Movie Reviews

Marisol (Malena Villa) and Carlos (Lorenzo Ferro) get triggered in El Angel.

Arts

Death Wears A Pleasing Face In The Swoony, Stylized 'El Angel'

5:28pm November 13, 2018

by Bob Mondello

Writer/director Luis Ortega invests the tale of a brutal but beautiful young serial killer who terrorized Argentina in the 1970s with an intoxicating sense of glamour.

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Ralph Ineson plays "the man in black" in "Near Algodones," the second segment of the Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Beginning Nov. 16, the film will play in theaters for a week before it becomes available for streaming on Netflix.

Arts

Life's Cruelty Is A Constant In The Coen Brothers' Mixed Bag Western 'Ballad'

12:56pm November 09, 2018

by Justin Chang

Joel and Ethan Coen's new film is a feature-length collection of six stories set in the Old West. Justin Chang says the tall tales featured in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs are an odd, melancholy lot.

Having A Great Time, Wish You Were Queer: Jim (Harris Dickinson) in Steve McLean's stylized, whimsical Postcards From London.

Arts

'Postcards From London': Rent Boys Will Be Rent Boys In A Stylized, Neon-Lit Soho

9:34pm November 08, 2018

by Ella Taylor

Writer/director Steve McLean's "lovely piece of whimsy" about a gay sex worker in 1970s London examines "the mixed blessings of sex, art, beauty and authenticity."

Hugh Jackman, and wig, play Gary Hart in Jason Reitman's The Front Runner.

Arts

'The Front Runner' Stumbles Into Familiar Territory

7:24pm November 08, 2018

by Scott Tobias

The film follows Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) through his three-week presidential bid that fell victim to monkey business, but what director Jason Reitman brings to it is familiar — even quaint.

Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine) surveys his phalanx in Outlaw King.

Arts

In Netflix's War Epic 'Outlaw King' There's Plenty Of War, But Not Much That's Epic

5:00pm November 08, 2018

by Andrew Lapin

Director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) keeps the scale too small and the stakes too low in this retelling of the rebellion of Scotland's Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine).

"Welcome to my pallor, said the spider to the fly": Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) goes beyond the pale in The Girl in the Spider's Web.

Arts

'The Girl In The Spider's Web' Struggles To Break Free Of Techno-Thriller Cliches

5:00pm November 08, 2018

by Mark Jenkins

Claire Foy takes over the role of Swedish super-hacker Lisbeth Salander in a reboot that reheats stale ideas from many previous spy/hacker movies.

Arts

Inside This Deceptively Simple Story Lurks A 'Burning' Psychological Thriller

1:25pm November 06, 2018

by Justin Chang

Director Lee Chang-dong's film centers on two young men and the woman who brings them together. Critic Justin Chang calls Burning the most absorbing — and enigmatic — new movie he's seen all year.

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Outsized Music Personalities Featured In 'Bohemian Rhapsody' And 'Maria By Callas'

5:58pm November 02, 2018

by Bob Mondello

In the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, Rami Malek plays Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the rock group Queen. In the documentary Maria by Callas, opera singer Maria Callas speaks for herself through letters and interviews.

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Rosamund Pike plays war correspondent Marie Colvin in A Private War.

Arts

'A Private War': Combat Takes Its Merciless Toll On A Tireless War Correspondent

5:01pm November 01, 2018

by Mark Jenkins

To play the Sunday Times war reporter Marie Colvin, Rosamund Pike "transform[s] herself into a singular figure, one who goes places few people would and see[s] things that even fewer could handle."

Adam (Calum Worthy) and his rap battle mentor Behn Grymm (Jackie Long) in Bodied.

Arts

Once More Unto The Beat: A Grad Student Enters The World Of Rap Battles In 'Bodied'

5:00pm November 01, 2018

by Scott Tobias

"It's juvenile. It's irritating. Yet it's also fiendishly clever in the way it anticipates and dismantles every argument that could be made against it," says critic Scott Tobias.