Unfortunately, “The Flash” also has a countervailing tendency that undermines its best self. Even as it cleverly translates Shelley’s worries into contemporary comic book terms, it serves up callback after fan-wanking callback to other versions of heroes and villains from film and TV, seemingly with no other purpose than to burnish Warner Bros’ properties and make the audience point
Eight years have passed since the last feature by “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” director Michel Gondry. His at least semi-autobiographical new comedy-drama “The Book of Solutions” (also in the Directors’ Fortnight section) offers a slightly alarming yet endearingly whimsical pseudo-explanation for why it’s taken him so long to make another movie. Centered on
These big moments aren’t impressive enough to make “Simulant” more than the bargain bin sci-fi pastiche it obviously is. But there’s some appreciable consideration shown to the movie’s Simulants, or Replicant-like synthetic humans, which gives a slight edge to this otherwise unconvincing robo-noir ripoff. Shameless and sleepy from scene one, “Simulant” begins with an Isaac
In “The Roundup,” Ma Seok-do, Lee’s barrel-chested renegade cop, pummels his way through another pack of vicious baddies. A new sequel, “The Roundup: No Way Out,” delivers more episodic thrills, though, as in “The Roundup,” any scene without Lee feels like a waste of time. Both “The Roundup” movies are pretty generic, beyond an adequate
Matt writes: The 2023 Cannes Film Festival may have concluded this past weekend, yet there are still a few enticing dispatches that have yet to be published on RogerEbert.com. You can find all of our coverage, both written and in video form, in this table of contents, featuring reports from Chaz Ebert, Ben Kenigsberg, Jason
The interview, by the Fortnight’s artistic director, Julien Rejl, followed a screening of a surprise film that turned out to be John Flynn’s “Rolling Thunder” (1977) on a suitably worn 35-millimeter print. The talk largely focused on Tarantino’s new book, Cinema Speculation. The director didn’t break much news, but it was fun to see his rapid-fire,
Butler’s character in this year’s far superior “Plane” had the same deadline challenge, only in that movie, the daughter was graduating college, whereas this daughter looks like she’s only graduating high school. Well. This development certainly made me sit up and take notice. How many stale ingredients was this script by Mitchell LaFortune to serve
The best and boldest updates from the source occur whenever the lens is shifted to Jin’s parents, Simon, and Christine. Unhappy with the banality of their lives, Simon has worked in the same position for decades, and Christine is an unfulfilled church-going housewife. Now that they’re middle-aged, their desires dwindle, and their respective rut affects
The line that separates life and fictionalization is also the subject of the formidable “Anatomy of a Fall,” directed by Justine Triet (“Sibyl“). The title is clearly a nod to Otto Preminger’s “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), perhaps the greatest of all courtroom thrillers, and inside a courtroom is where “Fall” spends much of its two-and-a-half-hour
Very early on, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that a young woman has been murdered and the entire police force is male. These are professional men who do their job and do it very well, but at a certain level, there is a disconnect. The men slip into moments of judging Clara for her