Movies

"Blue Beetle," the next chapter in the DC Comics-inspired universe that tells the origin story of a not particularly well-known character, is in several ways refreshingly new. It is also, for a few other reasons, tediously familiar.

'Shortcomings': no ordinary romantic comedy

The Godfather made Universal Pictures an offer it could not refuse when discussing the fate of "American Graffiti." Francis Ford Coppola, who came aboard as producer of "American Graffitti" after having great success as the director of "The Godfather" saved the film from being butchered.

Milton is 78. Frugal, forgetful but not yet frail, the character, a retiree played by Ben Kingsley in the gently amusing and ultimately poignant dramedy “Jules,” regularly walks into downtown Boonton in western Pennsylvania (played by Boonton, N.J.) to complain at meetings of the town council: about the need for more crosswalks, or his proposal to change the town’s motto from “A great place to call home” to “A great place to refer to as home.” (The first wording is “confusing.” We get it. The members of the council look upon him with amusement, and so, dear reader, should you.)

If you could save a departed loved one by going back in time to kill the person responsible for their death, would you - could you - do it?

Ira Sachs plumbs the artistic temperament at its most all-consuming in "Passages," a handsome slice of sophisticated life set in contemporary Paris.

'Amanda': portrait of a problematic woman

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is “Barbie” for teenage boys. Not only is it as visually innovative and as funny, but it has a similar mission: to examine and celebrate the complexity of an experience – in this case, what it’s like to be a 15-year-old boy – through the lens of a pop culture phenomenon. To a lesser extent, it’s also about what it’s like to parent one.

Warner Bros., riding high on the box-office success of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” has become embroiled in a controversy in Japan, after the U.S. entertainment studio interacted with social media posts overlaying Barbie with nuclear imagery from the movie “Oppenheimer” – prompting Warner Bros. Japan to issue a rare rebuke of its parent company.

Murphy's acting energizes 'Oppenheimer'

Warner Bros.' "Barbie" and Universal Pictures' "Oppenheimer" continued to dominate the domestic box office this weekend as Disney's "Haunted Mansion" crept into third place, according to estimates from measurement firm Comscore. 

“Talk to me,” the kids say, grasping a plaster hand covered in graffiti, “I let you in.” In “Talk to Me,” the directorial debut of Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou (who go by RackaRacka on YouTube), this strange hand is the modern Oujia planchette, a tool to access spirits on the other side of the veil.

If a horror comedy is neither scary nor funny, then what is it exactly? Well, in this case, it's "Haunted Mansion."

'Wham!' documentary: The birth of a dream

This "Barbie" just scored the biggest domestic opening weekend of 2023. Warner Bros. Pictures' "Barbie" debuted in first place at the box office this weekend, earning a whopping $155 million in the United States and Canada. 

The reviews shortly after the release of Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” hit screens, gushed about the film’s realism.

"Oppenheimer," Christopher Nolan's masterful portrait of the man known as the father of the atomic bomb, has been anticipated with some skepticism among filmgoers who wonder how Nolan's penchant for Imax cameras and thundering sound designs would serve a story that, at its core, amounts to scenes of different groups of men arguing in different kinds of rooms (chalkboard with indecipherable physics equations optional).

In Greta Gerwig’s hands, Barbie is a weapon. The director wields the iconic doll like a broadsword in “Barbie,” cleaving through culture with gleeful spirit and savage humor. In this existential exegesis on what it means to be a woman, and a human, Gerwig reflects our world back to us through the lens of Barbie, and in doing so, delivers a barbed statement wrapped in a visually sumptuous and sublimely silly cinematic confection.