Movie Reviews

Christopher and Christine'a Rainey embrace in Quest.

Arts

'Quest': Documentary Captures The Music Of One North Philly Family's Life

5:00pm December 07, 2017

by Scott Tobias

Filmed over four years, Jonathan Olshefksy's bracing and beautiful film follows Christopher and Christine'a Rainey as they invite local rappers into their basement music studio.

Yonatan Shiray plays a young Israeli soldier in Foxtrot.

Arts

Israeli Film 'Foxtrot' Is A Bruisingly Powerful Look At A War Without End

4:05pm December 07, 2017

by Justin Chang

Foxtrot centers on an Israeli couple reeling from the death of their soldier son. Critic Justin Chang says the title is "a clever if heavy-handed metaphor for a nation mired in its own stasis."

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Arts

Director Guillermo Del Toro Says 'Shape Of Water' Centers On 'Love Beyond Words'

1:41pm December 05, 2017

by Sam Briger

"I wanted to make a completely honest, heart-on-sleeve, non-ironic melodrama," del Toro says. Set in 1962, his new film features a fairy tale romance between a creature and a mute woman.

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Arts

'The Disaster Artist' Is The Best Movie About A Bad Movie

5:13pm December 01, 2017

by Bob Mondello

Tommy Wiseau's The Room has inspired a cult following, a video game and a "making-of" memoir. Now, the memoir has been turned into a movie, directed by and starring James Franco. It's called The Disaster Artist.

Arts

Delusions Of Grandeur Take Center Stage In James Franco's 'Disaster Artist'

4:23pm December 01, 2017

by David Edelstein

Critic David Edlestein says Franco sends audiences into hysterics as the director and star of a new biopic about Tommy Wiseau, an oddball filmmaker with vision and drive — but very little talent.

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Nothing's Gonna Tear Them Apart, Lisa: Greg (Dave Franco) and Tommy (James Franco) wait for the lights to go down in The Disaster Artist.

Arts

'The Disaster Artist' Is 'The Room' Where It Happened

5:00pm November 30, 2017

by Scott Tobias

Director/star James Franco fondly — and hilariously — chronicles the making of the cult-movie fiasco The Room, evincing a deep understanding of the unhinged ambition at its core. (Go figure.)

Kate Winslet as Ginny, a 1950s waitress on the verge of spinning out, in Wonder Wheel.

Arts

Woodyland In Bad Decline: 'Wonder Wheel'

5:00pm November 30, 2017

by Andrew Lapin

Woody Allen's film about an unhappily married woman in 1950s Coney Island strains to evoke Eugene O'Neill. Critic Andrew Lapin says Wonder Wheel "isn't merely a bad movie but a laughable one."

Sherwan Haji as Khaled, a young Syrian refugee in Helsinki.

Arts

'The Other Side Of Hope': Finding Haven — And Hamachi — in Helsinki

5:00pm November 30, 2017

by Mark Jenkins

Finnish writer/director Ali Kaurismaki follows up his 2011 film The Havre with a darker, but still comic, variation on a similar theme — a character fleeing bloody conflict gets taken in by a group of outcasts.

Gorgeous And Lyrical 'Shape of Water' Doesn't Quite Hit Its Mark

1:32pm November 29, 2017

by Justin Chang

Director Guillermo del Toro's new film is both a stylized vision of Cold War paranoia and an old-school monster movie. Reviewer Justin Chang says he wanted to love The Shape of Water more than he did.

Review: 'Call Me By Your Name'

5:08am November 24, 2017

NPR's Noel King talks with April Wolfe, lead film critic for LA Weekly, about the film Call Me by Your Name. It stars Armie Hammer and is directed by Luca Guadagnino.