Film Reviews

Latest Reviews

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  Stronger Powerfully Captures a Boston Hero’s Reliance but Whiffs at Everyday Life

  Alan Scherstuhl | September 18 at 10 p.m.

  There’s no delicate way to say this, so I’ll just spit it out. I spent the first 10 minutes of Stronger, David Gordon Green’s eventually potent drama of trauma and recovery, trying to work out whether star Jake Gyllenhaal was intending to suggest...

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  Stone and Carell are Ace, but Battle of the Sexes Too Often Faults

  April Wolfe | September 21 at 3 p.m.

  In Battle of the Sexes, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ film rehashing the most infamous tennis match in modern history, Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) must brawl with the coed United States Tennis Association for equal pay as she comes to...

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  The Giddily Nasty Kingsman Franchise Plays it Safe in the Sequel

  Bilge Ebiri | September 19 at 11 a.m.

  The sequel to 2015’s hit Kingsman: The Secret Service won’t make you feel the urgent need to take a shower and/or throw up, like the original probably did. Believe it or not, that’s not always a good thing. Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Matthew...

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  Mike White’s Brad’s Status Makes a Comic Horror Show of Disappointment

  Bilge Ebiri | September 19 at 7 p.m.

  Mike White’s father-and-son college-trip comedy-drama Brad’s Status is legitimately more frightening than anything in It. Quite aside from the fact that real life is always scarier than monsters from the beyond, the writer-director’s deep...

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  Costume Drama Victoria & Abdul Simplifies a Fascinating Victorian Friendship

  Alan Scherstuhl | September 18 at 11 p.m.

  Lording over the colonies is all bore and bother for the queen in Stephen Frears’ sumptuous yet centerless Victoria & Abdul. The film dramatizes Queen Victoria’s spirited friendship with Abdul Karim, a charming clerk from northern India who —...

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  Bobbi Jene Places the Life of a Great Dancer Before Her Art

  Elizabeth Zimmer | September 18 at 9 p.m.

  Bobbi Jene, a new Scandinavian documentary, explores a couple of years in the life of an Iowa-born modern dancer who builds a career in Israel before confronting the work/life conflicts that hamstring so many women. Despite, or perhaps because...