Movie Reviews
Movie Reviews

Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw Shine in Netflix’s Thrilling “Black Doves” | TV/Streaming

When we are first introduced to Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), the protagonist of Netflix’s newest spy thriller, “Black Doves,” she dons a nice dress and perfectly coiled hair that doesn’t move an inch. The wealthy wife of Defense Minister Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan), Helen’s life has given her a big house, two children, and a

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Movie Reviews

“Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” Takes Aim at Younger Viewers | TV/Streaming

Since “Star Wars” has made its home on Disney+, the franchise has been stagnant, serving the same self-serious space-Western schlock with varying colors of lightsabers. Fortunately, Christopher Ford and Jon Watts’s “Skeleton Crew” is a refreshing departure from the recent, repetitive fare, offering an ‘80s-family-flick-style adventure. “Skeleton Crew” is set after the events of “Return

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Movie Reviews

Colman Domingo Propels Phenomenally Entertaining “The Madness” | TV/Streaming

Netflix waited until Thanksgiving to drop its best original series since “Ripley” earlier this year, a very different kind of thriller featuring another magnetic performance from the incredible Colman Domingo. A cleverly modern riff on “The Fugitive,” “The Madness” is a show about a TV journalist who has been a part of our increasingly insane

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Movie Reviews

Black Harvest Film Festival 2024: Disco Afrika, It Was All a Dream, Dreams Like Paper Boats | Festivals & Awards

I’ve never felt prouder to be a Chicagoan than when attending the 30th Black Harvest Film Festival. As Chicago’s premier Black film festival, Black Harvest serves as a homecoming for the voices and stories of Black people from the city and across the diaspora and the world. This year, I felt a profound connection to

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Movie Reviews

Appreciating the Brushstrokes: Pre-Computer Animation and the Human Touch | Features

One era’s trash is another era’s treasure. This becomes truer the deeper we get into the era of computers and automated, technology-assisted production. I’ve been thinking about this because of the existence of the nostalgia cable network MeTV Toons. It runs nothing but older animation—mainly stuff produced between the 1940s and the 1990s for movie

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Movie Reviews

Ted Danson Stars in Lovely, Moving “A Man on the Inside” | TV/Streaming

Mike Schur’s “A Man on the Inside” is a delightfully pleasant charmer, a comedy that’s almost calming as it drops into a tumultuous world. The co-creator of “Parks and Recreation” and “The Good Place” is not only one of the best writers in the history of the form (he also had his hand in “Hacks,”

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Movie Reviews

Love Is Political: Payal Kapadia on “All We Imagine as Light” | Interviews

Across the two features she’s made to date, Payal Kapadia has emerged as a luminous new voice in Indian cinema, exploring the personal as political through her shimmering, empathetic portraits of working-class Mumbai.  Her first feature, “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” opened with unsent love letters, from a film student to her estranged lover, discovered

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Movie Reviews

Black Harvest Film Festival 2024: Black Table, Rising Up at Night, The Weekend, Jimmy | Festivals & Awards

Attending the Black Harvest Film Festival feels like a rite of passage—a celebration of Black storytelling that captures the spirit and resilience of our community. But as a Black man, it offers something even more profound: an opportunity to escape, reflect, and find solace in shared experiences. This year’s lineup was no exception, showcasing a

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Movie Reviews

Lost Souls: Bringing Out the Dead at 25 | Features

“Bringing Out the Dead” does not assert itself as an obviously religious film. and yet, it is borne from the ideological conflict of wrath versus compassion that separates the Old and the New Testament. Here, in the early ’90s, New York is an urban cesspool of sin, destitution, and suffering—it is ready for a biblical

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Movie Reviews

Taylor Sheridan’s Well Runs Dry in “Landman” | TV/Streaming

For those unfamiliar, a landman is the public-facing side of an oil company’s production team; their job is to secure leases and mineral rights for oil drilling. As Taylor Sheridan‘s umpteenth show for Paramount Plus would have you believe, it’s a cutthroat job that involves, of all things, negotiating a land deal with a Mexican

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