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Movie Review

Are you looking for recommendations about the best and worst in current film releases? Our movie reviews try to get past brief opinions and dig into why a given movie works, and what it has to offer.

Kevin Nguyen
Kevin Nguyen
The zone of dissenting opinion.

I quite liked (but had some issues with) Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest. But critic (and very good Letterboxd follow) Kristen Yoonsoo Kim is a hater. Her take:

Why must I watch the inner lives of Nazis? I was hoping Glazer would answer that question but this film does not go into any enlightening or thought-provoking territory beyond, like, “here it is, the banality of evil! Also here are some random ‘experimental’ shots in between.”

(Also, does embedding Letterboxd posts work in our CMS? Let’s find out!)

Update: It does!

Kevin Nguyen
Kevin Nguyen
Planet of the dates.

Janet Planet, the film directorial debut from the widely celebrated playwright Annie Baker, premiered at NYFF yesterday. Set in Western Massachusetts in the early ‘90s, we see Janet (Julianne Nicholson) through the eyes of her 11-year-old daughter Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) watching her mother navigate several relationships. It’s funny, richly layered, and avoidant of tropes. (I also relish any movie where a child actor does not come across as too precocious!)

Baker’s stage experience shows in the dialogue and the precision of its rhythms; everywhere else, though, Janet Planet feels very well versed in the language of the screen.

I wish there was a trailer I could share! A24 has picked it up, and though tonally it’s different from Lady Bird, Aftersun, or Past Lives, there’s a shared quiet intimacy in all these films. Which is to say: if you liked any of those, you will probably love Janet Planet.

A still from Janet Planet, featuring actresses Julianne Nicholson and Zoe Ziegler as mother and daughter.
Julianne Nicholson and Zoe Ziegler as mother and daughter in Janet Planet.
Courtesy of A24
Two words: jazz animeTwo words: jazz anime
Kevin Nguyen
The Creator retreads familiar AI panic territory to stunningly inert effect

Gareth Edwards’ new dystopian sci-fi epic is a gorgeous morass of AI doomerism that’s lacking in the way of novel ideas.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Low interest rates and loneliness: the origins of the pandemic crypto boom

This Is Not Financial Advice and Easy Money attempt to explain the extremely online financial mania. Their very divergent takes show how difficult it is to fully understand.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Blue Beetle is the kitschy sort of superhero throwback DC should have been making years ago

Director Ángel Manuel Soto’s new Blue Beetle movie checks all the flashy, formulaic boxes Warner Bros. should have been focusing on when it first started trying to build a modern cinematic universe.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Last Voyage of the Demeter just isn’t scary enough to live up to Dracula’s legacy

The Last Voyage of the Demeter turns one of the most riveting chapters from Bram Stoker’s Dracula into a soggy feature-length horror that never finds its sea legs.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Corner Office could be a clever nightmare about main character syndrome if it weren’t so stuck in its own head

Lionsgate’s new dark comedy from director Joachim Back plays more like a lengthy ASMR video starring Jon Hamm.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Mutant Mayhem is a grody and gorgeous reintroduction to the TMNT

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a classic retelling of its pizza-obsessed heroes’ origin story that’s elevated by phenomenal art direction.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Netflix’s They Cloned Tyrone is an instant classic, no cult required

Director Juel Taylor’s debut feature is a slick and stylish celebration of the Blaxploitation genre and the Black culture that gave birth to it.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Oppenheimer is an unrelenting stream of bombastic vignettes in need of a narrative chain reaction

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer epic offers a series of visceral glimpses into the life of the father of the atomic bomb but gets too busy to reach its full potential.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
This Barbie is a feminist parable fighting to be great in spite of Mattel’s input

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is often good and sometimes great, but it always feels like it’s fighting to be itself rather than the movie Warner Bros. and Mattel Films want.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
birth/rebirth is the most haunting horror you need to see this summer.

Director Laura Moss’ birth/rebirth — a monstrous, moving, Frankenstein-inspired thriller starring Judy Reyes and Marin Ireland — was one of the most impressive films featured at this year’s Sundance film festival.

If the movie wasn’t already on your radar, this new trailer does a damn good job of showcasing why it needs to be ahead of birth/rebirth’s theatrical debut on August 18th.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is the mother of all self-aware AI panic flicks

Paramount’s seventh Mission: Impossible is the franchise’s biggest, silliest, and most stunt-filled Tom Cruise delivery system yet. But its self-awareness is more of a bug than a welcome feature.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Dial of Destiny is a ruminative, remedial Indiana Jones history lesson

The newest Indiana Jones movie isn’t trying to reinvent the classic Lucasfilm formula, but it is trying to make you think about what it really means to obsess about the past.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Elemental’s a periodic table of metaphors that don’t always work the way Pixar wants

Pixar’s latest animated feature from director Peter Sohn doesn’t want to be another Zootopia, and yet...

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Asteroid City is a series of exquisite and soulless tableaux all coming apart at the seams

Wes Anderson’s inclination to put style before substance is what keeps his latest from being the truly thought-provoking piece of cinematic art it wants to be.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is the start of something big, but it’s a terrible Beast Wars movie

Paramount’s new Transformers feature barely capitalizes on Beast Wars’ Maximals, but the action-packed movie has a couple of surprises sure to please a certain kind of fan.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Flash’s meta-ness is its only trick, and its undoing

While the core conceit of Warner Bros. Discovery’s The Flash is solid, the movie’s too-meta nostalgia plays highlight everything that has gone awry with the studio’s superhero movie experiment.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Across the Spider-Verse is an animated masterpiece that upends Marvel’s Spider-canon

Sony’s Into the Spider-Verse sequel is a bigger, bolder, more ambitious film than its predecessor — and a powerful deconstruction of Marvel’s Spider-Man mythos.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Little Mermaid is Disney’s most animated ‘live-action’ remake yet

Halle Bailey’s turn as The Little Mermaid’s Ariel is inspired, but the movie’s lackluster sense of visual magic does her very few favors.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Fast X’s running on the highest-octane fumes you’ve ever huffed

Universal’s 11th Fast & Furious movie is essentially a thinly plotted telenovela that’s way more fixated on feelings and family than cars.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a gorgeous spectacle that confuses schmaltz for sentimentality

James Gunn’s third Guardians movie is packed with stunning set pieces, but its saccharine attempts at sentimentality and a by-the-numbers plot keep it from ever reaching lift-off.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Renfield doesn’t deserve Nicolas Cage’s Dracula

Save for Nicolas Cage’s over-the-top Dracula, almost nothing about Universal’s Renfield really works the way it could.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Suzume is everything that’s beautiful and moving about Makoto Shinkai’s imagination

Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume is his most exuberant movie yet and a powerful rumination on holding space for the past.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Beau Is Afraid is an exercise in laughing to keep from screaming

Director Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid amps up the comedic absurdity to tell a haunting story about coping with anxiety.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Super Mario Bros. Movie hype is quite real, I fear.

To look at The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score, you’d think Universal, Illumination, and Nintendo might have accidentally made one of the most polarizing films of the year.

In actuality, though, it really is a M a r i o story: something short, sweet, light on nuance, and rich in simple delights.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the new gold standard for video game films

From its cheesy nostalgia plays to its breathtaking and imaginative visuals, Universal’s new Mario movie is everything a video game adaptation should be.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Netflix’s Kill Boksoon is a progressive but head-scratching thriller

A John Wick-style action film about an assassin balancing her bloody career with being a single parent.

Sara Merican