TV amp; Movies Reviews

In 1979, China issued what would become known as the “One Child Policy”: In an effort to combat overpopulation and the potential for mass starvation, families were only allowed a single child per household. By 1982, it would become the law of the land. The party line was that it …

Writer-director Lulu Wang draws on her own life to create the story of a Chinese family who come together to celebrate a wedding that’s closer to a funeral. Awkwafina, the rapper-comic and laugh-delivering dynamo of Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8, dials down to give a sublime and finely textured …

Nestled somewhere in the Evil Doll Hall of Fame between Chuckie and The Twilight Zone‘s Talky Tina, the Conjuring franchise’s resident Satanic toy has enough industry juice to have knocked out three spin-off movies — not bad for a scene-stealing porcelain figure originally used as a supernatural conduit by a …

A lot happens in each episode of Game of Thrones. So every week, we’re drilling down on one memorable scene in particular. Full spoilers for this week’s episode, “The Last of the Starks,” coming up. “The Last of the Starks” is a real structural oddity. For nearly an hour, it …

As civil liberties get increasingly squeezed in the Trump era, The Public takes on a compelling sense of urgency. On the surface, the movie is a shallow but vigorously paced entertainment from writer-director-producer-star Emilio Estevez about a group of homeless people who refuse to leave a Cincinnati Public Library after …

Ok, we’re not sure, exactly, how to say this. It’s, um … well … right, fine [deep breath]. We’ll just say it. So Bumblebee is a spin-off of the Transformers series, those Michael Bay movies of sound and fury and volume and lukewarm metal-on-metal action that are based on a …

In a year of exceptionally fine foreign-language films (Roma, Burning, Cold War, Shoplifters), Capernaum has a way to go to earn a spot in that major league. But the film has an undeniable emotional pull. Leabnese filmmaker Nadine Labaki takes to the slums of Beirut to follow the plight of …

Suburban mother Holly Burns (Julia Roberts) cautiously welcomes her 19-year-son Ben (Lucas Hedges) home for the holidays. Why the hesitation? The young man has gone AWOL from rehab. Mom may be mollified by her son’s vow to return to treatment the day after Christmas. But will he keep his promise? …

Is there some sort of stealth Remember-the-Nineties indie-film revival going on? A few weeks ago, we got Hotel Artemis, a microwaved slab of postmodern pulp fiction that channeled the moment when Tarantino-lite was a mini-genre. (It’s the sort of movie that makes you want to take back every bad thing …

Say “Vince Vaughn,” and what’s the first image that comes up? His “you’re so money” suit-wearing Swingers alpha male? His heroic environmentalist-slash-shutterbug in the first Jurassic Park sequel? Maybe your go-to Vaughn is The Break-Up–era bloated version that graced tabloid covers and Jennifer Aniston’s beach pics, or the smarmy comic …