Boss Level is dumb and familiar and, well, bad, but it also manages to inject enough consistent fun to keep it just barely afloat. Like an ungainly mix of Groundhog Day (or any of its many, many scions, particularly Edge of Tomorrow), and Neveldine/Taylor’s anarchic Gamer, Joe Carnahan’s Boss…
The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a tonal misfire that fails to ever find the fascinating, complex story at its core. Lee Daniels has an almost unparalleled knack for turning serious subject matter into cartoon, an approach that works when it flirts with…
Dear Comrades! is a nuanced reckoning with Stalinist legacy and the lingering brutality left in his wake. Offering a solemn look at Soviet society in the 1960s, Andrei Konchalovsky adds to his diverse body of work with Dear Comrades!, a period-drama depicting the 1962 Novocherkassk…
In and Of Itself isn’t without its small hypocrisies, but ultimately surprises by delivering spectacle through its big heart and humanism. From 2016 to 2018, the illusionist and performer Derek DelGaudio ran a one-man show in New York and Los Angeles called In & Of…
The Ultimate Playlist of Noise abandons an interesting conceit for a far more staid one but still manages to be charming enough in spurts. Sound of Metal meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower in The Ultimate Playlist of Noise, Hulu’s new teen dramedy that chronicles a…
Happiest Season is trite, platitude-heavy Christmas offering that fails on nearly every front. Five years ago, when Todd Haynes’ Carol hit theaters, a moment was marked in which the worlds of queer cinema and the Christmas film were twined. In fairness, Carol wasn’t exactly a mainstream flick wholly…
Run could have been a bit of delightful trash but is instead a disaster of mismanaged tone. Let’s be very clear about one thing, just so there’s no confusion going forward: Run, the new thriller from the team behind 2018’s technology-driven Searching — writer-director…
Books of Blood is a little exploitative, quite a bit derivative, and overwhelmingly boring. There’s nary an original image or idea in Brannon Braga’s Books of Blood, but not simply because it’s an adaptation. Like most interpretations of Clive Barker’s work, this one plays fast…
Ever since H.G. Wells unleashed The Time Machine upon the world in 1895, artists have used the conceit to impart important life lessons, waxing broadly on everything from mortality to regret to the meaning of existence. Wells was the first to offer a science-based…
Describing Sofia Behrs Tolstaya, a diarist and photographer who remains better known as the wife of Leo Tolstoy, Elizabeth Hardwick wrote: “With her mangled intelligence, her operatic, intolerable frenzies of distress, she comes forth still with an almost menacing aliveness, saying it all like…
