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August 23, 2026
‘Boorman and the Devil’ Review: The Making of John Boorman’s 1977 Disaster ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ Becomes a Documentary So Unbelievable It’s Funny
You might call Boorman’s fortitude admirable, but you could also call it delusional. And it lends "Boorman and the Devil" the quality of a true-life Christopher Guest movie. For this is the uninten...
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August 22, 2026
Why Do We Love Spider-Man So Much?
Why does everyone love Spider-Man so much? When “Spider-Man: No Way Home” came out at the end of 2021, it made an insane amount of money ($814 million in the U.S. alone), blasting away any vestige ...
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August 22, 2026
‘Spa Weekend’ Review: Leslie Mann and Isla Fisher in a High-Concept Comedy Without the Comic Highs
I watched "Spa Weekend" and realized that the genre it’s in — the high-concept movie with the concept in the title, the comedy that puts out a vibe of "Look, I’m crass and dumb and obvious! And tha...
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August 19, 2026
‘Mutiny’ Review: Jason Statham Dies Hard on a Cargo Ship in a Thriller of Impeccable Bring-the-Pain Timing
"Mutiny," a revenge thriller set aboard a giant cargo ship, shows that there’s life in the "Die Hard on a Boat" concept. The film makes you think of Bruce Willis in other ways too, since its star, ...
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August 17, 2026
‘The End of Tom Six’ Review: The Director of the ‘Human Centipede’ Films Has Multiple Sclerosis and Is Sharing the Horror. This Confessional Doc Is His Witty Self-Defense
"The End of Tom Six" is a self-styled confessional memoir in which Six fuses his life and career and illness into a parable. He’s asking: Is there room anymore for movies, like his, that stray over...
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August 15, 2026
‘Dead Souls’ Review: Alex Cox Betrays His Talent — Again — in His Latest Arid Didactic Western Doodle
The film starts as a mystery, but once that’s solved, the only real mystery is why Alex Cox tied his film career to a stone marked "retro Marxist Western punk pretension" and then threw that stone ...
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August 12, 2026
‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Review: Wile E. Coyote Stars in a Courtroom Comedy That Blends Cartoons and Live Action. But the Fizz of Anarchy Is Missing
At heart, "Coyote vs. Acme" is a courtroom comedy. But the upshot of the movie is to integrate as much Road Runner-style mayhem as possible into a live-action universe. The film is chock-full of af...
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August 12, 2026
‘The End of Oak Street’ Review: End-of-the-Summer Trash That’s Like a Loopier (and in Some Ways Better) ‘Jurassic’ Movie
"The End of Oak Street" is sometimes scary, more so than the last few lumbering "Jurassic" sequels. And sometimes it’s a hoot. Intentionally or not? A bit of both, which is the film’s knowing but i...
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August 9, 2026
The Blockbuster Mentality Is Back, Baby!
The suits of Hollywood are used to big numbers. That’s how they roll. But the record-setting opening weekend of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” isn’t something that happens every day, or every year — m...
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August 8, 2026
‘Cookie Queens’ Review: A Doc About Girl Scout Cookies, Produced by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Is Too Much of a Reality-Show Ramble
As a director, Alysa Nahmias thinks like a reality-show producer — she frames the movie as a contest, inviting us to chortle in admiration at what eager-beaver achievers all four girls are. "Cookie...
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August 4, 2026
‘Ice Cream Man’ Review: Eli Roth’s Children-of-the-Damned Splatter Movie Is No Treat
It’s a "Village of the Damned" meets "Weapons" meets the opening scene of "Halloween" situation. But those movies all tower over "Ice Cream Man," a hyped-up one-joke kiddie zombie splatter film.
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August 1, 2026
‘Wild Inside’ Review: The Story of the Central Park Owl Becomes a Moving and Haunting Documentary
"Wild Inside" feels like the vérité version of the greatest children’s novel E.B. White never wrote.
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July 29, 2026
‘Tony’ Review: Dominic Sessa Gives His First Movie-Star Performance in Matt Johnson’s Tasty Biopic About the Young Anthony Bourdain
The beauty of "Tony" is that it doesn’t make anything feel predetermined. It’s the story of an old-school American summer — those months when a college kid like Tony, doing a job because he needs a...
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July 28, 2026
‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Review: Tom Holland Returns in a ‘Mature’ but Arduous Adventure That for All Its Good Action Is Trying Too Hard
It’s got a hero with a healthy dollop of inner turmoil under his wholesome façade, and a villain who’s far from a hissable cartoon. Yet if the movie is fun at times, it’s also arduous, episodic, an...
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July 25, 2026
‘Hadestown: The Musical’ Review: Captures the Crowd-Pleasing Vibrance of the Mythological New Orleans-Meets-Rock Opera Stage Show
"Hadestown," with its free-form jamboree vibe, its spontaneous swirl of musicians and dancers onstage, is as much a happening as it is a musical. It’s a show about ancient mythology — it tells the ...
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July 24, 2026
‘Sia: Nostalgic for the Present’ Review: A Concert Performance Film from 2016, but It Channels Sia’s Mystery and Power
Sia’s greatest songs, like "Unstoppable" and "Titanium" and "The Greatest," are anthems of strength, power, fortitude, invincibility, and watching the movie it’s fascinating to behold how her facel...
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July 21, 2026
‘Summer Tour’ Review: A Documentary About Deadheads That’s as Blissed-Out and Navel-Gazing as Its Subjects
They’ve turned hanging out into a mission, which makes them not so far removed from the heroes of "Wayne’s World." But the Deadheads also evince an honest yearning for something that’s tribal, prim...
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July 18, 2026
‘Manhunter: The Final Cut’ Shows Why Director’s Cuts Are Almost Never an Improvement. But It’s Still the Greatest Thriller of Our Time
If you’re a movie buff, a cinephile, or whatever else you want to call it (I called my 2016 memoir “Movie Freak”), one of the greatest pleasures to be had is when a film grabs hold of you and won’t...
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July 16, 2026
‘Motor City’ Review: Potsy Ponciroli’s Audacious Thriller — a Scorsese Opera without Dialogue — Announces the Arrival of a Startling Voice
At times, "Motor City" is like a silent movie directed by Scorsese. It draws us in because it’s got a glittering underworld-opera surface, but also because the audience needs to use its noodle a bi...
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July 8, 2026
‘Evil Dead Burn’ Review: The Gonzo Comedy Is Gone, but the Series’ Sixth Entry Is an Effective Piece of Gross-Out Guignol
The third movie in the series since its 2013 reboot (and the sixth entry in the franchise overall), it’s a stand-alone drama of family rancor and family demons — at times, it suggests a Eugene O’Ne...
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July 4, 2026
Hollywood Movies Have Always Been About America. On the 250th July 4, Are They Still?
A few days ago, the New York Times ran a provocative listicle entitled “What Is the Definitive Movie About America?” Their writers came up with a couple of inspired choices, like “Dazed and Confuse...
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July 1, 2026
‘Young Washington’ Review: George Washington Goes to War in an Angel Studios Film That’s Like the Great-Man Biographies You Read in Grade School
"Young Washington" is like one of those great-man biographies you read in grade school. Released by Angel Studios for the Fourth of July, the movie is intended as a bit of likably square, neo-tradi...
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June 30, 2026
The Best Movies of 2026 (So Far)
You can’t evaluate a movie year — not really — when you’re only halfway through it. But you can take its temperature. And at the midway point, what we can say is that the patient looks healthier th...
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June 27, 2026
‘House of Criticism’ Review: A Pensive and Touching Portrait of Married Art Critics Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith (It Is Only, at Moments, a True-Life Christopher Guest Movie)
The way art connects (and saves) these two on a daily basis is its own idiosyncratic story, and it speaks to a certain vanishing culture of passionate New York literary brainiacs that used to be th...
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June 24, 2026
‘Supergirl’ Review: Milly Alcock Takes Charge in a Dystopian Superhero Movie So Flat It’s Super-Horrendous
Kill Krem! Save the dog! Those are the motivations driving the entire not-even-interesting-enough-to-be-convoluted plot of "Supergirl." Maybe that’s why the movie is full of action yet numbingly flat.
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June 24, 2026
‘Lucky Strike’ Review: Scott Eastwood Fights a One-Man Battle for Survival in Rod Davis Lurie’s World War II Thriller
"Lucky Strike" isn’t a raw combat drama so much as a lone-wolf genre film, something that feels tidier and maybe safer. Lurie stages it with skill; it’s not like what happens is predictable. But it...
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June 21, 2026
‘Peter Asher: Everywhere Man’ Review: The Beatles-Era Pop Singer Turned Star Producer Gets His Own Boomer-centric Documentary
Asher has a track record of achievement, but he’s also someone who gives off major boomer vibes; he’s got an aura, a mystique, a history of associational cool. "Everywhere Man" is well worth seeing...
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June 20, 2026
‘Finnegan’s Foursome’ Review: Edward Burns’ Spiky-Quaint Sports Dramedy Is a Tale of Family Therapy Through Golf
"Finnegan’s Foursome" is his 16th feature, and he’s still doing that shaggy-likable, spiky-quaint, semi-low-budget Edward Burns dramedy thing — the script that’s talky and kind of funny, though in ...
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June 18, 2026
‘Dreams of Violets’ Review: What Does a Film Made Entirely with AI Look Like? Ash Koosha’s Iranian Protest Drama Is Dramatically Numbing, but It’s Still a Startling Portent of the Future
Does this mean that AI can "make a movie"? No. But it does mean that AI can give you scenes of roiling tumultuous Civil War set in the hurly-burly of Tehran at sunset, with soldiers roaming the str...
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June 17, 2026
‘Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story’ Review: The Mistress of Late-Night Cable Public-Access Sex-Show Kitsch Gets Her Own Bangin’ Documentary
She would still be powdering her nose during the show’s opening moments (that’s how understaffed they were), and she would repeat her catch phrases ("Lie back and get comfortable," "If you don’t ha...
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