Young Snipers in Love Across The Gorge
Apple TV+’s The Gorge finds two attractive young snipers, Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, flirting across the abyss as they guard the gates of hell below. It’s a promising premise, but it never pays off.
331 Articles by: Eileen Jones
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Eileen Jones is a film critic at Jacobin, host of the Filmsuck podcast, and author of Filmsuck, USA.
Love Hurts, and So Does Going to This Movie
Love Hurts is the Valentine’s Day–themed action movie you never asked for.
Emilia Pérez Is the Ultimate Unloved Oscar Nominee
Despite Emilia Pérez’s mixed reviews and poor audience reactions, Hollywood handed the musical 13 Oscar nominations in the hopes of proving its progressive bona fides. Then old tweets from its star surfaced.
The Brutalist Is a Confounding but Beautiful Mess
The Brutalist is a big and bold story of the immigrant experience and the postwar American dream. It’s confounding yet always interesting — a heartening thing in these cinematically tough times.
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths Is Powerful and Tormenting
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is another triumph by that legendary dramatist of working-class British life. But films like Leigh’s are a rare breed these days.
Presence Is an Engrossing Experiment in Supernatural Cinema
Steven Soderbergh’s low-budget haunted house flick Presence puts the viewer in the point of view of the ghost. It’s a thrilling experiment — more like this, please.
RIP to David Lynch, Mysterious, Bizarre, and All-American
Director David Lynch, who died this week at 78, brought an avant-garde sensibility into the American mainstream when we needed it most. There will never be another like him.
Better Man Is a Standard Biopic, Slightly Monkeyed With
A CGI simian twist isn’t enough to turn Better Man into anything more than a by-the-numbers Robbie Williams biopic.
The Damned Settlers Have Got to Pay
With a modest budget but plenty of thrills involving spooky 19th-century ships, frozen wastelands, and ghouls from Nordic folktales, The Damned proudly carries on our Gothic horror revival.
Timothée Chalamet Does Dylan
Despite Timothée Chalamet’s best efforts, A Complete Unknown is a cookie-cutter Bob Dylan biopic for a legendary artist who deserves something far more interesting.
Nosferatu Is a Flawed Triumph
Robert Eggers’s remake of the original 1922 vampire classic Nosferatu is a master class in atmospheric dread. You won’t even mind the occasionally clunky script.
Queer Asks You to Believe Daniel Craig Can’t Get Laid
Based on William S. Burroughs’s cult novel, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer finds an American expat looking for love among the men of 1950s Mexico. But a story about thwarted desires runs into problems when you cast a Hollywood hunk like Daniel Craig.
Jude Law Takes on White Nationalists in The Order
As an alternative to the “Big IP” movies dominating the box office, The Order is an effective and often thrilling drama about the FBI’s pursuit of white nationalists in the early 1980s.
“Glicked”: Are You Not Entertained?
Don’t fight the arrival of Wicked and Gladiator II. Accept them, allow them both to wash over you and leave no trace.
Anora: A Refreshingly Class-Conscious Indie Film
In keeping with the harsh realities of working-class life in America, filmmaker Sean Baker doesn’t deal in facile happy endings — not in his latest, Anora, nor in his other recent films. Living to fight another day is triumph enough.
It’s a Dismal Time for Political Films
Film industry executives are scared of them. Audiences are bored by them. It’s a dismal time for political films.
Conclave: A Shallow but Posh Papal Potboiler
There’s always an unlimited supply of narrative and visual drama to be mined from the machinations of the Catholic church. Conclave successfully taps into it.
Errol Morris’s Reminder of Trump’s Sadistic Border Policy
Donald Trump’s separation of children from their families at the border was a centerpiece of his migration policy. Errol Morris’s new documentary, Separated, chronicles the cruel policy during Trump’s first term that would likely return in a second.
Go See The Apprentice Before It’s Too Late
Trump supporters will never go see The Apprentice, and anti-Trumpers won’t be able to bear two hours watching the bane of their existence rise to wealth and power. This lack of a clear audience spells an unfortunate box-office bomb.
Joker: Folie à Deux Torpedoes Joker’s Melodramatic Power
Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to the huge 2019 hit Joker, is a vague and incoherent bummer of a film that even the dedication and charisma of Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix can’t redeem. But with musical numbers!