Glenn Heath Jr.
John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan salvage ‘Stan & Ollie’
This safely entertaining film was made for the middlebrow crowd and not the hardcore cinephiles. Read more
Annapurna Pictures
Nicole Kidman suffers her way though ‘Destroyer’
Kidman goes all in on a grief-stricken, morally compromised cop character trying to make things right with her rebellious teenage daughter. Read more
‘Hale County This Morning, This Evening’ discovers so much
In a year of many great documentaries (Bisbee ’17, Minding the Gap, Did You Ever Wonder Who Fired the Gun?), Ross’ film stands out for its curiosity and questioning of stylistic norms. Read more
‘On the Basis of Sex’ and the origins of RBG
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a staunch defender of equal rights for women and men, has been fighting small-minded sexists for nearly six decades. Read more
Spring screenings
This quarter of the year has been unfairly labeled a dumping ground for bad movies. Look a little closer, however, and the release schedule often yields plenty of B-movie gems and foreign treasures. Read more
Photo courtesy Tatum Mangus / Annapurna Pictures; ©2018 Annapurna Releasing, LLC. All Rights Reserved
If Barry Jenkins could talk
Upon winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016 for Moonlight (in thrilling fashion, no less!), Miami-born filmmaker Barry Jenkins found himself at a crossroads. Read more
Enough is enough: The Best Films of 2018
These acts of resistance remind us that bravery comes in many shapes and sizes. The same can be said of this year’s finest cinematic efforts. Read more
‘Vice’ and the absolute power of American subterfuge
With Vice, McKay thoroughly deconstructs biopic storytelling techniques to examine Cheney’s personal life and ideological awakening. Read more
Family is relative in ‘Shoplifters’
The surrogate family at the center of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters live in a constant state of financial insecurity. Read more
Epic scale and intimacy clash in ‘Roma’
Unlike Children of Men or Gravity, Roma (opening Friday, Dec. 14, at the Digital Gym Cinema) delicately juxtaposes two competing forces of history: erosion and endurance. Read more
Palace intrigue is a cutthroat game in ‘The Favourite’
In The Favourite, Greek provocateur Yorgos Lanthimos revels in the madness and absurdity that comes with such a vacuum of leadership. Read more
‘Divide and Conquer’ examines the life of a media predator
Long before Trump, Fox News and the #MeToo Movement, Roger Ailes was an upstart producer on The Mike Douglas Show, one of the most popular daytime talk programs of the 1960s and ’70s. Read more
NETFLIX
Death waits for no man (or woman) in ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’
If legend holds true, the Old West was a place of brutal uncertainty that dealt many an unlucky hand. People lived and died moment-to-moment, town-to-town and bullet-to-bullet. Read more
‘Chef Flynn’ charts the rise of a culinary prodigy
Chef Flynn (opening Friday, Nov. 30, at the Ken Cinema) claims its importance through access: Meg’s video documentation of her son’s rapid ascent makes up much of the footage. Read more
‘Monrovia, Indiana’ is a strange portrait of active stagnation
In keeping with his patented fly-on-the-wall style, Wiseman refuses to pass judgment on any of the institutions he documents even when many of them represent hierarchies and gender divisions synonymous with classic patriarchy. Read more
Photo Credit: Universal Pictures
‘Green Book’ believes people can change… for the better
Farrelly has long been a master of the comedic road trip (see Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There’s Something About Mary), but Green Book expands human interactions beyond the bizarre and grotesque. Read more
Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth
Ride or die is the brutal mantra of ‘Widows’
Possibly sensing his own self-serious track record, the British auteur goes into full sleaze mode with Widows, a trashy and slick collaboration with Gone Girl scribe Gillian Flynn. Read more
‘Maria by Callas’ hits the night notes
Universal themes of loneliness and isolation define this portrait of a tormented artist who became so obsessed with work that she missed out on many of life’s simple joys. Read more
Vanishing acts intensify the many mysteries of ‘Burning’
Metaphorically speaking (or maybe not?), the bodies in this film are always buried close to home, or as Ben likes to say with a smirk, “very near.” Read more