Anna and the Apocalypse is a Scottish zombie high school musical comedy set at Christmastime. Does it fulfill every magical possibility of that delicious combination of themes? No, but let’s be reasonable. It’s a remarkably self-assured and polished second feature by director John McPhail (expanding on a 2011 short by Ryan McHenry), with tuneful, rhyme-full […]

Suspiria, from Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, is a remake of a 1977 cult favorite by Italian horrormeister Dario Argento — but don’t feel bad if that means nothing to you. Argento, a legend in horror circles for his genre-defining work in giallo films, never had mainstream name recognition, and while Suspiria was his […]

Instant Family may not be the most wonderful movie of the year, but it’s certainly the most surprisingly wonderful. Inspired by a true story, the premise threatens a sappy, manipulative Hallmark movie: White childless couple Pete (Mark Wahlberg) and Ellie (Rose Byrne) decide to take in a foster kid and end up with a trio […]

Ralph Breaks the Internet is a bit of a misnomer. The eponymous hero doesn’t actually “break” the internet (and certainly not in the way a Kardashian might), and the long-awaited sequel to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph isn’t necessarily about the internet, per se. What it is about is friendship — how we grow (up) together, and […]

In 2008, journalist David Sheff and his son Nic published parallel memoirs, Beautiful Boy and Tweak, detailing Nic’s struggles with drug addiction and David’s efforts to help him. Both books are credited as source material for the film Beautiful Boy, directed by Felix van Groeningen (Broken Circle Breakdown) and written by him and Luke Davies (Lion), […]

After countless adaptations and remakes, you’re undoubtedly quite familiar with the tale of Robin Hood, the charismatic and good-hearted thief who robs from the rich to give to the poor. But, as Taron Egerton’s title character instructs in the opening voice over of Robin Hood, “forget history.” You wouldn’t be interested in yet another retelling […]

The Australian filmmaker Joel Edgerton, who directed The Gift and played Uncle Owen in the Star Wars prequels, is not gay. This felt apparent to me, a gay, watching Boy Erased, which Edgerton adapted and directed from Garrard Conley’s memoir about having to attend “conversion therapy.” It’s a film by someone who doesn’t quite grasp what it’s […]

The biggest crime in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald surprisingly isn’t one perpetrated by Johnny Depp (though he’s definitely a problem). What makes this sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them such a frustrating experience is that everything about it — save for the beasts themselves — feels so distinctly … underwhelming. […]

On the surface, it would be almost too easy to dismiss the women of Widows as oblivious, naive, helpless, or – worst of all – dumb. But therein lies the brilliance and thematic intricacy of Steve McQueen’s latest film – a ferocious and sophisticated reimagining of the BBC miniseries that starred Helen Mirren. McQueen’s Widows moves the […]