Movie Reviews

Buffalo Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight: Belle (Emma Watson) and the Beast (Dan Stevens) twirl in the live-action musical salute to interspecies Stockholm Syndrome, Beauty and the Beast.

Arts

Tale As Old As Time — And It Shows: 'Beauty And The Beast'

5:19pm March 16, 2017

by Andrew Lapin

The live-action, CGI-besotted remake of Disney's 1991 animated musical never manages to justify its existence, says critic Andrew Lapin, because it sets out "not to conjure wonder, but nostalgia."

A Toast! To Absent Ceiling Babies!: Simon (Jonny Lee Miller), Renton (Ewan McGregor) and Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) in T2 Trainspotting.

Arts

'T2 Trainspotting': Indulgent Film Reunites Indulgent Characters, 20 Years Later

5:00pm March 16, 2017

by Scott Tobias

The sequel to Danny Boyle's blisteringly original 1997 movie lacks that film's structure and insight, but the cast can still generate fitful flashes of energy and charm.

Ryôta (Hiroshi Abe) and son Shingo (Taiyô Yoshizawa) visit a market in After the Storm.

Arts

A Family Struggles To Connect In The Rueful, Richly Detailed 'After The Storm'

5:00pm March 16, 2017

by Ella Taylor

Hirokazu Kore-eda's drama about a stalled writer's attempts to make peace with his extended family is a quiet and meticulously wrought character study.

Adrien (Pierre Niney) and Anna (Paula Beer) share a graveside moment in Frantz.

Arts

A Unlikely Romance Blossoms, Rooted In A Secret: 'Frantz'

5:00pm March 16, 2017

by Mark Jenkins

French writer-director Francois Ozon adapts Broken Lullaby, Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 melodrama about a mysterious Frenchman and a German war-widow in the aftermath of World War I.

Arts

'Sense Of An Ending' Lacks The Punch Of The Prize-Winning Novel It's Based On

1:28pm March 10, 2017

by David Edelstein

The film tells the story of an emotionally shut-down man who gradually learns that the events of his past are not as he remembers. David Edelstein says the movie, unlike the book, is a "non-event."

Queue Listen Now

Kristen Stewart plays a medium who is determined to communicate with the spirit of her late twin brother in Personal Shopper.

Arts

Paranormal Activity Meets Profound Grief In 'Personal Shopper'

10:05am March 10, 2017

by Justin Chang

Olivier Assayas' chilling new film features Kristen Stewart as a medium who is trying to contact her dead twin. Critic Justin Chang calls it "moody, baffling and altogether entrancing."

Gorilla Warfare: San (Tian Jing), Weaver (Brie Larson), Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and Slivko (Thomas Mann) in Kong: Skull Island.

Arts

In The Forgettable 'Kong: Skull Island,' A Great Cast, Cast Aside

5:00pm March 09, 2017

by Chris Klimek

Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson help ensure that this mediocre creature feature is "no chore to sit through," says critic Chris Klimek.

To Denial!: Tony (Jim Broadbentt) and Margaret (Harriet Walter) in The Sense of an Ending.

Arts

An Unexamined Life, Examined And Re-Examined: 'The Sense Of An Ending'

5:00pm March 09, 2017

by Ella Taylor

An unsparing, unsentimental Julian Barnes novel gets a straightforward treatment — and a tacked-on, falsely redemptive ending — in Ritesh Batra's film.

The Spite of the Hunter: Villainous preacher Guy Pearce excoriates his flock in Brimstone.

Arts

A Revisionist Western With A Vision That's Oppressively Brutal: 'Brimstone'

5:00pm March 09, 2017

by Scott Tobias

Dutch writer-director Martin Koolhoven's bleak, four-part, 149-minute tale, which features Guy Pearce as a sadistic preacher in the Old West, proves "rigorously unpleasant," says critic Scott Tobias.

Veterinary students Julien (Rabah Nait Oufella) and Justine (Garance Marillier) flesh out their study plan in Raw.

Arts

'Raw' Is Not Well Done

5:00pm March 09, 2017

by Mark Jenkins

French writer-director Julia Ducournau's debut feature, about a vegetarian veterinary student who develops a taste for viscera, "is as tiresome as it is scandalous," says critic Mark Jenkins.