There is a lot of love in âOnce Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,â and quite a bit to enjoy. The screen is crowded with signs of Quentin Tarantinoâs well-established ardor â for the movies and television shows of the decades after World War II; for the vernacular architecture, commercial signage and famous restaurants of Los Angeles; for the female foot and the male jawline; for vintage clothes and cars and cigarettes. But the mood in this, his ninth feature, is for the most part affectionate rat...
Watching the newest version of âThe Lion Kingâ â a big-screen celebrity-voiced musical trying its best to look like a television nature documentary â I recalled a line from John Gregory Dunneâs 1969 book âThe Studioâ that may be my all-time favorite sentence in the annals of movie writing. âSix months were devoted to teaching Chee Chee the Chimpanzee how to cook bacon and eggs,â Dunne wrote, referring to a character in âDoctor Dolittle,â one of many real animals cast in that big-budget, famil...
One of the most interesting documentaries of 2018 was Robert Greeneâs âBisbee 17,â about a historical re-enactment in an Arizona town that exposed how past conflicts continue to fester. âI Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians,â the latest feature from Romanian director Radu Jude (âScarred Hearts,â âAferim!â), takes up a similar theme, showing that history is never neutral and that present-day culture wars often carry out the violence of the past by other means.
Casey, a skinny, nervous nebbish â played, it may be redundant to add, by Jesse Eisenberg â lives alone with his dachshund in a nondescript apartment in an unidentified city. He works in the accounting department of a company that is as generic as everything else in âThe Art of Self-Defense,â a wobbly sort-of satire written and directed by Riley Stearns.
Those three play most of the police department of Centerville, a hamlet in some possible proximity to Pittsburgh or Cleveland â where the hipsters might come from â that advertises itself as âa nice place.â
(Criticâs Pick): âThe Souvenirâ is one of my favorite movies of the year so far, but I almost want to keep it a secret. Partly because itâs the kind of film â we all have a collection of these, and of similar books and records, too â that feels like a private discovery, an experience you want to protect rather than talk about.
At 14, May (Nguyen Phuong Tra My) travels up river to marry a man she has never met and start a new life on his familyâs silk plantation. The household, which includes servants, her husbandâs two other wives and their children, is a place where intimacy and cruelty can be hard to tell apart. Itâs the center of a world rendered with pathos and somewhat prurient fascination in âThe Third Wife,â Ash Mayfairâs finespun debut feature.
(An Appraisal): The Hollywood Reporter obituary for Doris Day describes her in the headline as âHollywoodâs Favorite Girl Next Door,â which is reasonable enough, if not terribly imaginative.
(Criticâs Pick): In the autumn of 1975, at the Rome apartment he shares with his mother and a cousin, Pier Paolo Pasolini is giving what will turn out to be his last interview. A week after his body is found on a beach outside the city, the conversation will be published in La Stampa under the headline âWe Are All in Danger.â Parts of it are reproduced verbatim (in English), in Abel Ferraraâs new film.
Comedy is in a weird place these days. Stand-up performers and late-night television hosts lean into the politics of the moment, while most movies with an urge to be funny tread cautiously, afraid of giving offense to any segment of the audience. âThe Hustleâ does some of that â it pushes no buttons and tests no boundaries â but in the service of a higher cause. Or maybe a lower one. Silliness is the watchword. Always silliness.
âThe Intruder,â a real-estate-based thriller set in Californiaâs Napa Valley, is more silly than scary. This doesnât seem to be entirely intentional, and it isnât altogether unwelcome. The idea of Dennis Quaid popping up in your kitchen in the middle of the night might not exactly be the stuff of nightmares. Quaid, playing a deranged ex-homeowner named Charlie Peck, seems to know this. And the director, Deon Taylor, does too.
During my first viewing of Olivier Assayasâ âNon-Fictionâ â sometime last year, it must have been â I was a little puzzled about exactly when the story was supposed to be taking place. Was it right now, or now-ish or at some point in the recent past?
âNo amount of money ever bought a second of time,â one character says to another â Iâm afraid I canât be any more specific than that â somewhere around the middle of âAvengers: Endgame.â So true, so true, and also in context so completely not true. The intersecting axes of time and money are what this franchise is all about, and while Iâm not an expert in studio math, Iâd guess that a second of the movie, based on what Disney and Marvel Studios paid to make it, would buy a decent used car.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
