Movie Reviews

Jane (Julia Garner) slowly comes to realize something terrible about her boss in Kitty Green's The Assistant.

Arts

'The Assistant': When A Workplace's Silence Can't Be Broken

5:00pm January 30, 2020

by Ella Taylor

In this "quietly shattering drama," a young woman (Julia Garner) learns that her new boss is a serial sexual predator; her efforts to call him out meet with indifference and hostility.

Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) looks on in the grim but ultimately warm-hearted Beanpole.

Arts

2 Friends Scarred By War Attempt To Heal In 'Beanpole'

5:00pm January 30, 2020

by Scott Tobias

In post-WWII Leningrad, two women bonded by grief, guilt and hardship set out to make their futures brighter than the horrors of their shared past.

Julia Garner stars as a young college graduate who grows increasingly uncomfortable working for a New York-based movie mogul in The Assistant.

Arts

'The Assistant' Helps Explain How Predatory Behavior Stays Hidden

1:59pm January 28, 2020

by Justin Chang

A young woman grows increasingly uncomfortable working for a movie mogul reminiscent of Harvey Weinstein. The drama explores how easy it is for powerful people to exploit absolute authority.

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Rosalind (Michelle Dockery) and Mickey (Matthew McConaughey) in The Gentlemen.

Arts

A Drug Kingpin Worries Over His Imminent Regicide In 'The Gentlemen'

6:25pm January 23, 2020

by Chris Klimek

Guy Ritchie returns to the genre he made his bones on, and the film's "rigorous and largely circular" plot is fun; more fun than McConaughey's undercooked performance, anyway.

An alien force adjusts reality's tint for Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage) and family in Color Out Of Space.

Arts

No Love, Little Craft In Pulpy Body-Horror Flick 'Color Out Of Space'

5:00pm January 23, 2020

by Mark Jenkins

In this loose, grisly adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story, a family undergoes a series of mutations while Nicolas Cage gets increasingly unhinged; the result is "a gory mess."

The story of a man (Mackenson Bijou) who was brought back from the dead casts a long shadow into the present in Zombi Child.

Arts

'Zombi Child': When The Real Horror Is Colonialism

5:00pm January 23, 2020

by Andrew Lapin

Writer-director Bertrand Bonello uses the tale of a Haitian zombie to explore intergenerational racial trauma in this quiet, moody film.

In writer/director Makoto Shinkai's latest animated feature, Hodaka (voiced by Kotaro Daigo, L) meets Hina (voiced by Nana Mori, R), a girl who can stop the rain.

Arts

Who'll Stop The Rain? She Will: 'Weathering With You'

5:01pm January 16, 2020

by Ella Taylor

Makoto Shinkai's latest animated feature doesn't live up to his hit Your Name, with which it shares many plot similarities. But it speaks to anxieties about climate change in a captivating way.

"Polly want a movie!": Dr. John Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr.) and parrot (voiced by Emma Thompson) are lost at sea in Dolittle.

Arts

'Dolittle' Does A Lot, All Of It Terribly

5:00pm January 16, 2020

by Scott Tobias

Robert Downey Jr.'s first post-Marvel-Universe foray "is a not a film. Dolittle is a crime scene in need of forensic analysis. Something happened here. Something terrible. Something inexplicable."

'Weathering With You' Is The Latest Anime From Makoto Shinkai

4:40pm January 16, 2020

by Bob Mondello

There's a new anime movie from the creator of Your Name — this one about a girl who may be able to control the weather.

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Arts

'1917' Is A Mind-Boggling Technological Achievement — But Not A Great Film

1:21pm January 15, 2020

by Justin Chang

Sam Mendes filmed his suspenseful beat-the-clock thriller in what appears to be one continuous take. It's an impressive feat — but it makes the WWI movie feel like an overly polished one-shot wonder.

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