Critic’s Notebook
The last Oscar
Nobody saw the blatant aggression coming. The world stood by in shock as the blow was delivered. Any progress towards [...]
The art of seeing
At the beginning of “Viewing Booth,” the 2019 documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, there’s a reference made to author [...]
Anderson in the details
Wes Anderson is among the most vibrant directors American filmmaking has produced in the last few decades. With each of [...]
Securing the set
In late October, film-making faced its worst-case scenario. On the New Mexico set of the Western “Rust,” the actor Alec [...]
Back to the cinema
If you look for it, you can see it. Just as the house lights dim, and right before the instant [...]
The Courier
Far from the usual take on the Cuban Missile Crisis, “The Courier” seems worlds away from the tense drama of [...]
COVID, meet SCABET
I was always a fan of apocalypse movies. Not the kind that overwhelms you with monsters and aliens, and special [...]
No Hollywood ending
If widescreen Hollywood ever had just cause to lapse into melancholy about its future prospects, that time is now. With [...]
The invisible stalker
In H.G. Wells’s 1897 “The Invisible Man,” Griffin, a scientist and student of optics, carries out a rogue experiment to [...]
“Improving” the inferno
Perhaps the best way of approaching Sam Mendes's hell-on-earth World War I saga "1917" is by describing its uncomplicated premise. [...]
Two popes (who cheat theater)
Fernando Meirelles's "The Two Popes" should have been a stage play. In such a play, with Jonathan Pryce as the [...]
Mother’s back
In Mitzi Pierone's sorcery and female-brokered horror, two on-the-lam city drug dealers — Petula (Imogen Waterhouse) and Tilda (Sasha Hay) [...]