Mike Flanagan’s latest creation for Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher, opens with patriarch Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) burying his six children—Frederick (Henry Thomas), Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), Leo (Rahul Kohli), Victorine (T’Nia . . .
Every year, I enjoy snuggling up to watch creepy movies when the autumn chill hits the air. This season, there are many new movies available, but not all thrill.
On Amazon Prime, Totally Killer combines a slasher movie with a time travel story as Jamie . . .
Five years ago, El Conde surely would have had a limited release in arthouse theaters, so I am grateful that Netflix picked up this gem, giving many more people easy access to it. The movie really stretches the boundary between fiction and biography . . .
If you have never watched ABC’s Black-ish, I suggest you enjoy it while the ongoing strikes impact network TV. I was reminded of that smart, funny sitcom when I accidentally watched two movies featuring actors who the series gave their breaks.
New . . .
With each passing week, I fear that we are closer to the availability of new movies falling off dramatically due to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Fortunately for younger audiences, Netflix has two new movies geared toward tweens and kids.
In . . .
Often, time travel stories focus on moving forward or backward in time to change the outcome, but what if all you needed was access to radio waves from the near future to completely change the course of history? In Lola, sisters Thomasina (Emma Appleton) . . .
“Barbenheimer” has come and gone, and although I only saw Barbie, in my opinion, the optimal lineup started with coffee and Oppenheimer, followed by a fun lunch and Barbie to lift the spirits. When I saw Barbie I found that the feature, based on . . .
This week, I think I found the two most medium movies I have seen, by which I mean they are not great, but also not bad. Maggie Moore(s) and 65 both strike the perfect note of unchallenging watchability, satisfying if not especially creative. Allow . . .
It was difficult to find anything to watch even a fraction as good as the second season of The Bear. I rarely review a second season if I wrote about the first, but the latest installment of the FX/Hulu show is so beautiful, well-written, and tense . . .
Snack food is subject to silly trends, but the longevity of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos is a triumph of food engineering and marketing. I did not know that the alarmingly red snack has a true underdog story. Flamin’ Hot tells the story of the man behind . . .
A new movie about NSA whistleblower Reality Winner tests how much more audiences care about rescue pets than their humans. Reality, based on Tina Satter’s play Is This a Room, tells the story of Winner’s (Sydney Sweeney) interrogation by FBI Agents . . .
This week, I watched two movies with incredible star power and fairly weak storytelling: Air on Amazon Prime and The Mother on Netflix.
Air the blockbuster hit–or whatever the streaming equivalent is–tells the story of Nike executives, Sonny Vacarro . . .
I was not a reader of Judy Blume’s books when I was a young person, because, unfortunately, I was a little snob who went to the library and found the biggest book on the shelf in the children’s section. It turns out that while I read Robin Hood, . . .
This week, we hit a dead zone in the Hollywood calendar. Finding a movie that looked worth the time was a real struggle. It seems like every story must be produced as a miniseries. At the theater, my best option was a movie so ridiculous that even . . .
This week, my toddler came down with a fever, which gave me plenty of naptimes to check out new streaming series. Unstable, a comedy, and The Power, a drama, take very different tones, but both offer social commentary and significant star power.
In . . .
In the latest Scream movie, now in theaters, the rebooted cast moves to attend college in New York City. When a new Ghostface killing (in a gripping opening sequence featuring Samara Weaving) hits their neighborhood, Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara . . .
During its initial run, the BBC drama, Luther returned every few years, airing just twenty episodes between 2010 and 2019. Although the show seemed to have a definitive finale, creator Neil Cross brought Luther back for a movie, Luther: The Fallen . . .
On a frigid winter night, I headed out for the first available showing of Cocaine Bear because my husband wanted me to review it. I asked if he wanted to come with me, but he clarified that he did not want to watch it, he wanted me to watch it. Cocaine . . .
In the last issue, I reviewed a romantic comedy starring JLo. This week, one starring Reese Witherspoon. They can keep their fashion choices, but I am happy to see these familiar leading ladies again.
New on Netflix, Your Place or Mine stars Reese Witherspoon . . .
A little comedy, a little action, just a smidge of romance, Shotgun Wedding, out now on Amazon Prime, tries to deliver a classic romcom with a twist. In the movie, Darcy (Jennifer Lopez) and Tom (Josh Duhamel) planned an extravagant destination wedding . . .
Studios often use this time of year to dump movies that they do not think will perform well at the box office, but the rise of streaming and simultaneous releases has provided an opportunity for quality films to perform well in January. The Menu, in . . .
I watch five movies every holiday season: The Holiday, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, The Shop Around the Corner, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Die Hard. Die Hard is a Christmas movie—it is, after all, about the reunification of a family for the . . .
Catherine Called Birdy was one of the popular novels I did not read when I was young because I was busy trying to read literally the biggest books in my school library. Boy, I missed out. In the adaptation by Amazon Studios, Catherine, called Birdy . . .
In school, I liked Shakespeare, but I hated Romeo and Juliet. Sure, it has some beautiful poetry tucked in, but the story? Too much teen angst. Hulu’s new movie, Rosaline, based on the novel When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle, takes a comedic approach . . .
October is my favorite month. In our home, it is a month-long celebration of cinnamon tea, cozy sweaters, and pumpkin beer. My pumpkin patch even produced an abundance of decorative gourds. I also spend the month preparing this movie review, a roundup . . .