear that watching Stern well up on election night won’t offer much insight to people alive now
Reynolds passed away last week at 82.
White Boy Rick has reams of story to tear through, but at heart it’s a family drama, one more concerned with the Wershes than with crack, the feds or Detroit itself
Again, Gyllenhaal is the main draw here, turning in a career-best performance, though the emphasis on film makes The Deuce’s sophomore season more self-reflexive and more focused than the first
… Like that of I Love You, America, Cohen’s apparent goal of exploring America’s multitudes belies his show’s actual focus on belittling, baiting or simply giving a platform to white Americans in particular
At its best, the show was a canny deconstruction of contemporary late-night comedy, which has been swamped with political satire since Stewart, the former Daily Show host, turned Bush-era liberal outrage comedy into its very own TV genre
For the family at its heart, everything seems to be in constant, even terrifying disorder, and yet nothing really changes — not after one son discovers he’s different, not even after dad knocks out mom’s teeth
Like many Gothic tales, The Little Stranger hangs tantalizingly between genres: It has elements of haunted house thriller, of doomed romance, of psychological thriller, of historical allegory
This is a story of stifling manners and oppressive codes of conduct, where the wealthy “villains” wear a strained smile and an icky sheen of privilege
The documentary, screening in Phoenix, partially focuses on Navajo running traditions in northern Arizona.
… I imagined how whatever scene I was watching might have been staged and shot and acted out in a more traditional film — and I was inevitably disappointed by what has been lost …
