It’s not often when a movie gets its world premiere in Arizona. Last week, “Funny Thing About Love” enjoyed a well-attended debut at Harkins Superstition Springs in Mesa when the…
West Side Story is Steven Spielberg’s first passion project in nearly a decade, but it’s been gestating in his mind for much longer. Ever since the 90s, he’s been telling…
The central metaphor of Don’t Look Up isn’t playing coy. A massive, “planet-killing” comet hurtles toward Earth, giving the entire human race just six months to live. Diverting the comet…
Tick, Tick… Boom! isn’t a tragedy, but it’s sure tragic in context. The musical was written by Jonathan Larson—the man who’d go on to write Rent—before he achieved widespread success.…
The Power of the Dog is the first film in over a decade from Jane Campion, the esteemed director of The Piano. Rather than return to the screen by dipping…
Kenneth Branagh’s directing career follows the path of a pendulum swing. In the 90s, he wrote, directed, and starred in some of the best Shakespeare adaptations to date; in the…
It was when Edgar Wright stepped down from Ant-Man that many people drew a line in the sand: the Marvel machine is simply not compatible with artistic vision. The threat…
Edgar Wright, the British wunderkind-turned-luminary who mastered the art of the genre comedy, is tired of satire. His return to horror is the furthest thing from Shaun of the Dead—it’s…
Few directors have more fun with formalism than Wes Anderson. Every shot of his films is a story unto itself: color, composition, and movement as genre, plot, and prose. Detractors…
Here’s another adaptation of the unadaptable Dune. Director Denis Villeneuve, who dipped his whole body into big-idea sci-fi with Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, has a surefire strategy for wrangling…
The first 30 minutes of Mass are a masterclass in beating around the bush. The opening scenes are run-of-the-mill—volunteers set up a table and four chairs in the basement of…
Having seen nine of the 25 Bond films, I can with great authority declare that Casino Royale is the best of them all. With a spy movie that good, who…
