It’s a little hard to get a grasp on what “An Unfinished Film” is at first. This semifictional drama opens with a film crew booting up a 10-year-old computer, hoping their footage will still be there. And after a little finagling, the screen springs to life. Director Xiaorui (Mao Xiaorui) watches, rapt, as a younger … Read more
“Black Bag” is the third movie written by David Koepp and directed by Steven Soderbergh that’s been released since 2022, and it’s a banger. It’s also sleek, witty and lean to the bone, a fizzy, engaging puzzler about beautiful spies doing the sort of extraordinary things that the rest of us only read about in … Read more
Porky Pig just turned 90. His first cartoon was released on March 2, 1935; his tormentor and eventual foil Daffy Duck came along a couple of years later. These Warner Bros. comedic chaos agents were wild ripostes to Disney’s arguably saccharine Mickey Mouse. And after years of entertaining adults in the movie theaters of the … Read more
In “The Electric State,” a young woman and a silent robot slowly make their way across the carcass of the United States, littered with beached war ships and drones. In this alternative history, machines got on a fast track to sentience during the 20th century and waged war against humanity, which barely won. By the … Read more
As targets for satire, flamboyant pop stars and celebrity journalists are low-hanging fruit — maybe even slightly mushy, rotten fruit. But in “Opus,” Mark Anthony Green, a former style columnist for GQ making his first feature as writer and director, bids to say something trenchant about fame while cementing his reputation as a sleek new … Read more
One enduring storytelling strategy is to put some characters in a cage and watch them fight it out. There’s a reason so many mysteries, thrillers and horror movies take place in close quarters: Lockdowns have a way of turning people into lab animals. And whatever the cause — nature, nurture or screenwriting contrivance — when … Read more
‘Novocaine’ Review: Sticks and Stones Will Never Hurt Him
Contains spoilers about past episodes. About halfway through Season 2 of “Severance,” Helly R. is rocked by a stunning betrayal: Helena Eagan, masquerading as Helly, has deceived Mark S. into having sex with her, believing he was sleeping with Helly. The grift was not terribly difficult to pull off. Helly and Helena are the same … Read more
“John Garfield should be doing this part, not me.” This declaration of self-doubt was muttered by a scruffy, largely untried 23-year-old actor at the first table read for a new work by a fast-rising young American playwright. The year was 1947; the setting, a rooftop rehearsal space on West 42nd Street; and the play, after … Read more
