It’d be easy to think Everybody’s Everything, the painfully intimate documentary on the late Lil Peep, is a strictly-for-the-fans endeavor — that the only audience are the people who heard songs like “U Said” or “Crybaby” and felt like someone had mysteriously tapped into their own inner monologues. And yes, …
Read More »'Motherless Brooklyn': Ed Norton Plays a Minor-League Gumshoe, Scores a Major-League Triumph
For nearly two decades, Edward Norton has been trying to realize his passion project — a film version of Jonathan Lethem’s landmark 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn. Now the film is here, sporting a few signs of artistic struggle, but nonetheless an ardent and ambitious triumph for writer-producer-director-star Norton. You might …
Read More »'Western Stars' Review: Springsteen Live, High-Lonesome, and Uncut
Bruce Springsteen eases into a damn fine feature-film directing debut, aided and abetted by his longtime collaborator Thom Zimny, with Western Stars, a transporting musical ode to the American West — old, new, and all those hypnotic and haunting shades in between. It’s true that the movie, in which Springsteen …
Read More »'Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice' Pays Tribute to Pioneering '70s Songbird
One of the many reminders of the often discounted greatness of Linda Ronstadt arrives about 30 minutes into Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. We see the biggest female rock star of the time (1976) in a studio with her band, filming what’s …
Read More »'The Terror: Infamy' Review: Facing the Enemy Within
In an upcoming episode of AMC’s The Terror: Infamy, Yamato-san, an elderly immigrant played by George Takei, lists all the men who have vanished since he and many of his friends and neighbors of Japanese ancestry were taken to a prison camp in the wake of the attack on Pearl …
Read More »'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' Review: Tarantino's Violent Tinseltown Valentine
On a hot August night in 1969, four murderous members of Charles Manson’s cult “family” invaded the Los Angeles home of pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Her husband, director Roman Polanski, was in Europe on business. What happened next made headlines and, for better or worse, history. You might not remember …
Read More »'Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love' Review: A Ladies' Man and His Muse
In the 1960s, on the Greek island of Hydra, a Norwegian ex-pat met a young Canadian poet. She was shopping in a market when this dashing, mustachioed figure appeared in the doorway. “Would you like to join us?” the handsome silhouette asked her. “We’re sitting outside.” Their eyes met, and …
Read More »'Rolling Thunder Revue' Review: Scorsese's Dylan Doc Is Simply Brilliant
Just when you think you have this unruly, untamed phantasmagoria pegged, this unclassifiable documentary/concert film — subtitled “A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese” — continually pulls the rug from under you. The film features a glorious restoration of previously abandoned footage from the Rolling Thunder Revue as Dylan and …
Read More »Emma Thompson Plays a Fearsome Lady Boss in 'Late Night'
Watching Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling mix it up in Late Night will make you think you’ve died and gone to hilarity heaven. In Kaling’s woke script, the Oscar-winning British actress for Howards End plays Katherine Newbury, a late-night talk show host who takes a drastic step to stop her …
Read More »Ali Wong and Randall Park Are a Romantic Dream Team in 'Always Be My Maybe'
Related: 50 Greatest Romantic Comedies of All Time Let’s hear it for Ali Wong, the Vietnamese-Chinese-American stand-up comic, and Randall Park, born to Korean immigrant parents, for bringing their own hilarious and heartfelt perspective to Always Be My Maybe. It’s an irresistible romantic romp that turns the familiar into something …
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