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“About Dry Grasses” Is a Departure for Nuri Bilge Ceylan
The great Turkish director has a thing for misanthropic males, but the protagonist of his latest film encounters a woman who calls out knee-jerk cynicism.
February 23, 2024
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A Philosophy of Pleasure in “The Taste of Things”
The film, starring Juliette Binoche as a chef at a country manor, is devoted to the long-ripened skills and sheer hard work that go into the giving of rapture.
February 5, 2024
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A Birthday Party to Die for in “Tótem”
In Lila Avilés’s family drama, a young girl must confront her father’s terminal illness at a gathering of relatives.
January 19, 2024
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Michael Mann’s Beguiling “Ferrari”
The film, starring Adam Driver as the company’s founder, features the trusty components of a Mann movie: the smooth mechanics of professional labor, plus the exhaust manifold of men’s emotional lives.
December 22, 2023
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“The Zone of Interest” Finds Banality in the Evil of Auschwitz
Jonathan Glazer’s film about the family life of the Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss is calmly composed and fiercely controlled.
December 8, 2023
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Grand Appetites and “Poor Things”
In Yorgos Lanthimos’s film, Emma Stone plays a young woman who was created by a scientist, and is forever tasting the world—eating, dancing, travelling, having sex—as if it were freshly made.
December 1, 2023
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Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” Cannot Quite Vanquish Its Subject
Joaquin Phoenix summons a man prowling the battlements of his own brain, but is Napoleon’s life just too big for any one movie?
November 22, 2023
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“Maestro” Is a Leonard Bernstein Bio-Pic as Restless as Its Subject
Bradley Cooper stars in his own film about the great conductor-composer, but it is Carey Mulligan, as Bernstein’s wife, Felicia, who walks away with the movie.
November 17, 2023
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“Priscilla” Presents the Echoing Void of Elvis’s Fame
It’s no knock to call Sofia Coppola’s bio-pic, starring Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Presley, superficial, because surfaces are Coppola’s subject.
November 3, 2023
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“The Killer” Misses
Starring Michael Fassbender, David Fincher’s film aspires to the cool ruthlessness of its hit-man protagonist but has too many clever conceits to feel threatening.
October 27, 2023