Toy Story 5 Takes On the Existential Dread of Big Tech
A kids’ movie about tech addiction and the terror of being obsolete? Of course Toy Story 5 is a hit — we’re all living through it.
413 Article(s) by: Eileen Jones
Eileen Jones is a film critic at Jacobin, host of the Filmsuck podcast, and author of Filmsuck, USA.
1976 Was Hollywood’s Swan Song
The mid-1970s were a good time for film buffs. But the industry was on the precipice of a long decline that has stripped productions of not only their political content but their seriousness.
Disclosure Day Is the Big Fat Spielberg Summer Movie We Need
Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day is corny and cluttered. But in these dark days, a classic Spielberg summer movie about aliens is just what the doctor ordered.
Backrooms and Obsession Are Glimpses of a Better Hollywood
Two indie horror movies with YouTube origins, Obsession and Backrooms, crushed big-budget Star Wars and He-Man movies at the box office. But claims that these films represent a revival of cinematic creativity à la the New Hollywood era are overblown.
Spider-Noir Is Just Another Night in Noirtown
Nicolas Cage’s black-and-white Spider-Man spin-off, Spider-Noir, recycles all of the tropes of the classic 1940s film genre. But all the femme fatales and wisecracking detectives can’t keep Spider-Noir from feeling like a lifeless museum piece.
We Rarely See Films as Fresh as I Love Boosters
Boots Riley’s remarkably easy confidence and visual flair in I Love Boosters is a tonic in an era of boring CGI slop. He’s one of the most compelling filmmakers working today.
Hollywood Invented the Girlboss
The Criterion Channel’s excellent new “Office Romances” retrospective shows how Hollywood’s classic workplace comedies exposed a deep panic about women who dared to be competent.
Boys, Beasts, and a Bloated Lord of the Flies
Jack Thorne’s Netflix adaptation of Lord of the Flies drowns William Golding’s brutal clarity in arty excess, muddled psychology, and a strangely sentimental plea for sympathy for boys.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 Hits the Right Bleak Notes
At this point, the Devil Wears Prada franchise is a major cultural phenomenon. And The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a worthy addition, with more than a dash of topicality in its treatment of some of the bleaker aspects of contemporary existence.
Michael Is Not Rooted in Reality
The average successful Hollywood biopic is cynically dishonest and rote in its formulaic box-checking. Michael, the new film on the life of Michael Jackson, is all that and worse.
The Corporate Thriller Lied to Us
Criterion Channel is hosting a retrospective on Hollywood’s “corporate thrillers” from the 1980s through the early 2000s. If anything, their message about the capitalist rot in America’s institutions looks far too tame for how the last couple of decades turned out.
Outcome Is Jonah Hill’s Inept Hollywood Satire
Jonah Hill’s new Apple TV Hollywood satire, Outcome, wants to skewer celebrity culture. But even with the likable Keanu Reeves, its muddled script and self‑pitying subtext reveal more about the industry’s narcissism than the film ever intended.
A Tribute to Iran’s Soulful and Revolutionary Cinema
With President Donald Trump recently threatening to destroy Iranian civilization itself, the country’s filmmakers carry on their long tradition of defiant, deeply human cinema forged under censorship, imprisonment, and war.
The Peaky Blinders Film Ratchets Up the Gloom and Black Humor
Cillian Murphy’s final turn as Tommy Shelby in Netflix’s Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is a brooding, gorgeous farewell to one of TV’s great antiheroes.
Fictional Teen Dystopias Reflect Real Capitalist Nightmares
Dystopian teen films will remain popular as long as they keep reflecting truths about young people’s prospects under capitalism.
Project Hail Mary Is the Feel-Good Dystopian Sci-fi We Need
Ryan Gosling’s new space film, Project Hail Mary, blends doomsday stakes with a surprisingly tender cross‑species friendship, offering a rare blockbuster that admits the planet is worth saving — and that solidarity might still matter.
Colleen Hoover’s Awful Hollywood Reign Has Only Just Begun
Reminders of Him is exactly the movie novelist Colleen Hoover set out to make — which is the problem.
Javier Bardem Was a Bright Spot at the Oscars Last Night
At a time of profound unrest and the launch of an insane new war, Hollywood mostly stuck to its “keep politics out” mandate at this year’s Academy Awards. Javier Bardem, however, stood firm: no to war, and freedom for Palestine.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! Is a Monstrous Mess
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! swings for a radical, genre-bending reinvention of Bride of Frankenstein. But the result is a messy, overstuffed film that makes an awkward attempt at feminist relevance.
Scream 7 Is More Tedious Meta-Horror Fan Service
The three-decade-old Scream franchise is back and more profitable than ever. But the series’s trademarked meta-commentary about slasher movie conventions has long since worn thin.