Monthly Archives: July 2024

“Young Woman and the Sea” is about the inspiration for “Nyad,” the American swimmer who became the first woman to swim the English Channel and thus upended notions of “the weaker sex” in sports. Norwegian director Joachim Rønning (“Kon-Tiki,” the … Continue reading →

Your hat comes off and your heart goes out to anybody with the gumption to attempt to create a new musical. That’s ambitious. Melissa D’Agostino didn’t just co-write the script to “Mother of All Shows.” She stars in it, sings … Continue reading →

It’s hard to hear the term “white savior” in the cinema and not think of Peter O’Toole. Any film which puts a caucasian in an embattled situation with a community of color as its problem-solver/hero invites the comparison, as O’Toole … Continue reading →

The comparisons with “Silence of the Lambs” litter the reviewing landscape of the wintry Oregon-set thriller “Longlegs.” It’s a horror movie with higher ambitions, or at least pretensions, thanks to its casting of Nicolas Cage as an aged, high-voiced, Satan-worshipping … Continue reading →

The image is so iconic, so striking, and occurs so early in the immaculately realized period piece “The Convert” that you can’t miss its meaning. Guy Pearce, at his most dashing and playing a lay preacher new to a tiny … Continue reading →

I’ve read a few books on the subject, including the most recent scholarship about “Doolittle’s Raid” on Tokyo, one of the more daring American air exploits of World War II. And I distinctly recall the chill that went through my … Continue reading →

“The Champion” is a formulaic Spanish sports melodrama about an athlete with “issues” finding his way back to public favor and his place within “the beautiful game.” It’s not subtle, featuring a rageaholic soccer star whose tantrums are over the … Continue reading →

The later films of David Lean are works of such visual ambition and scale that they can let the viewer lose track of the connective thread, the relationships and characters that make “Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Lawrence of Arabia” … Continue reading →

“MaXXXine” is horror auteur Ti West’s Big Statement on horror, censorship, the hypocrisy in American conservatism and the dog-devour-dog ethos of the struggling classes in Hollywood. A lurid send-up of exploitation cinema of the ’70s (split screens, neon-tinted lighting and … Continue reading →

“Touch” is a lovely, patient romantic melodrama about remembering and pursuing that woman whose gentle caress a man remembers from the first time they met, long ago. This search will take Kristófer from Iceland to London and beyond. Kristófer is … Continue reading →