In the warped new horror-comedy “The Monkey” (in theaters), Theo James plays Hal and Bill, estranged twin brothers who are besieged by a possessed music-making monkey toy they got under gruesome circumstances when they were boys. Once that little monkey starts a tinny rat-tat-tat on his drum, nobody’s safe. Based on a Stephen King short … Read more
Whether documentary or fiction, the sports movie template is so well-worn — we were underdogs, then we won, and it was amazing — that it’s rare to execute a new twist on the formula. And in some ways, “We Beat the Dream Team” (streaming on Max), directed by Michael Tolajian, follows that recipe. Its title … Read more
Maybe Big Tech hasn’t delivered on its disruptive promise for movies after all: We’ve cut our cable cords for price and convenience only to pay just as much (if not more) to jump through hoops and across platforms, with diminishing returns in quality. But there’s always good work being made. This new column, then, is … Read more
Goes bananas on the gore. ‘The Monkey’ After a cursed toy monkey from his childhood reappears, a man (Theo James) tries to stop it in this horror comedy directed by Osgood Perkins. From our review: The movie’s presumption is that the more inventive the means of death — and the more quickly those means are … Read more
“Hello. I’m Denis Villeneuve. I’m the director of ‘Dune, Part Two’.” [TENSE MUSIC] “So this scene happens exactly after the introduction of Feyd-Rautha, where we saw him as a psychopath. And here, we bring this character into his political environment, where it would be a strange celebration of its birthday, where in Harkonnen culture, the … Read more
“Hello. I’m Denis Villeneuve. I’m the director of ‘Dune, Part Two’.” [TENSE MUSIC] “So this scene happens exactly after the introduction of Feyd-Rautha, where we saw him as a psychopath. And here, we bring this character into his political environment, where it would be a strange celebration of its birthday, where in Harkonnen culture, the … Read more
“Old Guy” is billed as an action movie but it is actually more of a fantasy film. It imagines a world in which an aging hit man kills his targets without consequence before retreating to nightclubs where scads of beautiful young women compete to accompany him home. Presumably Danny Dolinski (Christoph Waltz) has been enjoying … Read more
Souleymane Cissé, an award-winning writer and director who became the first Black African filmmaker to win the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, died on Wednesday in Bamako, Mali. He was 84. His death was confirmed by François Margolin, a French film producer and a close friend of Mr. Cissé’s. Mr. Cissé had just … Read more
The title character in “The Unbreakable Boy” is a whirlwind, a handful, a lot. Austin, an eighth grader with autism, is often in overdrive, whether he’s counting toys or rattling off the courtroom monologue from “A Few Good Men.” He also has a genetic brittle-bone disorder that frequently lands him in the emergency room. Crucially, … Read more
