At 88, Clint Eastwood — the keeper of the classic-moviemaking flame, the now-and-forever Dirty Harry — looks bent but never broken in The Mule, the true story of 90-year-old Earl Stone. He’s a divorced horticulturist from Peoria, Illinois, someone who grew tired of making little things grow, except maybe his …
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This stunning, slow-build thriller from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong sizzles with a cumulative power that will knock the wind out of you. Burning starts like a romance in the manner of The Talented Mr. Ripley as poor boy Jongsu, an aspiring writer played by Yoo Ah-in, falls under the …
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At first glance, you might mistake What They Had for one of those well-meaning family dramas about what to do when your mom is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But that would discount the exceptional accomplishment achieved by debuting director Elizabeth Chomko, enlivening her scrappy script with a cast of actors who …
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Rupert Everett turns his fascination with Oscar Wilde, the 19th-century Irish poet and playwright who was persecuted and jailed for “gross indecency with men” (the word homosexual was never uttered), into a film of righteous anger, touching gravity and wicked Wildean wit. Having played the literary lion on stage in …
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InSwedish director Bjorn Runge’s film version of the 2003 Meg Wolitzer novel, the brilliant Glenn Close plays Joan Castleman, the wife of celebrated author Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), who’s just won the Nobel Prize for literature. For him, the win is better than sex, which the lusty lion enjoys quite …
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Yes, you read that correctly: zero stars. When talented people create one of the worst movies ever made, you have to ask: What the hell happened? Terminal is a case in point. Here’s another question: How did debuting filmmaker Vaughn Stein ever persuade Margot Robbie, just off her Oscar-nominated triumph …
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Is Atlanta the best comedy on TV? Or the best drama? The best family saga about the impossibility of either fatherhood or son-hood? The funniest crime story? The most depressive stoner romp? The most anti-romantic love letter to a city? The most absurdist state-of-the-nation report, in the form of a …
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Here’s the movie of the year for incurable romantics, a rapturous ode to first love that sweeps you up on waves of dizzying eroticism and then sweetly, emphatically leaves you emotionally shattered. For almost a year, Call Me By Your Name – the latest from Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love, …
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Need a quick fix for the bleak dystopian epics flooding the multiplex? Take a hit off the laughing gas rising up out of Thor: Ragnarok, which may be the most fun you’ll ever have at a Marvel movie. The first Thor (2011) ran fast out of the gate, thanks to …
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