The Changeling Desperately Wants to Be a Very Important and Very Scary Show
LaKeith Stanfield is great in Apple TV+’s new horror-fantasy series The Changeling, based on the best-selling novel. The show itself, though, is a convoluted mess.
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In El Conde, Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet Is a Literal Vampire
El Conde is a fantastic satirical movie in which the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet stars in black and white as a ravenous vampire. Yes, you read that right.
Agatha Christie Deserves Better Than Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice
An Agatha Christie murder mystery has once again been made a mess by director Kenneth Branagh, this time with A Haunting in Venice.
Dumb Money, the New Movie About the 2021 GameStop Short Squeeze, Is Very Funny
Director Craig Gillespie’s new film Dumb Money transforms the 2021 GameStop short squeeze into a rousing comedy about everyday Americans turning the tables against the financial elite. It’s the best “COVID movie” so far.
Poor Things Is a Light and Gorgeous Lanthimos Fantasy That Could Use More Weight
Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film, is gorgeous, thought-provoking, and wonderfully acted. All it’s missing is some more weight behind its feminist spirit.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar Is Another Day at the Office for Wes Anderson
In The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, the first of four Roald Dahl mini adaptations, I was hoping for something like Fantastic Mr. Fox — but it’s the same old Wes Anderson. Still, he claims it took “years to decide how to shoot the story.”
Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher Is Bingeable Halloween Viewing
Netflix’s resident horror auteur is back with his take on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. You’ll have a good time — even if some of the nods to “sociopolitical relevance” might send your eyes rolling.
Killers of the Flower Moon Is the Subdued and Serious Side of Scorsese
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is an admirable, thoughtful film. But it lacks the wild, old Marty energy that brought us so many Scorsese classics.
A Brief and Unflattering History of General Motors on Film
With the UAW’s historic strike wins this week, we look back at the history of US auto manufacturing in movies — with a focus on films that show how the auto industry has tried to shaft workers over the decades.
John Le Carré Is Still an Enigma in Errol Morris’s New Documentary
Celebrated spy novelist John Le Carré is the subject of Errol Morris’s new documentary The Pigeon Tunnel. While it claims to reveal secrets about his famously strange life, you get the sense Le Carré told as much as he ever meant to and no more.
Priscilla Is Yet Another Sad Princess Tale From Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola’s new film, Priscilla, finds Elvis’s young bride bored and lonely in her life of luxury. But like Coppola’s other films in this subgenre, it’s all about the costumes and accoutrements.
The New Movie Fingernails Might Make You Want to Rip Out Your Own
The new Apple TV+ sci-fi romance drama Fingernails has a preachy message about how love is inherently risky. With no emotional payoff, its inane and implausible plot points add up to a plodding, pompous film.
Nathan Fielder and Bennie Safdie’s The Curse Adds a Dash of Horror to Cringe Comedy
The new series The Curse, starring Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone as rich, clueless gentrifiers, follows a married couple filming an HGTV reality show. It’s a low-key cringe comedy that makes everyday selfishness and awkwardness feel like a horror movie.
American Fiction Is a Scathing Satire of Representation Discourse
The 2023 film American Fiction, starring Best Actor nominee Jeffrey Wright, aims to spark discussion through a darkly comedic portrayal of a long debate about representations of black Americans on film. It’s a worthy directorial debut by Cord Jefferson.
The New Mr. & Mrs. Smith Is Very Different From the Brangelina Film
Loosely based on the 2005 film, the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith TV reboot uses the action-comedy genre to represent how impossible life is for so many people today, with two misfit unemployables turning to assassin work out of desperation.
Dior and Chanel Square Off in the Messy The New Look
Largely set in occupied France during World War II, the new Apple TV+ series The New Look zeroes in on Christian Dior’s rivalry with Coco Chanel — but it falls flat when it tries to handle Chanel’s infamous Nazi sympathies.
Drive-Away Dolls Is a Wonderfully Unimportant Romp
Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls is a delightfully raucous lesbian road comedy. Don’t listen to the wet-blanket critics — this film is good news in dull times for American movies.
Bob Marley: One Love Is a Feel-Good Fake
The story of Bob Marley’s reggae music and his politically infused Rastafarian beliefs is fascinating. Not that you’ll learn anything about them from watching the new feel-good biopic Bob Marley: One Love.
Kate Winslet Rules as an Unstable Autocrat in The Regime
The new HBO miniseries The Regime imagines the last days of a crumbling modern-day autocracy. The series is obviously intended to draw parallels to our own slowly collapsing empire, with Kate Winslet as a grandly imperious and unstable head of state.
Perfect Days Celebrates Spare, Mindful Escapism
Critics love Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days for its depiction of a happy and humble Japanese toilet cleaner. But it’s really a fantasy of escape — one that seems to appeal mostly to the affluent.