The Matrix Was the One Time the Wachowskis’ Ambition Met the MainstreamThe original film made the siblings the hottest things in town, but then the tide turned.
rock hall 2020
Jan. 15, 2020
Once Again, Dave Matthews Band Don’t Belong Their legacy doesn’t fit neatly into the Rock Hall’s world. So what?
The Movies We Loved in 2019 Including Bong Joon Ho’s acid black comedy, Brad Pitt in space, and the gentle Pain and Glory .
movie review
July 11, 2019
Sword of Trust Is an Ambling Comedy of Manners and Conspiracy TheoriesMarc Maron is excellent as he navigates the disorienting effects of a post-truth world.
movie review
July 11, 2019
The Farewell Is a Big Arrival for Director Lulu WangAwkwafina turns in her best acting performance yet in a stranger-than-fiction true family story.
Ari Aster on Midsommar : ‘I Really Don’t Know What I’ve Done’ The horror director has been working nonstop for two and a half years to perfect the gruesome Hereditary and its cathartic follow-up. Now what?
close reads
June 18, 2019
Is Black Mirror Not Cynical Enough for the Internet Anymore? When you’re extremely online, it’s tough to think metaphorically about technology.
Mindy Kaling’s Late Night Is a Workplace Comedy in the Guise of a Cozy Romcom Late Night is a Devil Wears Prada for TV writing that’s more neurotic and has more on its mind.
movie review
May 24, 2019
Booksmart Is a Goddamn Delight, and a Major Moment in the Teen Movie CanonIn the Olivia Wilde–directed comedy, a new archetype of late-2010s teendom takes shape.
Zac Efron Is Great in the New Ted Bundy Movie, But the Film Lacks Purpose Zac Efron disappears into the serial killer’s glib persona as well as Zac Efron’s face can be said to disappear into anything.
film festival
Apr. 24, 2019
19 Films You Should See at This Year’s Tribeca Film Festival Rom-coms. Midnight horror. A documentary about Showgirls . Margo Martindale. Here’s what you need to catch at this year’s festival.
The Post-Film Real-Life Photo Slideshow Will Be the Death of Me These “See? See? ” credit sequences are a sign of bad faith in the power of cinema.
movie review
Apr. 19, 2019
Under the Silver Lake Is Loopy, Paranoid, and Extremely of Its TimeAndrew Garfield stars in the oddball L.A. mystery from It Follows director David Robert Mitchell.
movie review
Apr. 17, 2019
Satanic Temple Documentary Hail Satan? Might Just Turn You Into a Satanist Filmmaker Penny Lane offers a fascinating look at the surprisingly sincere free-speech rabble-rousers.
movie review
Apr. 13, 2019
Childish Gambino’s Guava Island Is a Melancholy Anti-Capitalist Fable The value of immaterial things in the shadow of capitalism is the central idea of the Rihanna-starring film.
11 Lingering Questions About the Rooney Mara–Joaquin Phoenix Film Mary Magdalen e Let’s all smoke a quick cigarette underneath Jesus’s crucified body and talk about the long-delayed Rooney Mara–Joaquin Phoenix film.
movie review
Apr. 12, 2019
Teen Spirit Is Empty, Dated Pop PropagandaElle Fanning is lifeless as a teen who (supposedly) wants to be a pop star in Max Minghella’s directorial debut.
movie review
Apr. 12, 2019
Little Is a Confused Parable for Our Girlbossy TimesTina Gordon’s new movie shuffles into the body-switching pantheon.
movie review
Apr. 12, 2019
Her Smell Is a Bracing, Unnerving Depiction of Addiction, Narcissism, and GrowthAlex Ross Perry’s latest, starring Elisabeth Moss, is incredibly, teeth-grindingly effective.
Elisabeth Moss and Alex Ross Perry on Who and What Inspired Her Smell The actress and director explain the thread connecting Becky Something to Kim Deal and The Phantom of the Opera .
movie review
Apr. 3, 2019
Don’t Let the Funny Hats Fool You, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo Is an Incendiary Film The historical drama gives us an anatomy of a political movement that feels utterly contemporary and urgent.
movie review
Mar. 22, 2019
The Dirt Is a Parody of a Parody of a Music BiopicThere’s no getting around it, so you may as well go in prepared: The Dirt opens with female ejaculation.
movie review
Mar. 22, 2019
Ash Is Purest White Is an Unrequited Love Story Set in China’s 2000sJia Zhangke’s latest portrait of recent Chinese history is a long, strange, lovelorn trip — maybe a little too long.
the inventor
Mar. 19, 2019
Alex Gibney’s Theranos Documentary Stares Deeply into Elizabeth Holmes’s Eyes The Inventor fixates on the would-be disrupter’s face as it tries to understand her captivating effect on Silicon Valley.
movie review
Mar. 15, 2019
Five Feet Apart Is the Logical, Heightened Conclusion of the Sick Lit GenreCole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson manage to sell an operatically romantic and sadistic cystic fibrosis love story.
movie review
Mar. 10, 2019
Lil Peep Documentary Is a Deeply Affecting Character Study of the Late Rapper Everybody’s Everything arrives at some kind of truth about the risks and rewards of an artist with seemingly no boundaries.
movie review
Mar. 9, 2019
Jordan Peele’s Us Is a Messy, Chilling Descent Into the American Nightmare Lupita Nyong’o is astounding in the director’s distinct follow-up to Get Out .
movie review
Feb. 28, 2019
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Is Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mannered Directing DebutPerhaps too mannered for its own good — it’s unquestionably nice and well-intentioned, but lacking momentum.
movie review
Feb. 28, 2019
oscars 2019
Feb. 25, 2019
oscars 2019
Feb. 22, 2019
Judging the Oscar Shorts: The Good, the Grisly, and Our Picks to Win There’s at least one genuine masterpiece in the 15 nominated films, and … a lot of child murder.
the toughest scene i wrote
Feb. 22, 2019
Tamara Jenkins on Popping the Big Question in Private Life “You can’t just make shit up. It has to be true at some point. But if I were presenting this as my memoir … I’d be in trouble.”
movie review
Feb. 19, 2019
Fighting With My Family Is a Charming Underdog Story — and Amazing WWE PRIt’s just clear-eyed enough about the absurdities of a life in wrestling to have some grip to it.
movie review
Feb. 15, 2019
Alita: Battle Angel Is Ungainly, Hokey, and … Kinda CharmingThe only reason any of this works at all is Rosa Salazar and, I hate to say it, those goddamned big eyes.
movie review
Feb. 8, 2019
What Men Want Is a Tonally and Logically Confused Gender SwapStarring Taraji P. Henson, What Men Want is a wildly uneven stretch of a movie that’s more of a flail than a romp.
movie review
Feb. 7, 2019
Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem Shine in Soapy-Yet-Substantial Everybody Knows The Oscar-winning Asghar Farhadi changes locales to the picturesque wine country outside Madrid for his foray into Spanish-language cinema.
movie review
Feb. 6, 2019
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part Is Eager to Grow Up in More Ways Than OneThe childlike, free-associative playfulness is now underscored by a palpable hunger to be the cleverest and coolest kids’ movie on the block.
sundance 2019
Feb. 4, 2019
15 Movies We Loved at Sundance Including The Souvenir , The Farewell , We Are Little Zombies , and Animals .
velvet buzzsaw
Feb. 1, 2019
Velvet Buzzsaw ’s Dan Gilroy on Bringing a Buzz Saw to an Art Fight“Are they innocent people being killed and you feel bad for them? Or are they people who deserve to die? I decided, No, no. They deserve to die .”
sundance 2019
Jan. 31, 2019
Sundance Standout We Are Little Zombies Is a Neon-Colored Scream Into the Abyss The RPG-inspired debut feature from Makoto Nagahisa is the best Sundance movie about grief since Manchester by the Sea .
sundance 2019
Jan. 29, 2019
The Lodge Is an Unsettling Up-Is-Down Horror TaleRiley Keough plays a survivor of a death cult in the new film from the directors of Goodnight Mommy .
sundance 2019
Jan. 28, 2019
Velvet Buzzsaw Is a Pleasantly Perverse Art-World EviscerationJake Gyllenhaal reteams with Nightcrawler writer-director Dan Gilroy for a Los Angeles horror-satire that has no use for subtlety.
sundance 2019
Jan. 25, 2019
In Honey Boy , Shia LaBeouf Channels His Own Abusive Father As an origin story for a young actor’s warped worldview, Honey Boy is compelling.
movie review
Jan. 25, 2019
The Kid Who Would Be King Is a Charming ThrowbackIt’s the kind of expansive live-action adventure tale that we rarely see these days.
the crime scene
Jan. 25, 2019
12 Unforgettable Movie Heists, Graded and Ranked An extremely scientific ranking of some of the best heist-movie heists, graded on finesse and planning, style, stakes, and collateral damage.
movie review
Jan. 23, 2019
Polar Is Putrid, Soulless, and Worst of All, StaleJonas Åkerlund’s latest is a sad, lint-filled key bump scraped together from the bottom of the post-Tarantino ’90s exploitation baggie.
sundance 2019
Jan. 23, 2019
18 Movies We Can’t Wait to See at Sundance Including Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson’s Late Night, Shia’s autobiographical Honey Boy , and Jake Gyllenhaal and Dan Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw.
Replicas Can’t Even Succeed at Being Fun TrashKeanu Reeves’s latest would be the stuff of future cult screenings if it wasn’t so boring and muddled.
movie review
Jan. 11, 2019
The Upside Is an Odd-Couple Cliché With a More Interesting Movie Hiding InsideStarring Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, and Nicole Kidman, The Upside is the kind of movie whose greatest virtue is that it’s not as bad as it could be.
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