Movie Reviews : NPR

Movie Reviews Reviews of new movies, classic and art films, foreign films, and popular movies. Featuring Bob Mondello, Kenneth Turan, David Edelstein, and Mark Jenkins.

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A Heist, And A Whole Lot More, As Viola Davis Delivers In 'Widows'

Viola Davis stars as Veronica, a woman who loses her husband and gains a heist gang in Widows. Merrick Morton/Twentieth Century Fox hide caption

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Merrick Morton/Twentieth Century Fox

Pop Culture Happy Hour

A Heist, And A Whole Lot More, As Viola Davis Delivers In 'Widows'

November 15, 2018 • The exciting, engaging, entertaining Widows is the rare fun heist film that also functions as a solid drama, thanks largely to the lead performance from Viola Davis.

Aretha Franklin Touches The Infinite In The Long-Delayed Film 'Amazing Grace'

Aretha Franklin, pictured during a television appearance in January 1972, the same month in which the project Amazing Grace was recorded. ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images hide caption

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ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images

Music Features

Aretha Franklin Touches The Infinite In The Long-Delayed Film 'Amazing Grace'

November 14, 2018 • It's been worth the long, long wait: Amazing Grace, made in January 1972, is an extraordinary document that depicts an artist at her technical, creative and spiritual heights.

Life's Cruelty Is A Constant In The Coen Brothers' Mixed Bag Western 'Ballad'

Ralph Ineson plays "the man in black" in "Near Algodones," the second segment of the Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Beginning Nov. 16, the film will play in theaters for a week before it becomes available for streaming on Netflix. Netflix hide caption

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Netflix

Life's Cruelty Is A Constant In The Coen Brothers' Mixed Bag Western 'Ballad'

Fresh Air

November 9, 2018 • Joel and Ethan Coen's new film is a feature-length collection of six stories set in the Old West. Justin Chang says the tall tales featured in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs are an odd, melancholy lot.

Life's Cruelty Is A Constant In The Coen Brothers' Mixed Bag Western 'Ballad'

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'Postcards From London': Rent Boys Will Be Rent Boys In A Stylized, Neon-Lit Soho

Having A Great Time, Wish You Were Queer: Jim (Harris Dickinson) in Steve McLean's stylized, whimsical Postcards From London. Strand Releasing hide caption

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Strand Releasing

'Postcards From London': Rent Boys Will Be Rent Boys In A Stylized, Neon-Lit Soho

November 8, 2018 • Writer/director Steve McLean's "lovely piece of whimsy" about a gay sex worker in 1970s London examines "the mixed blessings of sex, art, beauty and authenticity."

'The Front Runner' Stumbles Into Familiar Territory

Hugh Jackman, and wig, play Gary Hart in Jason Reitman's The Front Runner. Sony Pictures hide caption

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Sony Pictures

'The Front Runner' Stumbles Into Familiar Territory

November 8, 2018 • The film follows Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) through his three-week presidential bid that fell victim to monkey business, but what director Jason Reitman brings to it is familiar — even quaint.

'The Girl In The Spider's Web' Struggles To Break Free Of Techno-Thriller Cliches

"Welcome to my pallor, said the spider to the fly": Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) goes beyond the pale in The Girl in the Spider's Web. Sony Pictures hide caption

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Sony Pictures

'The Girl In The Spider's Web' Struggles To Break Free Of Techno-Thriller Cliches

November 8, 2018 • Claire Foy takes over the role of Swedish super-hacker Lisbeth Salander in a reboot that reheats stale ideas from many previous spy/hacker movies.

In Netflix's War Epic 'Outlaw King' There's Plenty Of War, But Not Much That's Epic

Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine) surveys his phalanx in Outlaw King. David Eustace/Netflix hide caption

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David Eustace/Netflix

In Netflix's War Epic 'Outlaw King' There's Plenty Of War, But Not Much That's Epic

November 8, 2018 • Director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) keeps the scale too small and the stakes too low in this retelling of the rebellion of Scotland's Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine).

Death Wears A Pleasing Face In The Swoony, Stylized 'El Angel'

Marisol (Malena Villa) and Carlos (Lorenzo Ferro) get triggered in El Angel. Marcos Ludevid/The Orchard hide caption

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Marcos Ludevid/The Orchard

Death Wears A Pleasing Face In The Swoony, Stylized 'El Angel'

November 8, 2018 • Writer/director Luis Ortega invests the tale of a brutal but beautiful young serial killer who terrorized Argentina in the 1970s with an intoxicating sense of glamour.

Death Wears A Pleasing Face In The Swoony, Stylized 'El Angel'

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'Nobody's Fool': Tiffany Haddish, Tyler Perry, And Learning To Love A Man With Abs

Tiffany Haddish is the standout of Tyler Perry's Nobody's Fool. Chip Bergmann/Paramount Pictures hide caption

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Chip Bergmann/Paramount Pictures

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'Nobody's Fool': Tiffany Haddish, Tyler Perry, And Learning To Love A Man With Abs

November 7, 2018 • Nobody's Fool is a Tyler Perry movie, but maybe more important at the moment, it's a Tiffany Haddish movie. Haddish plays Tanya, who fears her sister is being catfished in an online relationship.

'Nobody's Fool': Tiffany Haddish, Tyler Perry, And Learning To Love A Man With Abs

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'A Private War': Combat Takes Its Merciless Toll On A Tireless War Correspondent

Rosamund Pike plays war correspondent Marie Colvin in A Private War. Paul Conroy/Aviron Pictures hide caption

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Paul Conroy/Aviron Pictures

'A Private War': Combat Takes Its Merciless Toll On A Tireless War Correspondent

November 1, 2018 • To play the Sunday Times war reporter Marie Colvin, Rosamund Pike "transform[s] herself into a singular figure, one who goes places few people would and see[s] things that even fewer could handle."

A Guide To Netflix's Orson Welles Mini-Fest: A Long-Unfinished Film And A Documentary About It

The documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead profiles a late-in-life Orson Welles as he struggles to complete The Other Side of the Wind. Netflix hide caption

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Netflix

A Guide To Netflix's Orson Welles Mini-Fest: A Long-Unfinished Film And A Documentary About It

November 1, 2018 • Welles' abandoned Hollywood satire The Other Side of the Wind hits Netflix and select theaters alongside the new making-of documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead; the two films inform each other.

Strong Performances Make 'Boy Erased' Indelible

Xavier (Theodore Pellerin) and Jared (Lucas Hedges) share a fleeting moment of intimacy in the gay-conversion-therapy drama Boy Erased. Focus Features hide caption

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Focus Features

Strong Performances Make 'Boy Erased' Indelible

November 1, 2018 • Actor Joel Edgerton adapts for the screen a 2016 memoir about a teenager undergoing "gay conversion therapy;" he also directs and stars in this "intelligent message movie."

Once More Unto The Beat: A Grad Student Enters The World Of Rap Battles In 'Bodied'

Adam (Calum Worthy) and his rap battle mentor Behn Grymm (Jackie Long) in Bodied. NEON hide caption

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NEON

Once More Unto The Beat: A Grad Student Enters The World Of Rap Battles In 'Bodied'

November 1, 2018 • "It's juvenile. It's irritating. Yet it's also fiendishly clever in the way it anticipates and dismantles every argument that could be made against it," says critic Scott Tobias.

No Bed Of Roses, No Pleasure Cruise: 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

No Time For Losers: Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) and John Deacon (Joe Mazzello) sing the praises of callipygian females in Bohemian Rhapsody. Alex Bailey/Twentieth Century Fox hide caption

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Alex Bailey/Twentieth Century Fox

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No Bed Of Roses, No Pleasure Cruise: 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

November 1, 2018 • A fearless performance from Rami Malek and rock-solid rock anthems can't lift this listless musical biopic out of the sea of clichés in which it treads water.

'Suspiria': A Cult-Horror Remake Dances To A Confusing Beat

Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, a remake of the Dario Argento cult classic, features a demonic dance troupe. Alessio Bolzoni/Amazon Studios hide caption

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Alessio Bolzoni/Amazon Studios

'Suspiria': A Cult-Horror Remake Dances To A Confusing Beat

October 26, 2018 • Director Luca Guadagnino follows up last year's Call Me By Your Name with a "punishing" and "confounding" remake of Dario Argento's beloved horror film about a dance troupe of witches.

Carell And Chalamet Shine In 'Beautiful Boy'

Two of the most talented actors around — Timothée Chalemet and Steve Carell — lend Beautiful Boy its emotional backbone. Francois Duhamel/Amazon Studios hide caption

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Francois Duhamel/Amazon Studios

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Carell And Chalamet Shine In 'Beautiful Boy'

October 26, 2018 • Beautiful Boy is a story of addiction starring two Oscar-nominated actors. Timothée Chalamet plays Nic Sheff, who's addicted to crystal meth. Steve Carell plays David Sheff, his journalist father who's struggling to help him get well.

Carell And Chalamet Shine In 'Beautiful Boy'

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Documentary Unearths America's Rural Roots: 'Monrovia, Indiana'

Monrovia, Indiana Zipporah Films hide caption

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Zipporah Films

Documentary Unearths America's Rural Roots: 'Monrovia, Indiana'

October 25, 2018 • Documentarian Frederick Wiseman aims his camera at the daily rhythms of life in and around a small town — and holds his focus long enough to find something beyond media stereotypes.

Swedish Film Cleverly Blurs The 'Border' Between Reality And Folklore

Trolling In The Deep: Vore (Eero Milonoff) and Tina (Eva Melander) unwind in the Swedish film Border. MoviePass Films hide caption

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MoviePass Films

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Swedish Film Cleverly Blurs The 'Border' Between Reality And Folklore

October 25, 2018 • Tina (Eva Melander), a Swedish customs official, can smell when someone's lying. When she meets a stranger (Eero Milonoff) who knows more about her than he's saying, she sets out to find answers.

In Lee Chang-dong's Dreamlike 'Burning,' Dread Is A Fire That Burns Slow And Cold

Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) goes for a run in Burning. Well Go USA hide caption

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Well Go USA

Pop Culture Happy Hour

In Lee Chang-dong's Dreamlike 'Burning,' Dread Is A Fire That Burns Slow And Cold

October 25, 2018 • Director/co-writer Lee Chang-dong adapts a haunting Murakami short story about a young man drawn into the lives of a woman, her cat and a handsome, mysterious stranger.

In The Documentary-Like 'Life & Nothing More,' A Family Struggles To Get By

Andrew (Andrew Beechington) is forced to grow up too fast in Life & Nothing More. CFI Releasing hide caption

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CFI Releasing

In The Documentary-Like 'Life & Nothing More,' A Family Struggles To Get By

October 25, 2018 • Director Antonio Mendez Esparza brings a static, theatrical approach to this story of a black single mother and the teenage son who attempts to shoulder his absent father's responsibilities.

Does The New 'Halloween' Impale In Comparison?

Nick Castle returns to play the role of Michael Myers in the latest Halloween reboot. Ryan Green/Universal Pictures hide caption

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Ryan Green/Universal Pictures

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Does The New 'Halloween' Impale In Comparison?

October 24, 2018 • It's been forty years since the release of the classic horror film, Halloween. Since then, the franchise has wandered through its own house of horrors in the form of sequels and reboots. The newest Halloween throws all of those additions out, and assumes that only the 1978 original ever happened.

Does The New 'Halloween' Impale In Comparison?

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'Halloween': This Time, Laurie Strode Is Locked And Loaded

"I ... am! Your singing tel-a-gram!": Michael Myers (Nick Castle) pays a visit to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in David Gordon Green's Halloween. Ryan Green/Universal Pictures hide caption

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Ryan Green/Universal Pictures

'Halloween': This Time, Laurie Strode Is Locked And Loaded

October 18, 2018 • Critic Monica Castillo says this Halloween sequel takes as its true subject the lingering effects of the trauma Jamie Lee Curtis' character experienced in the 1978 original. (Also there's stabbing.)

In 'Mid90s' Jonah Hill Looks At Skater Culture Through A Lens, Blankly

She said see you later boy: Stevie (Sunny Suljic) stars in Jonah Hill's Mid90s. Tobin Yelland/A24 Films hide caption

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Tobin Yelland/A24 Films

In 'Mid90s' Jonah Hill Looks At Skater Culture Through A Lens, Blankly

October 18, 2018 • Jonah Hill writes and directs this semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about a boy who embraces skater culture; the film faithfully documents the era, but offers no point of view.