THE CHILDREN ACT (no distrib):  It’s not intended as disparagement to Ian McEwan’s novel and screenplay adaptation, or to Richard Eyre’s film, that THE CHILDREN ACT feels much of the time like it could be the pilot for a high-toned television series featuring Emma Thompson as a compassionate jurist specializing in family law who […]

  BELFAST (Focus/Universal – Nov. 12):  Kenneth Branagh’s semiautobiographical film walks a path laid by many great works by master filmmakers, including Fellini’s Amarcord, John Boorman’s Hope and Glory, and Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma.  Compared to those, Belfast is a relatively minor work, yet quite enjoyable on its own terms.  The setting is 1969, as “the […]

Michael Shannon is brilliant in ICEMAN, but it has to be said that he’s brilliant in just about the same way that he was in Take Shelter, in Revolutionary Road, on Boardwalk Empire, and even in The Runaways (although at least there he got to be funny).  For an actor who only became known to a wide audience 3 years ago […]

  HIS THREE DAUGHTERS (no distrib):  The premise of Azazel Jacobs’ film is simple enough to be staged as a play:  as their father Vincent (Jay O. Sanders) lies dying in an unseen room of his Bronx apartment, Katie (Carrie Coon), Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) get in each others’ ways as they wait […]

  RUSTIN (Netflix – Nov. 17):  The director and producer George C. Wolfe is a towering figure in American theater, but his films to date have been wobbly at worst (A Night in Rodanthe, You’re Not You) and sturdy at best (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).  Rustin marks his most accomplished […]

THE SUBSTANCE (MUBI – Sept. 20):  It’s quite a feat to take the body horror crown at a film festival that also features a contribution from David Cronenberg, but Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance uses its revolting imagery in a funnier, crazier, and more focused manner than Cronenberg’s The Shrouds.  The setting is an only slightly satiric […]

  The screenwriter James Vanderbilt has made his directing debut with TRUTH, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival tonight, and at times it’s clear that this is a writer’s movie:  Vanderbilt gives no fewer than three of his characters the opportunity for a Rousing Final Speech, something another director might well have toned down.  […]

> Gus Van Sant has been making movies for 25 years, but Restless–apart from its technical polish–feels like the work of a Sundance newcomer. And one who’s been reading too much Salinger, while meanwhile wearing out his DVD of Harold and Maude. Restless is way beyond twee; its mega-tweeness is like a Transformers movie compared […]