When Hudson is singing her heart out, not so much approximating Aretha’s voice as channeling her soul, the effect is transportive.
Barring a UHD release, the film is unlikely to ever look better than it does on Criterion’s superlative package.
Criterion’s stacked release helps make the case that the film is more than just an interesting curio in Jarmusch’s canon.
The greatest gift offered by the film is an empowering world that looks less like invention and more like real life.
Roland Joffé’s film is largely successful in its attempt to grapple with the terrible truths of apartheid and its legacy.
There’s a narrative lopsidedness to Black Panther that sharply undercuts Killmonger’s emotional journey.
The flawless A/V transfer of Disney’s Blu-ray fully translates the film’s aesthetic beauty.
Villeneuve’s moving yet disappointingly cautious mind-bender is accorded a robustly beautiful transfer.
Rogue One at least creates its own character dynamics and plot routes rather than coasts on existing ones.
Its searching images counterpoint the hyper-articulate methodology of its characters’ sense of uncertainty.
More certain is that, no matter how much of the familiar the film will recycle, it will make a killing at the box office come December.
Each battle scar in Antoine Fuqua’s Southpaw is a testament to a vaguely but nonetheless forcefully defined notion of masculinity.
It’s a mess of styles and mixed signals, a pulp fiction that mostly tend to its loyalties to other cine-odysseys through the streets of L.A.
Evocative performances and sporadically astute direction enliven a film that’s too often overstuffed with plodding, literal-minded humanism.
Empowerment porn for those who long for the Cold War’s clarity of purpose and American dominance in this murky age of terror.
Perhaps Sanjay Rawal’s most fascinating excursion into agriculture’s dark side is the vineyards of Napa Valley.
Sadly, unlike Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler, we can’t all get what we hope for.
What this movie finally boils down to is a deceptively simple tale of two brothers, and of being one’s brother’s keeper, and of seeking justice on the crudest of fronts.
For anyone who prefers their assertive homilies to crust over like a syrupy sweet, this loose adaptation of Langston Hughes’s beloved holiday tradition will come on like a dream fulfilled.
The Butler is likely to crack the Best Picture lineup, even if claiming the big prize is all but impossible.