Written by Livvy O'Brien "The star of the film might just be the Baker house itself, a space that feels so authentically cluttered and lived-in. The walls are a curated gallery of the children’s paintings and artwork and the windows bear the faint smudges of little hands. There are no matching dish sets, instead..."

Written by Patrick Hao "Kerr is a hulking man, mainly torso, who spoke softly and thought deeply - the antithesis of the macho confident image that you would associate with a man of his size, or, in this case, the Hollywood star that would play him, Dwayne Johnson."

Written by Anna Harrison "In this single cut from the condemned direwolf to Bran’s opened eyes, we see the benefits of a filmed adaptation. Within Martin’s limited POV structure in “ASOIAF,” this moment cannot exist; while he positions these chapters (Eddard III and Bran III) side-by-side, the juxtaposition is not nearly as strong..."

Written by Anna Harrison "For the first time, Blanc encounters someone who challenges him; while Blanc scoffs at church and religion, Jud forces him to recognize the good it can do..."

Written by Eric Zhu "Shot in telephoto long takes with little to no acknowledgment of an outside world, Serra once again works in the present, but molds reality into something elemental and timeless. In a way, the film is..."

Written by Anna Harrison "Being one of those annoying people who have complexes about reading the source material before watching the adaptation, I simply had to read Martin’s work before dipping my toe into the show. I devoured them with a passion I had scarcely felt from my “Harry Potter” days, and then attempted to watch the show..."

Written by Anna Harrison "Before Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked: For Good” even begins—with Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) fighting to free the animals of Oz and expose the Wizard’s (Jeff Goldblum) treachery—it has already run into one deadly, unavoidable problem: act two of “Wicked” is just not very good..."

Written by Anna Harrison "I am, for better or worse, one of those people who enjoys reading source material before watching an adaptation. Often, I find that it enhances my viewing experience, and this habit has made me a better filmgoer and critic as it has forced me to think about what sets the written word apart from the visual world of film, and the strengths and weaknesses of each..."

Written by Anna Harrison "Who among us has not talked about “holding space” in the past year? How many Glinda or Elphaba costumes did we see at Halloween this year?..."

Written by Anna Harrison "Aziz Ansari’s “Good Fortune” is the latest in that long line of heavenly stories, featuring the angel Gabriel (Keanu Reeves)—no, not that one—whose illustrious job is to stop the denizens of Los Angeles from texting and driving..."

Written by Alexander Reams "All of it plays out as if it would in real life; every single parent is scared and looks for somewhere to put their fear, and Garner holds that weight as the emotional anchor of the film, and Cregger smartly ties her to the..."

Written by Anna Harrison "About twenty minutes into “Anemone,” Sean Bean tells Daniel Day-Lewis that the latter has skid marks on his underwear, and then Daniel Day-Lewis launches into a monologue about all the laxatives he took so he could shit on a priest who molested him as a kid. Whilst going into detail about the different types of defecation that occurred on that day, two of the three other people in the theater got up and left..."

Written by Anna Harrison "Movie musicals are tricky. There can be a self-seriousness or self-aggrandizement to them that ruins the effect and yet, if the film does not take itself seriously enough and feels too self-conscious of its own musicality, no one buys the whole spontaneously-bursting-into-song thing..."

Written by Eric Zhu "Like many of the best films, “Dry Leaf” is endlessly thought-provoking, but gracious and easygoing on a moment-to-moment basis. Unencumbered by narrative, it’s motivated by the simple pleasures of pastoral vistas, rich humanity, and..."

Written by Eric Zhu "For us, unbound from the burden of direct representation, these images invite speculation of who these people are, of who they might be now, of lives before these images, and of Palestine’s future."

Written by Taylor Baker "With some decent fight choreography and dedicated turns by Merritt Weaver and Ethan Embry as Christy's mother and father, this would-be redemption story amounts to little by the time we see Sweeney walk out and bump fists with..."

Written by Taylor Baker "Losznitsa, a director who primarily films documentaries, lets his cameras roll for extended sequences, allowing the spaces to come to life and the characters time to inhabit them. It is when Kornyev acts with kindness or humanity that the entire social and physical structure seems to react like an immune system..."

Written by Eric Zhu "Although various metaphorical dimensions of water are explored, chief among them the feeling of being trapped in a vortex between Lina’s escapist desire and maternal love, “The Currents” is a film about keeping up appearances in a disembodied society, a struggle that renders..."

Written by Anna Harrison "’ll give “The Threesome” credit for this: I have never seen a rom-com—or any movie for that matter—set in Arkansas. This is not like “Annie Hall” or “La La Land,” where the glamorous cities on the coast become a main character..."

Written by Eric Zhu "While on first glance, this is one of Panahi’s weaker films, there’s still evident thought put into the deployment of theatrical artifice. The film pointedly alternates between urban neorealism (all the more effective for how rare it is in Panahi’s recent films), and the abstracted stage of..."

Written by Taylor Baker "...a reinterpretation for a new generation, showing that while time turns things don’t change too much. As the film unfolds, its secret societies, larger-than-life characters, and cartoonish grandiosity give way to a fable steeped in realism and framed in irony."

Written by Anna Harrison "In “The History of Sound,” silence is crucial. The moments where nothing is said far outweigh the ones filled with blathering, both in screentime and importance..."

Written by Anna Harrison "When I was twelve, I went to see “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway, and then again the next year. I was at the peak of my “Harry Potter” phase, somewhat obsessed with Daniel Radcliffe..."

Written by Eric Zhu "Operating simultaneously as urban revenge thriller, space opera, and a Japanese version of a wuxia flick, Toyoda treats each genre vernacular as part of the same overarching prison. Attempting to liberate the film from narrative, he subverts traditional..."

Written by Eric Zhu "Despite the references to real-world tensions, “QueerPanorama” exists in a punishingly claustrophobic headspace. This is most obvious in the barren abstraction of Cheung’s apartment, where Cheung’s arrested development is on..."