The director Geremy Jasper begins his new musical in such a bombastic manner, complete with a mock-spaghetti western score, that it’s hard not to be at least intrigued. What is this cinematic U.F.O.? We are, we quickly learn, in a postapocalyptic future in which a certain Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett, from “The White Lotus”) rules the … Read more
The high-concept sci-fi horror film “Ash,” a hazy story about an amnesiac deep-space explorer who awakens to discover her entire crew was killed, is light on answers but heavy on style. The movie begins with a staggered Riya (Eiza González) surveying the mutilated bodies on the cold minimalist floors and walls of her interstellar outpost. … Read more
Killian Maddox (Jonathan Majors) has one goal in life: to be the greatest bodybuilder on Earth. His focus is so single-minded that he has little else to talk about. About a third of the way into “Magazine Dreams,” the shy Killian, having finally worked up the courage to ask, takes Jessie (Haley Bennett), his colleague … Read more
Disney’s new “Snow White” is perfectly adequate, though the scene when our heroine stands alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chanting “no justice, no peace” did admittedly give me pause. Yes, this live-action redo of its 1937 feature-length animated film has been called out as woke, but by the end, the overall damage from Snow White’s liberation struggle … Read more
The spirit of the musical “Buena Vista Social Club” is evident in its opening scene. Audience members have barely settled into their seats before a group of onstage musicians strikes up the number “El Carretero,” with the rest of the cast gathered around and watching. Some are leaning in from their chairs, others get up … Read more
From “Eight Men Out” to “Field of Dreams,” baseball movies are usually enraptured by the past. Steeped in traditions, these films celebrate homespun heroes whose anything-is-possible journeys toward a championship elevate our spirits. But two baseball movies from the last 20 years had something else on their minds that would alter how the sport was … Read more
Carnal urges drive the characters in the films of the French director Alain Guiraudie toward absurd and sometimes dangerous mishaps. In his sexually audacious narratives, which usually play out in the countryside, the temptation of the flesh is a potent catalyst. “I don’t know if you can say that desire is what drives all of … Read more
All this is remarkable, and most likely the reason Scott and the London production won several major awards last year. The technical elements are exemplary, yet not a dollar showier than they need to be. (The spare set is by Rosanna Vize, the cool lights by James Farncombe, the marvelous sound by Dan Balfour.) And … Read more
Last year, Everett published “James,” his reimagining of the American classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” told through the voice of Mark Twain’s enslaved Black character Jim. In the strictest sense, “James” employs parody and pastiche, drawing broadly from Twain’s plot and characters but endowing its first-person narrator with the wit and eloquence that his … Read more
‘Ghostlight’ (2024) Stream it on Hulu. So few films concern the daily lives of the working class, in any meaningful way, that it’s sort of astonishing when one comes along that feels so embedded there. That’s the case with this heart-tugging drama from the directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson (“Saint Frances”), in which a … Read more