What a shame that this movie took so long to find a distributor—it’s one of the very best and most important films of the year. We have been so beaten down by geriatric Donald Trump’s ubiquity that to reopen his origin story feels like a revelation. And Ali Abbasi nails it. He correctly does not try to neatly pathologize Trump—he is a disciple of the ruthless Roy Cohn, yes, but he’s also a son bristling under a prideful father, and…
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllRecent reviews
More-
-
A Real Pain 2024
A Real Pain’s concern is with the weight of the entire world. That Jesse Eisenberg makes it feel intimate is a remarkable feat.
The pair of main characters process life’s bewildering vortex of information and joy and misery in vastly different ways. Eisenberg’s David is all superego, timid and polite, totally conventional in lifestyle and manner. He’s well-off and aloof and keeps everything bottled—but cracks begin to show. Benji, pure id, is exuberant and empathetic, just as quick with a…Translated from by -
The Brutalist 2024
“Tell us where you are willing to compromise!” a character says to architect Laszlo Toth early in the second act of The Brutalist. The answer is that he isn’t, and neither is Brady Corbet. Toth (an astounding Adrien Brody) is commissioned to build a monument to a wealthy man’s mother, a “sacred enough space that her soul might inhabit it.” The film is about each soul’s quest to create such a home—through money, through art, in a foreign land or…
Translated from by -
Wicked 2024
A worthy entry in the Wizard of Oz Cinematic Universe. I’m new to Wicked, so I was skeptical of the long runtime and the two-film split. I’m also someone who has used the internet in the last two months, which means I have been exhausted by interview clips of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Thankfully, the movie is terrific, earning its runtime and maybe even its cultural saturation. It’s a triumph of direction—Jon M. Chu summons all the magic of…
Translated from by
