Created by writer/director Hwang Dong-hyuk, the Emmy-winning “Squid Game,” Netflix’s most-watched series of all time, has returned for a second season. Season 1 of the South Korean survival thriller followed Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a divorced father and gambling addict who joins the Squid Game in hopes of earning enough prize money to pay off his […]
There’s a haunting quality to Ecuadorian Oscar submission “Behind the Mist,” Sebastián Cordero’s intimate documentary on scaling Mount Everest. On one hand, Cordero’s twinning of mountaineering and filmmaking reveals spiritual similarities to both endeavors. On the other hand, his visual texture reveals hidden layers through its lo-fi aesthetic — one that emerges by necessity, given […]
Is Christmas really the saddest day of the year? There’s a whole history of holiday music that explores what it’s like to be down-and-out during the season. Are you mourning absent family members? Resenting the ex who ghosted you for Xmas? Or just wondering why, in 2024, everybody else is celebrating the holly instead of […]
Can animals act? Sensible people would say not: Our four-legged friends can’t read a script or construct a character, and if they come across charismatically on screen, that’s simply down to obeying commands, plus the deft touch of an editor. The more whimsically accommodating among us would say those last two points are true of […]
This year saw one of the most zealously-guarded corporate empires of intellectual property spring a leak, as all the Magic Kingdom’s horses and men couldn’t keep Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain. Strictly speaking, what was no longer protected were the first three shorts in which that fabled rodent appeared, all made in 1928 […]
It’s a difficult task to capture the love of reading. The affecting act happens between a book and the person captivated by the words on a page that draw them into uncharted places. However, the clever minds behind “Reading Rainbow” were able to contextualize what happens when adolescents open picture books and embark on exciting […]
The first word heard in “Feeling Randy” is “boner,” which, when taken together with the film’s title, promises a salacious and raunchy comedy. But writer-director Dean Lent’s debut feature (not counting the 1987 anthology film “Border Radio”) is sweeter and much more sublime than the usual teenage-boys-trying-to-lose-their-virginity romp. That may be its plot, but this […]
This should be about the time we all start taking Billie Eilish for granted, by the usual standards of fickleness and habituation. So let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back for not becoming so accustomed to her face that we lose sight of what a special gift she is to the pop landscape. […]
There’s a cozy ease that permeates “All In,” in which a rotating cast of celebs narrates, with both flourish and offhandedness, the humorous and offbeat essays of The New Yorker writer Simon Rich. It’s the kind of comic comfort that easily fits into the holiday period but also into a Broadway season that is especially welcoming […]
The title of SZA’s long-awaited “SOS Deluxe: Lana” seems designed to manage expectations: Despite her comments earlier this year that the much-delayed project would be a collection of new material, she seems to have reverted to her original plan of making it “outtakes from ‘SOS’ and a couple of new songs,” as she described it […]
With its stationary long-shots of domestic life, “Family Time” is like the “Paranormal Activity” of dysfunctional-holiday-gathering movies: There’s a sense of spying on people who don’t realize they’re under a microscope. Of course, Tia Kouvo’s debut feature is duly scripted, directed and professionally acted. But her approach is so effectively low-key, you might occasionally forget […]
What is a place if it’s not on a map? What is a people if they’re not recognized? Felipe Holguín Caro’s “La Suprema” asks these questions within an intimate drama set in a remote Caribbean town in Colombia. La Suprema exists on no map and its Afro-Colombian population feels similarly erased. Modest in its ambitions […]
Traveling through clandestine airwaves, Kurt Cobain touched down in Havana, Cuba, in the turbulent early 1990s. A time of dire economic hardship for the island nation after the fall of the Soviet Union, the “Special Period” pushed thousands of Cubans to migrate, risking their lives at sea. Those who stayed suffered through great scarcity (the […]
Sixty-five years after it first premiered on Broadway, “Gypsy” is still known as one of the greatest theater masterpieces of the 20th century. There have been stellar productions of the play from New York to London, led by icons including Angela Lansbury and Imelda Staunton. However, the latest revival, shepherded by legendary director and playwright […]
Stories about survivors in a post-apocalyptic world continue to fascinate viewers in such streaming series as “Fallout” and “The Last of Us,” but “Homestead” likely marks the first time such a scenario has been used for a faith-based movie. And it definitely is the first time a theatrical film in that genre has been designed […]
Ruby Yao (Stephanie Hsu), the protagonist of the Peacock comedy “Laid,” is variously described as “selfish,” “a nightmare,” “the worst person I have ever met” and belonging “in jail.” Hsu’s performance and Ruby’s characterization as a whole are indeed intensely off-putting, in ways both intentional and not. But Ruby’s karmic comeuppance in this series, adapted […]
The charms of “Patrice: The Movie” are abundant — which doesn’t mean this inventive, warmhearted documentary, directed by Ted Passon, won’t infuriate. Much of the bristling will be on behalf of titular star, Patrice Jetter, and Garry Wickham, her betrothed. Or, at least, they would be engaged if the government Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits program […]
Even the best worst year ever – choose the epoch closest to your offended political affiliation – has a Christmas. And every Christmas, crumbling culture or not, comes with scads of new holiday music. So, before the drones kill us with molten metal spray and death rays, here are 25 new Christmas moments to thrill […]
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