Author: Ann Hornaday
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Movie review: Life of a teenage Jehovah’s Witness hangs in the balance in timely, moving legal drama
Starring Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Fionn Whitehead; Ben Chaplin; directed by Richard Eyre; 105 minutes; R for a sexual reference. Emma Thompson plays God with convincing aplomb in “The Children Act,” an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s 2014 novel that fairly bursts with ideas about right and wrong, head and heart, and sense and sensibility. As…
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Movie review: With ‘The Wife,” Glenn Close deserves to win an Oscar
Starring Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Max Irons, Elizabeth McGovern; directed by Bjorn Runge; 100 minutes; R for strong language and some sexual material. When “The Wife” appeared on the festival circuit last year, the call went up almost immediately: This, finally, might be the movie to win Glenn Close the Oscar that has…
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This is the competitive jigsaw puzzle drama you’ve been waiting for
Since making her big-screen debut 20-odd years ago in “Trainspotting,” Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald has made a specialty of stealing movies in supporting roles. She was devastating as the trusting wife in “No Country for Old Men” and perfectly cast as the stoic domestic goddess Dolly in Joe Wright’s dreamy adaptation of “Anna Karenina.” In…
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Movie review: ‘Eighth Grade’ has given us a new iconic teenage heroine for the ages
When we first meet Kayla Day, the introverted but indomitable protagonist of the film “Eighth Grade,” she’s delivering a YouTube tutorial, one of a series she’s been working on that deal with such perennial adolescent vexations as confidence and self-esteem. Today’s lesson is on “being yourself” and, in a painfully tight and pixelated close-up, Kayla…
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The young Han Solo movie is here. And let’s just say a robot is the best part.
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” begins with the Star Wars franchise’s signature tag line, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” But it seems only yesterday that the title character met his end in “The Force Awakens,” the first installment in yet another trilogy that feels as if it’s trying desperately to…
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‘The Rider’ brings refreshing restraint to rodeo realities
“The Rider,” a marvelous film by Chloé Zhao, tells the story of rodeo horseman Brady Blackburn, who, after suffering a near-fatal head injury from being stepped on by a bucking bronco, must find his place within a world where the phrase “ride or die” takes on real meaning. Blackburn is played by Brady Jandreau, a…
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Movie review: ‘You Were Never Really Here’ is good, maybe great, and hard to like
Joaquin Phoenix assumes a hooded, bearlike presence in “You Were Never Really Here,” a disquieting urban thriller directed by Lynne Ramsay. As Joe, a taciturn hit man whose specialty is rescuing young women who have been abducted and forced into sex trafficking, Phoenix is a lurking bundle of anxieties and retributive obsession. In “You Were…
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Geoffrey Rush delivers a winning, ferocious performance in ‘Final Portrait’
One of the finer bits of filmmaking in the 20th century came late in Stanley Tucci’s “Big Night,” a raucous comedy that ended with a quiet masterpiece of staging and acting, as two brothers – played by Tucci and Tony Shalhoub – made eggs together in ritualistic morning silence. Photographed so their dancelike movements were…
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Movie review: Wes Anderson brings his jewel-box aesthetic to Japan with ‘Isle of Dogs’
Viewers may be forgiven for being confused by Wes Anderson’s movies. Constructed with dollhouse fastidiousness, their hyper-symmetrical, squared-off tableaus dressed with gorgeous textures and color palettes – and their clipped dialogue delivered with deadpan sincerity – depict a universe with only glancing resemblance to the real world. A tonal mash-up of ironic distance and emotional…
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Awash in box office statistics, what do the numbers really mean?
Have you seen the numbers? “Black Panther,” Ryan Coogler’s masterful adaptation of the Marvel comic book series, recently crossed $1 billion in box-office receipts worldwide, putting it in the top 10 moneymakers of all time. Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” is another commercial phenom, with its opening-weekend take of more than $40 million counting as…