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FIRST NAME: CARMEN (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1983, 4)

I wish I could’ve bottled the post-film bar convo I had with my bud Matthew, as he talked me up a little. There is the idea of a great movie...

Dreamin’ Wild ***

As he showed in 2014’s Love & Mercy, writer/director Bill Pohlad isn’t interested in the infinitely mockable rhythms of the conventional music biopic, and this fact-based...

“Nobody knows what you believe,” says physicist Edward Teller (Benny Safdie) to his Los Alamos supervisor, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) late in writer/director Christopher Nolan’s...

AMERICAN GIGOLO (Paul Schrader, USA, 1980, 7)

Given that my favorite Schrader film is the last one I saw (MASTER GARDENER) and the first 20 minutes here is the first 20 minutes of a masterpiece, I...

The Boogeyman ***

From the Department of Two Things Can Both Be True: 1) A movie might be kind of tedious and predictable from a narrative standpoint, and 2) that same movie might show enough style...

For months now—ever since the first stills and clips from director Rob Marshall’s remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid first started making the rounds—the punch line has been about darkness…...

Carmen *** I won’t sit here and pretend that I know Bizet’s Carmen—or its Prosper Mérimée source material—well enough to evaluate whether even the “inspired by” credit in director Benjamin...

BlackBerry ***1/2

See feature review. Available May 12 in theaters. (R)

Book Club: The Next Chapter **1/2

Never underestimate the power of giving a viewer pretty things to look at, even if...

How to Blow Up a Pipeline ***1/2

The title of this movie inspired by Andreas Malm’s nonfiction book certainly isn’t false advertising; director Daniel Goldhaber spends plenty of time on the logistics...

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves ***

See feature review. Available March 31 in theaters. (PG-13)

Enys Men ***1/2

Because we can’t seem to let movies exist without having to attach...

Children of the Corn *1/2

In principle, there’s nothing wrong with a new angle on Stephen King’s 1977 short story that shifts the religious fervor of kids in a small Nebraska town to an existential...

As the stakes in the ever-unfolding Marvel Cinematic Universe have continued to grow—from the fate of the world, to the fate of the universe, to the fate of the multiverse—it has been at least...

Magic Mike’s Last Dance **1/2

Each of the previous installments in the Magic Mike franchise had its own unique vibe—2012’s original as a look at Great Recession-era economic realities, and 2015’s...

Passages **** [Premieres]

In hindsight, there’s something pitch-perfect about the fact that the movie Tomas (Franz Rogowski), the filmmaker anti-hero of co-writer/director Ira Sachs’ feature, is...

Polite Society ***1/2 [Midnight]

Writer/director Nida Manzoor’s frisky feature feels destined to be compared to other movies—a little bit Everything Everywhere All At Once, a little bit Scott Pilgrim...

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed ***1/2

Director Laura Poitras takes a unique two-pronged approach to profiling the life of artist/activist Nan Goldin; it isn’t until the end until it’s clear how...

SIX SUSPECTS (Lin Tuan-Chiu, Taiwan, 1965, 3)

The black-and-white widescreen, jazzy score and view from inside a car on a rainy night promise a noirish Otto Preminger film, but ANATOMY OF A MURDER...

PATHS TO PARADISE (Clarence Badger, USA, 1925, 8)

A bit of enjoyable nonsense about a couple of jewel thieves among the impossibly riche. Raymond Griffith and Betty Compson make an appealing couple...

Bones and All **1/2

The central conceit in director Luca Guadagnino’s film—adapted by David Kajganich from Camille DeAngelis’s 2015 novel—is clearly an allegory for something; the question of...

Armageddon Time **1/2

Over the course of nearly 30 years as a filmmaker, one of James Gray’s undeniable gifts has been creating a rich sense of place for his stories; they’re scometimes less compelling...