There was a bittersweet symmetry to be found in learning of the death of Norman Jewison just a day before the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees. Jewison, who died Saturday at age 97, was one of the great journeyman directors in Hollywood, the stylistically unobtrusive craftsman who brought the gripping civil rights-era drama “In […]

Set on the International Space Station, the movie “I.S.S.” is a modest but satisfyingly suspenseful thriller whose central conflict between the six members of the station’s half-American, half-Russian crew is precipitated by a decidedly earthbound crisis. Shortly after arriving aboard the research facility – a high-tech, orbiting laboratory where we’re told its harmoniously cohabitating scientists […]

The centerpiece of the new film “Poor Things” is an erratic dance number. The setting is a Lisbon restaurant, where the eccentric Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) and her narcissistic paramour, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), bicker over drinks. A sudden instrumental beat piques Bella’s curiosity, and she slowly makes her way toward the dance floor. Bella […]

Ferrari starts with some ancient history: archival footage of Enzo Ferrari racing cars as a young man in the 1920s, just a few decades into the automobile age, long before he founded his eponymous automobile company. Watching him zoom around the track in grainy black and white is thrilling. But, wait a minute – how […]

Accounts from Andrew Pettegree’s ‘The Book at War’ will make you wonder what role books are playing in current conflicts.

I cannot tell a lie: 2022 was kind of a bummer, movie-wise. As the year ended, I was hard-pressed to come up with 10 titles I genuinely loved. The pickings were so slim, I worried about the future of the movies, not just as art or mass entertainment, but as communal events that are central […]

It is difficult – nay, impossible – to imagine that the Willy Wonka of the prequel “Wonka,” a simperingly sweet musical origin story starring Timothée Chalamet as the aspiring chocolatier made famous by writer Roald Dahl, ever matures into the adult version of the character we saw in 2005’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” starring […]