Reviews of films directed by Jane Schoenbrun, Taylor Hackford, and William Dieterle Continue reading Then Playing — We’re All Going to the World’s Fair; Against All Odds; Man Wanted
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet, 2023). At a remote home in the French Alps, a man named Samuel (Samuel Theis) is found dead atop the snow-packed ground in front of his house. The cause is clearly a plummet from … Continue reading Then Playing — Anatomy of a Fall; Tina; Remember the Night
Saint Maud (Rose Glass, 2019). The feature debut of writer-director Rose Glass is a spare psychological horror film about young palliative care nurse (Morfydd Clark) who is deeply religious, seemingly because of a traumatic incident with a previous patient. She … Continue reading Then Playing — Saint Maud; Candyman; Blood Quantum
Stillwater (Tom McCarthy, 2021). Stillwater is a fascinating hybrid. It begins and ends like a more realistic, sober-minded riff on one of Liam Neeson’s Taken or Taken-adjacent movies, with a Oklahoma roughneck in place of a well-trained oak tree with … Continue reading Then Playing — Stillwater; Platoon; Freebie and the Bean
The Many Saints of Newark (Alan Taylor, 2021). Nearly fifteen years after an exceptional series finale that stirred controversy among people who evidently misinterpreted everything that had come before, The Sopranos gets an utterly needless revival with a prequel feature … Continue reading Then Playing — The Many Saints of Newark; George Carlin’s American Dream; Old
The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (Stephen Roberts, 1936). No one played a well-to-do gent dapperly cavorting through a murder mystery like William Powell. In between turns as Nick Charles, he plays Dr. Lawrence Bradford in this spiked trifle, reuniting with his ex-wife … Continue reading Then Playing — The Ex-Mrs. Bradford; Death on the Nile; Moonfall
Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar, 2021). Pedro Almodóvar is on solid footing with Parallel Mothers, a film that includes some of his regular preoccupations relating to family, feminism, and the complicated snarl of personal history. He also incorporates considerations of the … Continue reading Then Playing — Parallel Mothers; Drive My Car; The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Free Guy (Shawn Levy, 2021). This high-concept comedy about the dawning sentience of a non-player, bystander character in a Grand Theft Auto–style video game is inane chaos. Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, who evolves into heroism from his assigned role of … Continue reading Then Playing — Free Guy; Attica; Inside Daisy Clover
The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow, 2020). This film represents a new nadir for director Judd Apatow’s exhausting tendency to develop a container ship’s worth of individual scenes with only the vaguest concern of how they might fit together … Continue reading Then Playing — The King of Staten Island; The Way We Were; Licorice Pizza
Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939). This adaptation of the classic 1847 Emily Brontë novel of the same name is a signature example of the epic sweep filmmakers could conjure up on soundstages during Hollywood’s golden age, well before it was … Continue reading Then Playing — Wuthering Heights; Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street; Logan’s Run
Coffee for Two 