Bodies Bodies Bodies Is a Bad Class Satire and a Boring Film
Like so many horror films attempting to be subversive, Bodies Bodies Bodies tries to satirize the upper class. But all it delivers are tired, lazy tropes about Gen Z.
353 Articles by: Eileen Jones
Eileen Jones is a film critic at Jacobin, host of the Filmsuck podcast, and author of Filmsuck, USA.
The Bear’s Kitchen Nightmares Make for Great TV
In FX’s The Bear, a struggling Chicago family restaurant is the site of hope and ambition — and it’s thrilling to watch.
Prey Brilliantly Revives the Predator Franchise
Hollywood loves to crank out boring action movies. But Hulu’s Prey is anything but. It plays off of and reverses long-standing Hollywood tropes about Native Americans to craft an alien thriller that actually delivers.
Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train Is a Train Wreck
Don’t let the glossy trailers fool you — Brad Pitt’s new action comedy, Bullet Train, is a strenuous and leaden film that never takes off.
B. J. Novak’s Vengeance Is a Dark Satire of America’s Cultural Divide
Actor B. J. Novak’s impressive directorial debut, Vengeance, sends a Brooklyn writer out to West Texas in order to turn a family’s grief into a podcast. It’s a satire that nails our era like no other.
Jordan Peele’s Nope Is a Triumph
Writer-director Jordan Peele’s mysterious third film, Nope, draws on genre tropes from both alien invasion films and Westerns, but it ends up with something altogether original: a Hollywood spectacle about spectacle.
Netflix Bets Big on The Gray Man and Loses
With its stock cratering and its audience shrinking, Netflix needs a savior. But The Gray Man, a bloated and boring $200 million action movie, is unlikely to be it.
Where the Crawdads Sing Is Pure Book Club Sentimentalism
Reese Witherspoon’s book club made the 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing a hit. The new film adaptation, just like the book it’s based on, is pure bathos of the mushiest kind.
Persuasion Is the Goofy Jane Austen No One Asked For
Netflix’s Persuasion tries and fails to bring Fleabag’s irreverence to Jane Austen.
The Strenuous Comedy of Thor: Love and Thunder
Taika Waititi’s second Thor film doubles down on his trademark mix of silliness and somberness. It still works — but it might not survive another sequel.
Baz Luhrmann Is Giving Us a Good, Clean Elvis for the 21st Century
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis tries to sell audiences on a sanitized version of the King, missing the much weirder, wilder, and messier truth of his life and career.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Has a “Magic Sex Worker” Problem
Critics are fawning over Good Luck to You, Leo Grande for its “brave” sex positivity. But the crowd-pleasing comedy is actually anxiously prescriptive, and it relies on an angelic and selfless sex worker to teach a middle-aged woman how to love her body.
Jurassic World: Dominion Is a New Low for a Never-Ending Franchise
The latest Jurassic Park sequel is exhausted and running on fumes. Big, loud, annoying fumes.
Danny Boyle’s Pistol Sells Punk — and the Sex Pistols — Short
How can someone take a band as exciting, wild, and innovative as the Sex Pistols and make such a conventional, paint-by-numbers miniseries? With Pistol, Danny Boyle found a way.
David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future Has Me Missing His Early Stuff
David Cronenberg’s latest film, Crimes of the Future, is a return to the “body horror” genre. It brings back the gross-out gore that first made his career in the 1970s — but without the thrills.
“We’re New — We Don’t Have Any Customs”
Two films about the Tennessee Valley Authority stress its utopian promise and the lives that had to be destroyed to fulfill it.
Top Gun: Maverick Is Another Military Recruitment Video Disguised as a Movie
The hotly anticipated sequel to Top Gun, the 1986 movie that made Tom Cruise a star, is raking in cash, great reviews, and even Oscar buzz. Don’t be fooled — it’s the same glorified military recruitment video that the original was.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie Sides With Working-Class Eccentrics
The cult-favorite TV show Bob’s Burgers is now a movie — and it works, even if its low-key charms don’t always dazzle on the big screen.
Hollywood Never Fully Appreciated Ray Liotta’s Immense Talent
Ray Liotta has died suddenly at the age of 67. He should have been a major star — but after his greatest role in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, we never really got a chance to see everything he could do.
Men Is Terrifying — Until It Succumbs to Its Big Ideas
Alex Garland’s Men is a horror movie about how awful it is to be a woman. But he’s so intent on driving this point home that all the terror drains out of the film by the end, and only annoyance at the didactic exercise remains.