Arts & Life

Ted Chiang's new collection is jammed with brilliant ideas — but it also makes time to take one single fascinating notion and examine it in depth, in stories that are never too long or too short.

Amy Poehler directs and stars in this Netflix film that, while light on laughs and conflict, delivers a "cozy reunion happy hour and an ode to female friendships."

Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway never generate any chemistry as a pair of con artists in the French Riviera, and the labored script never generates any heat.

Fueled by Ryan Reynold's clever, wisecracking voicework, the film feels fresh and invigorating, and not simply the dutiful extension of a familiar brand it so easily could have been.

This trifle — about a bunch of plucky seniors (led by Diane Keaton) who form a cheerleading squad — is a "fitful good time," despite infantilizing both its characters and its audience.

The film, starring Nicholas Hoult as the linguist who created Middle Earth, is full of shout-outs to the Lord of the Rings (books and films), though it "connects the dots a bit literally."

Full of playful experiments with composition, and seemingly endless variations on common themes, Andy Warner and Sofie Louise Dam treat self-made "utopias" with unflappable cheer.

A couple leaves L.A. to start a farm from scratch, without knowing what they're in for, in this crowd-pleasing documentary that proves "amiable and ultimately moving."