Movie Reviews
Movie Reviews

NYFF 2025: The 63rd New York Film Festival Centers Film and Poetry | Festivals & Awards

About midway through Kent Jones’ “Late Fame,” I heard the last thing I ever expected to hear at the New York Film Festival: the voice of Ezra Pound. The aged speaker is not identified, nor is the poem he’s reciting; if you don’t know one or both, it won’t register. The film’s protagonist, Ed Saxberger

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Movie Reviews

Fantastic Fest 2025: CAMP, Bad Haircut, Theater is Dead | Festivals & Awards

My final dispatch from the annual genre fest known as Fantastic Fest highlights three young filmmakers, a reminder of how much this event seeks to amplify new talent. It’s also a remarkable showcase for inclusivity, as the programming team seeks out and elevates the kind of voices that the Hollywood system often ignores, including LGTBQ

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Movie Reviews

Fantastic Fest 2025: Mārama, Mother of Flies, Bulk | Festivals & Awards

One of the best things about Fantastic Fest is the programming team’s willingness to import hits from other festivals. It’s actually the fest where I finally caught up with “Anora” last year, believe it or not, and some of the biggest FF films this year launched at Cannes too, including Oliver Laxe’s stunning “Sirat” and

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Movie Reviews

Marvel Animation’s “Marvel Zombies” Doesn’t Have Enough Flesh On Its Shambling Bones | TV/Streaming

One episode of the first season of Marvel Studios’ animated anthology series “What If…?” showed what would happen if zombies took over the MCU. For some unknown reason, that was adapted into a four-part miniseries spin-off, “Marvel Zombies,” which continues the narrative thread in a gorier setting. This is possibly the first and only time

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Movie Reviews

“Slow Horses” Continues to Entertain, Even in a Lesser Season | TV/Streaming

Apple TV+’s hit “Slow Horses,” based on the novels by Mick Herron, has become one of the streaming service’s most beloved shows for a reason: efficiency. In an era when so many shows drag their way through overlong seasons, all five chapters of “Slow Horses” are a lean, mean six episodes, and most of those

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Movie Reviews

The First Responders of the Internet: Lili Reinhart on “American Sweatshop” | Interviews

The vocation that takes center stage in director Uta Briesewitz’s “American Sweatshop” is so depressingly prescient that it’s surprising its particularities haven’t been mined for a genre project until now.  The film focuses on Daisy Moriarity (Lili Reinhart), who works as a content moderator, where she reviews videos flagged for potentially problematic content and either

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Movie Reviews

TIFF 2025: Hamnet, Driver’s Ed, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert | Festivals & Awards

There was much ado about some of the biggest festival favorites and premieres coming to the 50th Toronto International Film Festival, and no shortage of what to watch between the various categories. Among one of the heralded festival favorites to make its Canadian premiere was Chloé Zhao’s breathtaking adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet.” Rich in

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Movie Reviews

“Gen V” Rivals “The Boys” in a Sharper and Sleeker Season Two  | TV/Streaming

In the final episode of the first season of Prime’s  “Gen V,” our young heroes were left defeated and imprisoned, seemingly left to rot as the world went on without them. Since then, we got Season 4 of “The Boys” last summer, ushering in the setup for the series’ final season and the progression of

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Movie Reviews

TIFF 2025: Table of Contents

A handy portal to all of our coverage from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, organized by critic. BRIAN TALLERICO FULL REVIEWS: “Ballad of Small Player“ “Blue Moon“ “Good Fortune“ “The Lost Bus“ “The Man in My Basement“ “Sentimental Value“ “The Smashing Machine“ “Steve“ “Train Dreams“ “The Ugly“ CAPSULE REVIEWS: “&Sons“ “Amoeba“ “Arco“ “Bad Apples“

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Movie Reviews

TIFF 2025: Blue Heron, Amoeba, Meadowlarks | Festivals & Awards

Sophy Romvari’s “Blue Heron” has been one of the breakout critical darlings of the fest circuit, premiering at Locarno to raves before traveling to TIFF for more of the same. At first, her debut feature feels a bit familiar, a memory piece about a troubled brother that the one remembering couldn’t save, but Romvari pivots

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