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A slow-burning drama about a coal merchant who becomes aware of the horrors hidden within his Irish community, Small Things Like These builds its mystery and tension through Cillian Murphy’s painfully honest performance, a heavy atmosphere, and a haunting exploration of conscience and complicity. When I watch a new movie, there’s a 90% chance that…
A charming true-life comedy about a working-class man who steals a Goya portrait from London’s National Gallery, The Duke turns an unlikely art heist into a sweet and entertaining story, with a wonderfully eccentric performance by Jim Broadbent and a terrific supporting cast. Earlier this year, I watched The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry and…
A darkly playful comedy about a man plotting his way through a wealthy family to claim the inheritance he believes is his, How to Make a Killing turns murder into an entertaining cat-and-mouse game, with a femme fatale watching his every move. The first time I remember seeing Glen Powell in a film was as…
A slow-burning drama about a priest given one week to prepare for his own murder, Calvary balances dark humor and mystery with breathtaking Irish landscapes and a steadily building tension. Over the last decade, Brendan Gleeson has become one of the actors that I look for in film. If he’s on the cover, I’m going…
A dark crime thriller about a widowed father whose son’s abduction connects to the serial killer who terrorized the town years earlier, The Whisper Man is an intriguing mystery with solid performances, an eerie atmosphere, and a story that’s a little hit-or-miss. I like a good psychological thriller, and I’m glad studios keep making and…
A visually striking but painfully muddled take on the classic fairy tale, Red Riding Hood combines a werewolf mystery, gothic romance, and Twilight-style love triangle without finding a convincing way to make any of them work. Every once in a while I happen upon a movie that probably won’t be good, but I have to…
A science-fiction drama about ordinary people trying to make sense of encounters with unexplained phenomena, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind is a beautifully paced film that uses extraordinary performances and a breathtaking finale to tell a story that’s ultimately more about obsession than aliens. When Disclosure Day was released in theaters a few months…
A science-fiction spy thriller about an operative attempting to stop a global disaster by unraveling the mysteries of time inversion, Tenet is packed with inventive ideas and impressive visual effects, but spends so much time showing off the brilliance of its concept that its emotional investment takes a back seat. After watching The Odyssey last…
A time-travel comedy about an ordinary man trying to prevent a disastrous future, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is funny, unpredictable, and refreshingly creative, revealing its story through cleverly interwoven past and present timelines. One of the most entertaining thematic choices for a movie is time travel. No one knows exactly what it should…
A survival comedy about two people forced to exist together on an isolated island after a devastating plane crash, Send Help delivers plenty of bloody laughs through its gleefully absurd premise, even if the cat-and-mouse dynamic starts to repeat itself. When this movie was first released on Hulu a few months ago, I had planned…
An adaptation of V.C. Andrews’ novel about four siblings hidden away in their grandparents’ attic after their father’s death, Flowers in the Attic rushes through the story’s most important emotional and psychological moments, resulting in a hollow adaptation of a richly layered classic. There is a joke among Gen Xers that our parents never knew…
A dark comedy about a writer who becomes entangled with a serial killer, Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer is weird, quirky, and self-aware. I was not familiar with Britt Lower before watching her in Severance. As the lone female on her team, and without…
