Alci Rengifo
‘The Gilded Age’ Stays Refined and Addictive in Expansive Third Season
Features • Published on June 2025
Shows like HBO’s “The Gilded Age” build a strong following not only because of their opulence, but because the characters become more meaningful than the plot. This ensemble set in the past,…
‘28 Years Later’: Danny Boyle Revives His Post-Apocalyptic World With Unchained Ferocity
28 Years Later • Published on June 2025
The world is going crazy. As liberties erode and missiles streak across skies, we don’t know who we can trust. The terrain is ripe for Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later,” a sequel…
‘Materialists’: Dakota Johnson Is Caught Between Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans in Celine Song’s Dreamily Honest Romance
Celine Song • Published on June 2025
Relationships have always been much more complicated than just attraction or personality. Looks and money can indeed count for more, a lot more, than personality. Celine Song’s “Materialists” uses the rules of…
‘The Life of Chuck’: Mike Flanagan Adapts Stephen King’s Short Story Into a Wonderful Meditation on Life’s Chapters
Chiwetel Ejiofor • Published on June 2025
It must be quite something to near the end and look back. Does our brain truly turn our lives into a kind of montage that flashes by? In Mike Flanagan’s “The Life…
In ‘From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,’ Ana de Armas Dances Around With Plenty of Visually Wild Action but No Story
Anjelica Huston • Published on June 2025
Chad Stahelski’s “John Wick” franchise is one of the great modern action vehicles, defining aesthetic richness with the kind of craft that delivers the best of its genre. That puts quite a lot…
‘Karate Kid: Legends’ Reunites Old Favorites With a New Fighter for a Kinetically Silly Time
Ben Wang • Published on May 2025
Jonathan Entwistle’s “Karate Kid: Legends” is a combination of two sides to the 41-year-old franchise. One half borrows from the usual plot beats of the 1984 original “The Karate Kid,” the other…
Guy Ritchie’s ‘Fountain of Youth’ Revives Old Treasure Hunter Tropes for Some Fleeting Entertainment
Domhnall Gleeson • Published on May 2025
Guy Ritchie sure isn’t taking any breaks. The English director has been constantly putting out new material nearly every year, from large thrillers to historical action adventures, and even a Netflix series. He…
‘Sirens’: Julianne Moore Leads a Cult of Wellness With Dark Charisma in a Getaway of Privileged Dysfunction
Features • Published on May 2025
Another week, another series about the rich bottled up with their own internal problems. Netflix’s “Sirens” is the latest variation of a repeat format in the world of television shows. Call it…
‘The Final Reckoning’ Is a Spectacularly Bloated Culmination to Tom Cruise’s ‘Mission: Impossible’ Franchise
Features • Published on May 2025
The “Mission: Impossible” movies have truly tested just how long a franchise can last without replacing its main star. Tom Cruise famously embodies the last of a particular brand of Hollywood celebrity. Whatever…
‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ Season 2: Nicole Kidman Is the Only Allure in This Empty Retreat of Wounded Elites
Features • Published on May 2025
Even if the source material of a hit series runs out, you must still have a sequel. Such are the rules in streaming and so we are getting a second season of Hulu’s…
Alexander Skarsgård Is a ‘Murderbot’ in Offbeat Sci-Fi Android Parable
Alexander Skarsgård • Published on May 2025
The rapid rise of AI is making android sci-fi even more relevant. In Apple TV+’s “Murderbot,” Alexander Skarsgård gives a performance almost diabolical in its observant coldness. His character is a cyborg…
‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ Revives the Franchise With Gory Glee
Bloodlines • Published on May 2025
The revival of any and all hit franchises continues with “Final Destination: Bloodlines.” Horror fans need no introduction. Like its characters, this is a film series constantly defying death. The first movie…
‘Friendship’: Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd Come Together With Masterful Cringe
Andrew DeYoung • Published on May 2025
Craig Waterman is the kind of character you feel for and yet wouldn’t want to have around. As played by Tim Robinson in “Friendship,” he’s a keen portrait of a literal outsider…
‘Poker Face’: Natasha Lyonne’s Great Sleuth Has Grit and Wild Charm in Loaded Second Season
Features • Published on May 2025
Season two of Peacock’s “Poker Face” confirms Natasha Lyonne as one of the great modern TV sleuths. With her combination of grit and zaniness, she keeps together a series that successfully harkens back…
Marvel’s ‘Thunderbolts*’ Unites a Pack of Losers for a Winning Adventure Laced With Psychological Depths
Features • Published on May 2025
Losers are irresistible as heroes. They can be so much more grounded and fun to be around than the picture perfect boy and girl scouts. Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” rekindles some of the studio’s…
‘Rust’: Alec Baldwin Delivers a Performance Weighed by Somberness in a Scattered Western Haunted by Tragedy
Alec Baldwin • Published on May 2025
Few audience members will venture to see “Rust” unaware this film arrives already haunted by tragedy. Some cinephiles might even wonder if it is appropriate to watch the film with the knowledge…
‘The Surfer’: Nicolas Cage Rides a Wave of Madness Through a Surrealist Beach Standoff
Features • Published on May 2025
Lorcan Finnegan’s “The Surfer” is another one of those oddball movies that makes you happy indie cinema is still finding ways to thrive. This film has no ambitions about filling up multiplexes,…
Tina Fey’s ‘The Four Seasons’ Laughs at Midlife Crises With Melancholy Heart
Alan Alda • Published on May 2025
Netflix’s “The Four Seasons” once again explores that dread of the midlife crisis through the gaze of privileged Americans. Age is the great enemy in a society that worships mobility and affluence.
‘Another Simple Favor’: Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively Crackle Under the Capri Sun in Breezy Murder Mystery Sequel
A Simple Favor • Published on May 2025
There is an old-fashioned enjoyment to the silly antics of a dramedy like “Another Simple Favor.” Like some brisk affair you’re supposed to just have fun with it for what it is,…
‘The Accountant 2’ Makes It Through Another Mission With Entertaining Banter Between Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal
Ben Affleck • Published on April 2025
Nine years after “The Accountant” did decently, primarily as a rental, Artists Equity (the company founded by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) decided that after all this time we want a sequel. “…