Like Fences before it, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is another well-intention August Wilson adaptation that can’t seem to rise above its stagy origins. Adapted from the 1982 stage…
The Prom doesn’t offer much in the way of insight or novelty, but its glitz-and-glitter styling is a welcome confection at the end of 2020.…
Detention recommends director John Hsu’s future efforts, but this debut effort falls mostly short of the mark. John Hsu’s debut feature Detention isn’t so much…
Mosul nails its action spectacle and kinetic foundation, but it is ultimately only able to conceive of its subject matter in war movie clichés. Yet…
In Wonder is an unfortunately empty, depthless bit of underwhelming, barely cinematic fan service. Who is Shawn Mendes? For anyone over the age of 25,…
Jingle Jangle is a deeply nonsensical and absolute blast of a Hallmark movie riff that quite simply needs to be watched. In its quest to…
Mank is a listless, conventional story of embattled genius, safely told from behind a scrim of sentimentality. In her notorious New Yorker article “Raising Kane,”…
His House is a formally confident and unsettling debut that fully impresses even as it falls just short of greatness. The new Netflix horror film…
Ben Wheatley’s Rebecca remake is an emotionally facile film devoid of either atmosphere or ambiguity. It’s easy to criticize any literary adaptation simply for straying…
A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting is an old-school, family-friendly romp of pleasing, lightweight horror. Adapted from the eponymous trilogy of YA novels by Joe…
Dick Johnson is Dead forgoes potentially rich avenues of more universal concern, but remains a heartfelt portrait and preservation of the filmmaker’s father. Documentarian…
The Forty-Year-Old Version deploys a charming lead but never manages to coalesce its many and varied influences. Within the relative glut of 21st-century hip hop…
Late career Adam Sandler thrives within Netflix’s low stakes, and Hubie Halloween is his most buoyant effort yet. For the better part of a decade, most…
Enola Holmes is a cartoon. Or perhaps the problem is that it should have been. The film follows the title character (played by Stranger…
The Devil All the Time abandons any meaningful Southern Gothic tradition or thematic complexity in favor of base misery. Antonio Campos’ The Devil All the Time…
The Paramedic is the gleeful, glorious pulp-trash the world needs right now. New Spanish-language thriller The Paramedic wastes no time in establishing its title character, Angel…
Residue is a singular, important achievement, a work of shattering beauty and necessary discourse. Director Merawi Gerima was born into an impressive cinematic lineage. His…
Cuties is an impressive, complex coming-of-age narrative and a profound refutation of the nonsensical controversy that has arisen around it. The hysteria surrounding Maïmouna…