The first thing to know about Locked Down, director Doug Liman’s semi-surprise rom-com heist movie hitting HBO Max today, is that it’s a period piece. No sooner has the Warners logo slid across your screen to the sound of metropolitan life — bustling streets, honking horns, chattering voices — then …
Read More »'Pieces of a Woman' Review: A Grief History of Time
Ignore the cringeworthy title, which brings to mind several lives’ worth of Lifetime movies — Pieces of a Woman, a portrait of personal disintegration and the from-the-ashes process of piecing things back together, gives you three distinct reasons to pay attention to this late-breaking entry in the seasonal Pretty People …
Read More »'Happiest Season': Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis Are Shoved Back Into the Closet for the Holidays
It’s Christmas! On Hulu, at least. The romantic holiday comedy Happiest Season — which premieres on the streamer this week — stars Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as Abby and Harper, respectively, a loving queer couple who’ve reached the “meet the parents” checkpoint in their relationship. This is a slightly …
Read More »'Hillbilly Elegy' Review: A Bestselling Memoir Becomes Oscar-Season B.S.
When J.D. Vance’s memoir hit shelves in 2016, it became a surprise bestseller, a controversy magnet, and an impromptu state-of-the-nation address — the must-read if you wanted insight into why Donald Trump was able to harness rage and frustration of the white underclass into a single presidential win. A tale …
Read More »'City So Real' Review: Life, Death and Politics — The Chicago Way
Dickens had the teeming streets of Victorian-era London, Balzac had Paris during the Bourbon Restoration period, and Steve James has 21st century Chicago. A key part of the team behind the groundbreaking Hoop Dreams, this veteran documentarian has dabbled over the years in everything from biopics (Prefontaine) to bigger-picture looks …
Read More »'Scoob!' Review: Ruh-Roh, It's an Animated A-List, Franchise-Friendly Reboot!
It’s the newly shortened handle that gets you, right? “Scooby-Dooby? Pfft. That’s a child’s name. I’d like to be taken seriously now, thank you, so I prefer ‘Scoob.’ (‘Mr. Doo’ is my father’s name.)” Does the shortened title hint at a sort of darker, revisionist redo for the Mystery Inc. …
Read More »'Saint Frances': Real People, With Real Problems in This Near-Perfect Queer Parenting Comedy
Donald Trump will surely hate this fun time trailblazer, which has already taken conservative flak for being a “woke checklist for millennials,” what with its pro-choice stance, its insistence on women’s rights, and its celebration of liberal causes from mixed-race lesbian marriage and queer parenting to racial, financial and social …
Read More »'Killing Eve' Season 3 Review: A Once-Crazy Spy Thriller Finds a New Normal
The Eve is dead; long live the Eve! That might as well be the rallying cry for Killing Eve, the Emmy-winning, genre-defying series that, two seasons in a row now, has ended with a near-murder and woken up with a new showrunner. But maybe that’s fitting for a show that’s …
Read More »'Parasite' Review: Bong Joon Ho Delivers His Masterpiece
A blood-soaked fable, the latest from South Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho (The Host, Snowpiercer, Okja) starts simply: The dirt-poor Kim Ki-Taek (the superb Song Kang Ho, a Bong regular) is out of work. He and his wife Chung Sook (Jang Hye Jin) squeeze into a dumpy sub-basement where strangers …
Read More »'Cold Case Hammarskjöld' Review: Conspiracy Thriller Doc Is a True WTF
In 1961, a plane crashed in Ndola, Rhodesia. One of the passengers who perished in the accident was Dag Hammarskjöld, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He’d been negotiating a cease-fire between troops in the Republic of Katanga and U.N. forces. Hammarskjöld was 56 years old. These are facts. Mads …
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