Film Reviews

A wonderful little movie, The Fits opens on an 11-year old doing sit-ups -- 25 in all, hands clasped behind her head, radiant face to the camera.

Enormous going on keep going on, and on, in X-Men: Apocalypse. It's a collection of explosions, eruptions and conflagrations that looks like the implosion of a franchise. This is disappointing, but also surprising.

Disgraced New York politician Anthony Weiner has been memorialized in an extraordinary documentary called...yes, Weiner.

In Money Monster, George Clooney plays a TV personality -- a medium-manic version of Jim Cramer, the host of NBC's Mad Money.

Viva is another retelling, though a particularly affecting one, of a classic tale -- the struggle to discover and assert one's authentic identity.

A Hologram for the King was based on the novel by Dave Eggers.

Nine years ago American audiences discovered the Irish film Once, and took it to their hearts. The magic is back in Sing Street, a coming-of-age comedy that's also concerned with making music, and downright lovable in its evocation of young love.

Louder than Bombs is very much a movie about memory. It lives and breathes with a lovely intimacy and density of detail that we associate with fine independent features from Europe.

Richard Linklater calls the semi-autobiographical Everybody Wants Some! a "spiritual sequel" to his 1993 Dazed and Confused.

Batman v Superman is an underdeveloped, overlong and stupendously dispiriting duel of unlikely antagonists.

Midnight Special is a beautifully strange and stirring sci-fi adventure about a boy with special powers.

Like lots of movies these days, Marguerite tells us that "it was inspired by a true story." That usually means the story's truth was buried beneath layers of rubbish. But the key word here is "inspired" -- the film is a wonderfully imaginative work of fiction.

If you're looking for joyous fun, Disney's Zootopia is Yootopia.

The title of Triple 9 comes from a police code, 999, that means an officer is down and urgently in need of help.

The Witch's psychodynamics may be familiar, but Robert Eggers makes them seem newly discovered with the intensity of his writing and direction.  Race is a saga of unquenchable spirit and fast-twitch muscles shot in slow-twitch style.