Movies

Behold a Broadway musical that sings, dances and bedazzles so magnetically, it feels as if it were ordained for the screen by divine providence. "Roald Dahl's Matilda: The Musical" certainly is divine, but the inspirational figures are all mortal: a director, Matthew Warchus; a star, Emma Thompson; and a cast of perpetually whirling child wonders who propel the story forward with kinetic enchantment.

Think about that meme where Spider-Man is pointing at Spider-Man. Now, multiply it by 12 or 13. That's roughly how many web-slinging spider-like heroes were revealed Tuesday in Marvel's poster for the much-anticipated animated feature "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," the sequel to 2018's Oscar-winning "Into the Spider-Verse."

When remembering the iconic life and career of Whitney Houston, there are many defining moments that instantly spring to mind: when she obliterated the “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl, thereby rendering all other versions subpar, her soaring rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” from “The Bodyguard,” or even her concert at Wembley Stadium in honor of Nelson Mandela. In the new biopic “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” those moments are acknowledged, albeit briefly.

Say this much for Damien Chazelle: He shows his audience exactly what he's giving them within the first few minutes of "Babylon," his bruised, black-eyed valentine to Hollywood's sybaritic heyday. In a whopper of an opening number, Chazelle films the delivery of an elephant to the estate of film producer Don Wallach (Jeff Garlin), a bravura scene of extravagance and excess that ends with not a few bit players covered in pachyderm waste - recalling the famous joke about the guy who cleans up after the circus every day. Asked why he doesn't quit, he replies with incredulity: "What, and leave show business?"

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Henry Cavill is hanging up his Superman cape — and not by choice, it would seem. The 39-year-old actor, who has played Clark Kent in the DC Extended Universe since 2013, confirmed Wednesday via Instagram that he would "after all, not be returning as Superman" — despite recently announcing that he would reprise his role as the Man of Steel. He made it clear that new DC bosses James Gunn and ...

It's been 13 years since the original "Avatar," one of the most overrated and forgettable "important" movies of the 21st century. So forgettable that viewers will be forgiven for not quite remembering who's who and what's what in "Avatar: The Way of Water," a sequel few people asked for, outside of the franchise's obsessive auteur, James Cameron, and pandemic-era theaters desperate to lure audiences back into the habit of big-screen moviegoing.

Has time passed Cameron's 'Avatar' fantasy by?

After "Tár" premiered on the first day of September at the Venice International Film Festival, more than a few people called the Oscar race for lead actress over and done, sending a message to the motion picture academy to begin engraving the trophy with Cate Blanchett's name — provided they weren't one of those people who thought Lydia Tár was a real person and that the movie was an absorbing documentary about the life and times of a legendary conductor who has slept with Kristen Stewart.

Roald Dahl's Matilda comes out as a musical

'The Swimmers': an inspiring tale of refugees

Inside a dingy apartment in Moscow, Idaho, a man too big for this world swallows his pain and self-loathing, and eats himself to death.

The Met: Live in HD presents 'The Hours' in song

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Netflix in December: Lovers, bullets and knives

Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” adapted from the play by Samuel D. Hunter (who also wrote the screenplay), about an obese man reckoning with his life over the course of a week, is a morally and emotionally messy film. It is so challenging to puzzle out the muddled messaging of this project that ultimately it begs the question: does our cinematic entertainment have to be cleanly comprehended? Is it possible to exist in an uncomfortable gray area (which is reflected even in the color palette of the dim apartment where the entirety of the film is set)?

'Spoiler Alert' features Parsons in a new role

As an ending, happily ever after works in love stories. In real life, it's more often just the beginning. The real story comes after Cinderella starts to notice that the prince is pathologically incapable of putting his socks in the hamper, or when Beast notices that Beauty can't tell the difference between recycling and trash. In the movie "Spoiler Alert," happily ever after is what happens only after the foundation of a relationship gets chipped away at by resentment and stress and distance.