Film Reviews

Madonna visits her mother’s grave in the concert film Truth or Dare “An image and a good hook can get you in the door, but something has to keep you in the room.” – Madonna From the Hamilton Club to Palladium Ballroom, New York’s twentieth century nightlife scene thrived for nearly a century.  CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City, The Mudd Club, …

Vice (Annapurna Pictures) Rarely have I seen a film that hates its audience as much as Vice does. Poised as a satire on the rise of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Adam McKay’s supremely misguided biopic is tantamount to yelling fire in a theater and then locking the doors. It isn’t just ugly, unfunny and stunningly mediocre, it’s the worst …

KiKi Layne and Stephan James in If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna) Barry Jenkins follows up his Oscar-winning Moonlight with another masterpiece;  a lush, visual love story and the first English-language film adaptation of James Baldwin’s work It doesn’t take long to fall in love with Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk. In the film’s opening shot, a gorgeous crane movement …

In her superb feature directorial debut, Josie Rourke casts Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie as rival queens who are sisters doin’ it for themselves Unapologetic is not a word often used to describe royal biopics but it fits Mary Queen of Scots like a well-placed crown. It has all of the earmarks of a classic piece: betrayal, conspiracies, rebellion. But …

Felicity Jones stars as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Mimi Leder’s ON THE BASIS OF SEX, a Focus Features release. No cliché is left unturned in this paint by numbers biopic that means well but ultimately loses its case Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, fell and cracked three ribs this week and was in and out of the hospital and back …

Joel Edgerton has crafted a compassionate family drama with extraordinary performances from Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe In Boy Erased, based on Garrard Conley’s best-selling memoir of the same name, Jared, a 19-year old college student, is whisked away from his Arkansas home in the dark, early hours of the morning by his mother to 12-day gay conversion camp …

Luca Guadagnino has concocted a witches’ brew of primal sisterhood that isn’t for the faint of heart or patience. Nor should it be. It’s a visually and morally challenging film that will leave you pondering its existence and meaning long after you’ve left the theater. The setting of Berlin in 1977 for the new Suspiria (the same year Argento’s original …

Eero Milonoff and Eva Melander in Border Ali Abbasi creates the grimmest of faerie tales as two outcasts find love in a hopeless place in this wild, wonderful, surprisingly emotional drama. Tina is a border officer for a small Swedish coastal port. Eyeing passengers as they walk through customs, looking for contraband. But, Tina isn’t just looking; she can smell …

Joel Edgerton has crafted a compassionate family drama with extraordinary performances from Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe In Boy Erased, based on Garrard Conley’s best-selling memoir of the same name, Jared, a 19-year old college student, is whisked away from his Arkansas home in the dark, early hours of the morning by his mother to 12-day gay conversion …

Peter Farrelly’s race relations road movie may be safe and conventional but winning performances from Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali make it a crowdpleaser “Inspired by a true story” as an opening title card often says more about what a film is not about rather than what it’s about. An even looser term than “based,” we know going in that …