movie review

John Podhoretz on what makes a movie stand the test of time.

John Podhoretz on seeing the Coen brothers’ new western on screens large and small.

On this week's episode, the Substandard reflects on the death of Stan Lee and the greatness of The Good Place. JVL has an origin story—about Fanta. Vic hates philosophy. And Sonny Bunch returns!

The new film Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer begins with a title card: “Most incidents portrayed are exact representations of court transcripts, police interviews, or eyewitness accounts.” Those familiar with the case involving the Philadelphia abortion doctor—and that’s not…

The comedy-thriller is memorable despite its forgettable name.

Grant Wishard on why four young men risked prison to steal rare books from a Kentucky university library.

John Podhoretz on overlooking the identity-politics marketing to just enjoy the movie’s old-school fun.

Tim Markatos on the challenges of bringing Joan of Arc’s story to the screen.

John Podhoretz reviews the latest of Tom Cruise's 'Mission: Impossible' movies—an instant action-adventure classic.

In this latest episode, the Substandard takes on Mission Impossible: Fallout. The cohosts rank the M:I series (they all agree on what's the worst). JVL returns from San Francisco, Vic's Bachelor Week comes to an end, and Sonny appears on another podcast. Plus love from the fans, a spirit of the…

In this latest micro episode, the Substandard breaks apart the trailers for Aquaman and Shazam! Everyone agrees Aquaman will be an unmitigated disaster. Sonny is betting Shazam! does great numbers. JVL strongly disagrees. Vic liked the version of Shazam! starring Shaquille O’Neal.

John Podhoretz explains how The Rock's poorly chosen star vehicles risk squandering fans’ affections.

In this latest episode, the Substandard discusses the Rock's latest actioner, Skyscraper, and the disaster flick genre (The Poseidon Adventure > Beyond the Poseidon Adventure). JVL buys a ton of baseball cards. Sonny reappraises The Dark Knight III: The Master Race. And Vic reappraises Neve…

All-woman crew boosts bling in latest ‘Ocean’s’ caper—reviewed by John Podhoretz.

Paul Schrader’s dreary latest film creates a noxious new cliché for our times.

In this latest episode, the Substandard continues discussing Solo: A Star Wars Story—a story of a box office disaster. JVL explains exit velocity and Sonny's chair flips over. Vic gets saluted by the Swiss Guard. JVL and Vic explain confession to Sonny. Sonny explains 1337. (There's a lot of…

With Vic sailing the Holy See, Sonny and JVL welcome a very special guest to unpack the disaster that is Disney's Solo: A Star Wars Story.

We needed a review of the new Deadpool movie, and this is it.

In this latest episode, the Substandard breaks down Deadpool 2, much like breaking down a fourth wall. Vic gets grilled by JVL over his fancy new Weber. Sonny envisions Guy Ritchie's Aladdin. Plus the return of fanboy JVL and bonus bleeps!

Bumping an idol of French cinema off his pedestal.

On this latest episode, the Substandard discusses Super Troopers 2 and stoner flicks. JVL lectures on drug policy, Sonny has a hot take on Kanye, Vic embarks on a Reduced Gluttony Diet.

On this latest episode, the Substandard discusses Rampage and the Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's oeuvre. Is he truly a bankable star? Vic goes rummaging through his closet. JVL has a movie date with his mother in law. Sonny takes a stroll with William Friedkin through Georgetown.

New movie approaches the grisly story non-ideologically.

In this twee episode of the Substandard, our hosts discuss Isle of Dogs and the Wes Anderson oeuvre. Sonny gives us rankings. JVL goes back to the minors. Vic orients his kids with Chinese food. Plus "Gene" unleashed!

On this latest episode, the Substandard discusses Ready Player One, which all four of them went to see. JVL prefers the book, Sonny prefers the movie, and Vic found all the pop culture references heart warming. Vic also gets a close shave and JVL remembers calling the Nintendo hotline.

Why is Steven Spielberg devoting so much of his time to making cartoons? Ready Player One, his mammoth new movie, is the third film he's made since 2011 using motion-capture animation. The first two—The Adventures of Tintin and The BFG—were simultaneously hyperactive and dispirited. Spielberg is…

On this latest episode, the Substandard discusses the Tomb Raider reboot and video games that become movies—are they ever any good? Sonny ranks the good ones. JVL gets mistaken for a grandfather and Vic thinks his blood test results are fake news.

The Death of Stalin is a blacker-than-black comedy about the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and how they jockey for power after the demise of Joseph Vissarionovich in 1953. The movie is sometimes gaspingly hilarious—and at all times audacious and…

There may be no better showcase for the sociopolitical contortions our culture’s made in the last two decades than what the #MeToo ethic makes of the campus novel Blue Angel, by Francine Prose. Recently adapted—honestly but shallowly—into a movie starring Stanley Tucci under a toupee, the limited…

I am not typically late for things. Except, one morning in March of last year, I was running late to a doctor’s appointment for my wife and me. She was already there, having let me sleep in since I had been up late the night before. Not for work or anything. But to watch Team Israel in the World…

Rejected by more than two dozen publishers in the early 1960s, A Wrinkle in Time was itself a work of its own time and entirely out of time—a sophisticated and original intellectual coming-of-age story featuring speculative science fiction, anti-Communist dystopia, and Christian hermeneutics. There…

It's rare—vanishingly rare—to get the feeling in a movie theater that the people who made the film you’re seeing know exactly what they’re doing, know exactly what they’re trying to achieve scene by scene, know exactly what plot they’re telling, know exactly the characters they’re putting on…

Black Panther is the least superhero-y of the Marvel superhero movies. T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), its protagonist, gets some unearthly abilities from drinking the juice of a plant, but I can’t tell you what they are really, and the movie is delightfully uninterested in exploring them. What’s more…

In 1960, already a movie buff, educated by Bill Kennedy, the ex-film-actor host of CKLW’s programs featuring old Hollywood classics, I took the bus from my east-side Detroit home to the Fox Theatre downtown. I vividly remember watching Victor Mature, all muscles, and Hedy Lamarr, all allure, in…

In this week’s super episode, the Substandard reviews Marvel’s Black Panther. JVL has plenty of questions, two of which aren’t rhetorical. Vic discusses his “blowout” lunch. Sonny reveals his own origin story.

On this week’s episode, JVL continues to bask in the glow of a Super Bowl victory. But how about those Super Bowl ads? What to make of Solo? Your cohosts list their favorites. Sonny reviews Hostiles. Plus a hostile review by “Gene”!

The Scrapbook has often touted the Conversations with Bill Kristol video series (available free at conversationswithbillkristol.org), but we are especially fond of the latest installment and suspect you will be, too. It’s an extended discussion of movies, TV, and popular culture with this…

The Post is about a little-known and relatively minor incident in the annals of newspapering—how the Washington Post made itself a player in the Pentagon Papers story, the biggest scoop of 1971, after it was beaten to the punch by the New York Times. And it merges that account with a female…

In this latest micro episode, the Substandard discusses the nominees for this year's Academy Awards. Sonny thinks The Shape of Water is in great shape to win. JVL wonders if a movie that's not woke even has a shot. Vic fears that Darkest Hour and Dunkirk split votes? And where's Wonder Woman?

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a “reboot,” whatever that means, of a 1995 Robin Williams movie about kids magically transported inside the world of a board game. Sony Studios knew that the new Jumanji was likely to be a hit from the reaction of preview audiences, but no one expected it would…

In this latest mega-episode, the Substandard discusses the works of director Paul Thomas Anderson—JVL reveals himself to be a PTA scholar. Sonny reviews Phantom Thread. Vic reveals his favorite bathroom in D.C. JVL is writing Eagles fanfiction. And Sonny still hates coconut.

The most potent form of nostalgia is for a time you never knew in a place you do and imagine was at its peak before you came along. For me, that would be the 1950s in New York City, set to the cool, light strain of the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Paul Desmond’s “Take Five.” I can never get enough…

Enough with the whiny movie critics complaining about the new Star Wars movie. Like them, I was fully prepared to hate the thing when I arrived at the screening, but that prejudice was overcome by the movie’s wondrous look and by its fascinating, multilayered plot.

Enough with the whiny movie critics complaining about the new Star Wars movie. Like them, I was fully prepared to hate the thing when I arrived at the screening, but that prejudice was overcome by the movie’s wondrous look and by its fascinating, multilayered plot.

It may well be impossible ever to make a film adaptation of The Great Gatsby that can successfully live up to the full majesty of the novel. Hollywood has tried it five times, each with disappointing results despite impressive casts including Robert Redford and, most recently, Leo DiCaprio. The…

On this special year-end episode, the Substandard reviews (criticizes), dissects (tears limb from limb), and discusses (goes off on) Star Wars: The Last Jedi. JVL shares his thoughts on missed payoffs. Sonny tries to explain astral projection. Vic wonders why Snoke is wearing a gold lamé tunic.…

The propulsively entertaining but problematic new movie I, Tonya reminds us that it’s been nearly a quarter-century since the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was whacked on the back of the knee by a baton-wielding goon. The attack was the outcome of an insane white-trash conspiracy to give Kerrigan’s…

In this seminal episode, the Substandard discusses Darkest Hour. Is it better than Dunkirk (take a wild guess)? JVL explains to Sonny how watches work. Sonny recalls his Chris Farley-like interview with Gary Oldman. Vic's Elf on the Shelf turns into Annabelle. Plus JVL on the real Churchill and the…

In this latest micro episode, the Substandard gets ready to watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi. JVL hasn’t been this excited since Revenge of the Sith. Vic wonders if Luke will drive a Nissan. Sonny has already seen it—and what he reveals will leave you stunned. Set for stun!

One of the rituals of Thanksgiving weekend is heading out to see a movie. And so, with that in mind, let me do you a mitzvah: Do not see Justice League. Under any circumstances do not go to see Justice League.

Last summer, to prepare for the upcoming movie version, I reread Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Christie was the bestselling writer of the 20th century and Murder on the Orient Express is one of her most famous works. But I found it almost agonizingly tedious. It reads more like…

In this week’s Thanksgiving episode, the Substandard takes on Justice League. But just how bad is it? Like, Suicide Squad bad? (JVL: Yes.) Sonny runs us through a Thanksgiving bracket: pecan vs. pumpkin pie? turkey vs. stuffing? Vic judges a whiskey competition (Sonny couldn’t have been happier for…

If I tell you that Martin McDonagh is one of the most imaginative writers of our time, I expect you will immediately think he writes science fiction or fantasy—because the word “imaginative” has now devolved into a subset of the fantastic, the surreal, the unearthly. That is not the case with…

On this week’s episode, the Substandard discusses Murder on the Orient Express. Sonny and Vic are on board but JVL calls it a trainwreck! Sonny visits a Chinese buffet, JVL’s watch talks smack, and Vic gets all out of joint talking about dowels. Plus a “Gene” review, rejected Halloween candies, and…

We are living through the golden age of the cinema of Sacramento. Oh, you didn’t know there was such a thing? There is. It’s new. Very new. In 2015, the Sacramento radio station NOW 100.5 could find only eight movies filmed in part in Sacramento over the previous 30 years, and in all of them it was…

On this latest episode of the Substandard, we break down Blade Runner 2049. Sonny and JVL go deep on the movie’s true meaning. JVL and Vic share thoughts on My Little Pony. A discussion of Harvey Weinstein gets meta. Plus the return of “Gene” and a fan-service outtake!

In this latest micro episode, the Substandard searches for meaning in the newest trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The music still soars, says Sonny. Who’s the adorable little furball next to the CGI’d Chewbacca, asks Vic? When will we stop paying money for this dross, asks JVL?

Can there be such a thing as a great movie that is also unsatisfying? It would seem like a contradiction in terms. After all, how can something work when it doesn’t work? And yet it does happen. The early Marx Brothers and Woody Allen pictures are disastrous pieces of storytelling, but who cares…

Can there be such a thing as a great movie that is also unsatisfying? It would seem like a contradiction in terms. After all, how can something work when it doesn’t work? And yet it does happen. The early Marx Brothers and Woody Allen pictures are disastrous pieces of storytelling, but who cares…

I used to have this annual argument at Christmas with my brother-in-law, a well-regarded film editor in Hollywood. I would arrive brimming with complaints about a movie like Argo, said to be “based on actual events” but with an entirely fictitious Keystone Kops-like airport chase scene. I would…

The 1973 tennis match between the 29-year-old female champ Billie Jean King and the 55-year-old former champ Bobby Riggs was many things. It was one of the great “pseudo-events” of all time, fitting perfectly Daniel Boorstin’s definition in his 1962 book The Image as “dramatic performances in which…

I used to have this annual argument at Christmas with my brother-in-law, a well-regarded film editor in Hollywood. I would arrive brimming with complaints about a movie like Argo, said to be “based on actual events” but with an entirely fictitious Keystone Kops-like airport chase scene. I would…

On this latest episode, the Substandard discusses Kingsman: The Golden Circle and the Matthew Vaughn oeuvre, i.e., JVL on Layer Cake and lots of it. Sonny celebrates a big-league win, JVL stumbles across a LEGO home wrecker, and Vic loves free supermarket samples. All on this week’s Substandard!

In Brad’s Status, a 47-year-old man takes his 17-year-old son on a tour of Boston’s colleges. A onetime journalist whose award-winning website went bust during the financial meltdown, Brad Sloan runs a nonprofit in Sacramento that seeks to match donors with other worthy nonprofits. His wife works…

Homer and his successors described Odysseus as polytropos, in reference both to his boundless craftiness and to the literal “many turns” he took on his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. If ever that epithet were due for a deserved comeback, it would be in reference to Robert…

Stephen King’s It was the bestselling book of 1986 and the source material for an enormously successful two-part miniseries on ABC in 1990 that has been shown regularly on cable TV ever since. The ridiculously overlong novel reads like King is parodying himself; the miniseries is obvious and…

In this latest episode, the Substandard discusses The Trip to Spain and ranks road trip movies. We also debate if ’90s rock music counts as classic rock. Special guest host Mike Warren saw Smash Mouth live. Vic saw Bell Biv DeVoe. And Sonny saw Sponge. Plus The Dark Knight on IMAX, spray painting…

Because there are so few of them, any movies about Americans living east of Los Angeles and west of Chicago will nowadays be labeled “important” on first sight. Taylor Sheridan, who grew up on a Texas ranch and moved to Wyoming after 20 years of intermittently rewarding acting work in L.A., has…

Because there are so few of them, any movies about Americans living east of Los Angeles and west of Chicago will nowadays be labeled “important” on first sight. Taylor Sheridan, who grew up on a Texas ranch and moved to Wyoming after 20 years of intermittently rewarding acting work in L.A., has…

Charlize Theron first appears onscreen in her mostly terrific new action thriller, Atomic Blonde, trying to heal her wounded body in an ice bath. She has bruises all over her back. Her face is swollen, one of her eyes blackened. She pulls herself out of the tub, dresses laboriously, and limps into…

There was a time when I was surprised that many Americans—even fans of Turner Classic Movies—seemed to think that Alfred Hitchcock was a roly-poly Englishman who somehow ended up in Hollywood and got his start making movies there. The way the story goes, Hitchcock crossed the pond and made Rebecca…

In this latest episode, JVL and Sonny review Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and rank the Luc Besson oeuvre. Meanwhile, Vic and Sonny rank their favorite Chinese buffet dishes—Sesame Chicken > General Tso’s! Plus JVL on his great baseball weekend and Sonny on his expanding Criterion…

There are few events in the history of war comparable to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the French beach at Dunkirk in the late spring of 1940. It is an episode that repays close attention to its every aspect—the terrifying Nazi triumphs in combat that led to it, the halting…

There are few events in the history of war comparable to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the French beach at Dunkirk in the late spring of 1940. It is an episode that repays close attention to its every aspect—the terrifying Nazi triumphs in combat that led to it, the halting…

On this week’s episode, the Substandard reviews Dunkirk and ranks the Christopher Nolan oeuvre. Sonny hates the beach, JVL hates Tesla even more, and Vic discovers Game of Thrones. Plus Justice League woes and Gene Shalit goes to the IMAX, all on this week’s Substandard!

Evidently the state of American moviemaking has regressed to the point where all low- to mid-budget movies made at the periphery of the mainstream must be either triumphs or failures, as though all it takes to make an artistically significant film is merely an artistic vision. A Ghost Story,…

The Big Sick is a movie about a struggling comedian from a Pakistani family and his graduate-student waif of a girlfriend. They break up. She gets a mysterious infection and is put in a medically induced coma. He must deal with her parents, who are angry with him for the way he treated her, and his…

Evidently the state of American moviemaking has regressed to the point where all low- to mid-budget movies made at the periphery of the mainstream must be either triumphs or failures, as though all it takes to make an artistically significant film is merely an artistic vision. A Ghost Story,…

The Big Sick is a movie about a struggling comedian from a Pakistani family and his graduate-student waif of a girlfriend. They break up. She gets a mysterious infection and is put in a medically induced coma. He must deal with her parents, who are angry with him for the way he treated her, and his…

In the past 15 years, no fewer than seven movies have featured the character of Peter Parker, the Queens teenager who obtains powers from a radioactive spider bite. Tobey Maguire starred in three of them from 2002 to 2007; Andrew Garfield starred in two from 2012 to 2014; and after appearing in a…

In the past 15 years, no fewer than seven movies have featured the character of Peter Parker, the Queens teenager who obtains powers from a radioactive spider bite. Tobey Maguire starred in three of them from 2002 to 2007; Andrew Garfield starred in two from 2012 to 2014; and after appearing in a…

Automobiles, pop songs, and movies form a golden braid as eternal as the one that binds Gödel, Escher, and Bach. In 1980, the writer-director Paul Schrader released American Gigolo, whose first three minutes mostly feature shots of Richard Gere driving a black Mercedes convertible along the Pacific…

Automobiles, pop songs, and movies form a golden braid as eternal as the one that binds Gödel, Escher, and Bach. In 1980, the writer-director Paul Schrader released American Gigolo, whose first three minutes mostly feature shots of Richard Gere driving a black Mercedes convertible along the Pacific…

So, The Mummy. The question that bedevils me as I begin this review is how I can get to the end of it. Like Lucy in Peanuts, I am now counting words to see how quickly I can get to 700, which fills my slot here at The Weekly Standard. That was 53 words. I'm 8 percent of the way there. Can I make it?

So, The Mummy. The question that bedevils me as I begin this review is how I can get to the end of it. Like Lucy in Peanuts, I am now counting words to see how quickly I can get to 700, which fills my slot here at The Weekly Standard. That was 53 words. I'm 8 percent of the way there. Can I make it?

On this latest episode, the Substandard unravels The Mummy and questions the feasibility of a Dark Universe. But what other Extended Universes would we like to see? A Garry Marshall Universe, of course! JVL praises Rafa Nadal, Vic enjoys Virgin America, and Sonny rants against avocado toast, all on…

Wonder Woman is a superhero movie about a very attractive person who was fashioned out of clay. She resides on an island on which only women live. It is in the Mediterranean Sea but hidden behind a gigantic magical cloud. She leaves it and emerges into World War I-era Europe so that she can get…

Wonder Woman is a superhero movie about a very attractive person who was fashioned out of clay. She resides on an island on which only women live. It is in the Mediterranean Sea but hidden behind a gigantic magical cloud. She leaves it and emerges into World War I-era Europe so that she can get…

In this latest episode, the Substandard gets lassoed into reviewing Wonder Woman—is it the best thing to come out of the DC Comics Extended Universe? Is it better than Chav King Arthur? Jonathan brings a surprise to the studio—complete with sound effects! Sonny is not amused. Vic gets stranded in…

The Arthurian legends are among the most enduring stories in history. But when a $175 million film version casting Arthur as the lowlife foster son of a prostitute battling dragons and a campy Jude Law bombed at the box office, the reason for the movie's failure, in Hollywood's eyes, was simple:…

In this new episode, the Substandard reviews Pirates of the Caribbean and Baywatch. Who's more overrated? Johnny Depp or the Rock? JVL admits he's a watchaholic, Vic has a soft spot for Donnie Brasco, and Sonny takes a hard line on thievery. Plus tales from the zoo, getting action at Action Park,…

Great Scott! In this week's episode the Substandard discusses Alien: Covenant and the best (and not-so-best) of Ridley Scott. JVL admits he has "the sensibility of a 9-year-old girl." Something hits Sonny in the head. You say ci-cay-da, Vic says ci-cah-da. Plus theme park terror and a word from our…

On this week's episode, the Substandard reviews King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the Guy Ritchie oeuvre—in other words, rankings! Sonny cleans his grill and suffers a terrible injury. JVL talks mages and +5 ice swords. Vic complains about breakfast in bed. Plus Powers Boothe and a word from our…

On this week's episode, the Substandard reviews King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the Guy Ritchie oeuvre—in other words, rankings! Sonny cleans his grill and suffers a terrible injury. JVL talks mages and +5 ice swords. Vic complains about breakfast in bed. Plus Powers Boothe and a word from our…

This discussion of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will feature spoilers, so I don't want to hear any whining from any of you nerds. Read on, or don't; I get paid either way. Anyway, if you do complain, you're being silly because (a) this movie isn't a mystery, and (b) there aren't really any big…

This discussion of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will feature spoilers, so I don't want to hear any whining from any of you nerds. Read on, or don't; I get paid either way. Anyway, if you do complain, you're being silly because (a) this movie isn't a mystery, and (b) there aren't really any big…

I was recently reading The Whole Truth and Nothing But, a 1963 memoir by the legendary gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and I came across an interesting passage in which the producer Samuel Goldwyn (né Szmuel Gelbfisz) tells Hopper flatly, "You can't have a Jew playing a Jew. It wouldn't work on the…

In this week's episode, the Substandard tackles the summer movie lineup—what we're most looking forward to and what we're not. JVL has a very special surprise in store for the guys, and a very special guest comes by the studio—not many people know that! All on this week's episode of the Substandard!

It’s nearly 24 hours since I saw the new movie Colossal, and I'm not sure what I think of it. I've never seen anything like it, and trust me, neither have you—so for that reason alone Colossal might be worth your time. The question I can't seem to answer yet is whether its originality makes…

In this latest episode, the Substandard discusses The Fate of the Furious and the ever-expanding franchise. JVL delivers a Fast and Furious exegesis and rankings. Sonny says to "just look at the pictures like a child." Vic compares it to the Emmanuelle series. Plus the Best and Worst of the…

Until its final scene, there isn't a moment in the new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast that wasn't done better in the 1991 animated film from which it derives.

Until its final scene, there isn’t a moment in the new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast that wasn't done better in the 1991 animated film from which it derives.

The title of the new horror film Get Out alludes to a brilliant Eddie Murphy stand-up bit that is never mentioned in the movie—but a routine the African-American comedian Jordan Peele, who wrote and directed the movie, surely knows by heart. "I was watching movies like Poltergeist and Amityville…

The title of the new horror film Get Out alludes to a brilliant Eddie Murphy stand-up bit that is never mentioned in the movie—but a routine the African-American comedian Jordan Peele, who wrote and directed the movie, surely knows by heart. "I was watching movies like Poltergeist and Amityville…

The superhero movie Logan doesn't look, sound, or behave like any other superhero movie ever made. It's set around El Paso and the Mexican border town of Juarez, then in Oklahoma, and finally in North Dakota. It's dusty and gritty and mostly rural, entirely unlike the nine world-capital-hopping…

The superhero movie Logan doesn’t look, sound, or behave like any other superhero movie ever made. It's set around El Paso and the Mexican border town of Juarez, then in Oklahoma, and finally in North Dakota. It's dusty and gritty and mostly rural, entirely unlike the nine world-capital-hopping…

Well, of course Moonlight won the Academy Award. Who’s kidding whom in the year following the dreadful scandal known as #OscarsSoWhite? Sure, it looked like La La Land had it sewn up, so much so that no one batted an eye when it was mistakenly awarded Best Picture for two minutes at the…

It's Gamblers Unanimous on this week's episode: Jonathan and Vic play craps on the high seas while Sonny brings down the house playing poker. Plus the Substandard lists their favorite gambling movies (who doesn't love Teddy KGB?) and bid a sad farewell to Bill Paxton.

A wonderful movie is a small miracle. So many things have to go right, and they usually don't. What is needed? A good story, and good actors, and a competent cinematographer, and a talented editor, and decent dialogue, and a sensible producer, and a director capable of mixing all the elements…

A wonderful movie is a small miracle. So many things have to go right, and they usually don’t. What is needed? A good story, and good actors, and a competent cinematographer, and a talented editor, and decent dialogue, and a sensible producer, and a director capable of mixing all the elements…

Every now and then a movie comes out of nowhere to surprise you. It’s usually a small-scale piece of genre work whose own producers are likely so relieved just to have it done and get it released that they don't really know they might have something special on their hands. Last year's big surprise…

In my ongoing effort to perform the duties assigned to me as this magazine’s movie critic, I suffer for you. I see things you would not wish to see and tell you not to see them. Don't bother to thank me, even though you should. It's all part of the deal, the compact between us, forged over many…

Hidden Figures is a nice movie with a great subject that makes you feel good about America, reminds you how far we've come since the segregated and male-dominated days of the 1950s, and even reminds us that once we dreamed big about exploring the stars and going to the moon and all that kind of…

Hidden Figures is a nice movie with a great subject that makes you feel good about America, reminds you how far we've come since the segregated and male-dominated days of the 1950s, and even reminds us that once we dreamed big about exploring the stars and going to the moon and all that kind of…

There is a great American novel almost nobody has read: Theodore Dreiser's The Titan. It concerns a visionary man of business named Frank Cowperwood, and it's the story of how he helps turn Chicago into a major city by commandeering and then building its mass-transit system. Cowperwood is a…

There is a great American novel almost nobody has read: Theodore Dreiser’s The Titan. It concerns a visionary man of business named Frank Cowperwood, and it's the story of how he helps turn Chicago into a major city by commandeering and then building its mass-transit system. Cowperwood is a…

Seeing August Wilson’s play Fences on Broadway in 1987 was one of the highlights of my theatergoing life. This study of a 53-year-old garbageman named Troy Maxson—who struggles every moment to maintain his dignity and restrain the rage of a black man in 1950s Pittsburgh who was denied his chance to…

Seeing August Wilson’s play Fences on Broadway in 1987 was one of the highlights of my theatergoing life. This study of a 53-year-old garbageman named Troy Maxson—who struggles every moment to maintain his dignity and restrain the rage of a black man in 1950s Pittsburgh who was denied his chance to…

American TV has become the equivalent of India's Bollywood—an almost unimaginably prolific source of filmed entertainment. Bollywood produces more than a thousand movies a year, more than double Hollywood's output. Similarly, the networks and cable channels and streaming services have been…

American TV has become the equivalent of India’s Bollywood—an almost unimaginably prolific source of filmed entertainment. Bollywood produces more than a thousand movies a year, more than double Hollywood's output. Similarly, the networks and cable channels and streaming services have been…

How is the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One? How the hell should I know? Does it even matter what you or I think of it? Will any negative feelings we have prevent us and our children and our children’s children from seeing the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that—and on and on…

How is the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One? How the hell should I know? Does it even matter what you or I think of it? Will any negative feelings we have prevent us and our children and our children’s children from seeing the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that—and on and on…

La La Land should have been a disaster. Every American movie musical it resembles has been. The plot of La La Land recalls Martin Scorsese's tiresome New York, New York, released in 1977; both feature a principled and snobbish jazz musician who falls in love with an overeager novice performer. Its…

This was not your typical film premiere. The Bleeding Edge depicts the live-organ harvesting of religious dissidents by agents of the Chinese government and its reigning Communist Party—and the film's starring actress, human-rights activist and religious dissident Anastasia Lin was allegedly almost…

La La Land should have been a disaster. Every American movie musical it resembles has been. The plot of La La Land recalls Martin Scorsese's tiresome New York, New York, released in 1977; both feature a principled and snobbish jazz musician who falls in love with an overeager novice performer. Its…

In the great and overlooked 1991 comedy Soapdish, a television executive muses on the work of his network's greatest soap opera star. "She is and will always be the Queen of Misery," he says. Well, Celeste of Soapdish has nothing on Casey Affleck of the year's most highly-praised film, Manchester…

In the great and overlooked 1991 comedy Soapdish, a television executive muses on the work of his network’s greatest soap opera star. "She is and will always be the Queen of Misery," he says. Well, Celeste of Soapdish has nothing on Casey Affleck of the year's most highly-praised film, Manchester…

It's hard to make a bad Howard Hughes movie, but Warren Beatty has pulled it off with Rules Don't Apply, the first movie he's directed in 18 years and the first movie in which he's acted in 15. He is being treated kindly by the press for this calamity of a motion picture, for which there is no…

It’s hard to make a bad Howard Hughes movie, but Warren Beatty has pulled it off with Rules Don't Apply, the first movie he's directed in 18 years and the first movie in which he's acted in 15. He is being treated kindly by the press for this calamity of a motion picture, for which there is no…

The WEEKLY SUBSTANDARD Podcast with Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. Last, and Victorino Matus discussing Die Hard and other Christmas classics. Does anyone like eggnog? Plus the Substandard Holiday Gift Guide!

This week on The Weekly Substandard, Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. Last, and Victorino Matus discuss the new sci-fi thriller Arrival, plus their favorite alien-invasion movies of all time, their favorite Thanksgiving dishes, and—best of all—their favorite rest stops!

Arrival is one of those movies that works very hard (and very cleverly) to convince you it's one thing until it takes an astounding turn in its last third and you realize you've been seeing a story about something else entirely—precisely at the point when it suddenly deepens, enriches itself, and…

Arrival is one of those movies that works very hard (and very cleverly) to convince you it’s one thing until it takes an astounding turn in its last third and you realize you've been seeing a story about something else entirely—precisely at the point when it suddenly deepens, enriches itself, and…

The WEEKLY SUBSTANDARD podcast with senior editor Victorino Matus, senior writer Jonathan Last, and Sonny Bunch of the Washington Free Beacon, on books that become movies.

Imagine for a moment that Arnold Schwarzenegger's agent received a script called The Accountant in 1992 because its producer and director hoped against hope he would star in it. In this film, Schwarzenegger would play an emotionless genius who cooks the books for evil governments and crime…

Imagine for a moment that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s agent received a script called The Accountant in 1992 because its producer and director hoped against hope he would star in it. In this film, Schwarzenegger would play an emotionless genius who cooks the books for evil governments and crime…

There was a recurring sketch on the late, great, still-underrated comedy show SCTV in which two farmers in overalls, Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok, reviewed obscure foreign films and highbrow fare with one common feature: They showed people and things exploding. "I'll tell you one film I really…

There was a recurring sketch on the late, great, still-underrated comedy show SCTV in which two farmers in overalls, Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok, reviewed obscure foreign films and highbrow fare with one common feature: They showed people and things exploding. “I'll tell you one film I really…

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is the name of a children's book published a decade ago, heavily influenced by the Harry Potter series. My oldest daughter read it when she was 9, along with its sequels; she liked it, didn't love it, never really talked about it. She's now 12, and last…

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the name of a children's book published a decade ago, heavily influenced by the Harry Potter series. My oldest daughter read it when she was 9, along with its sequels; she liked it, didn't love it, never really talked about it. She's now 12, and last…

Contributing editor and WEEKLY STANDARD movie critic John Podhoretz joined C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb on Q&A to discuss his career as a film critic and editor, movies, and how they've shaped the political landscape.

I watched Blood Father—a tough, smart, violent little movie available on demand—on my iPad this past weekend. It works as a companion piece to Hell or High Water, the riveting bank-robber flick that many people think is the movie of the year so far, only instead of being set in hardscrabble Texas,…

I watched Blood Father—a tough, smart, violent little movie available on demand—on my iPad this past weekend. It works as a companion piece to Hell or High Water, the riveting bank-robber flick that many people think is the movie of the year so far, only instead of being set in hardscrabble Texas,…

Clint Eastwood's movie about Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who landed his plane on the Hudson River in January 2009 and saved all 155 aboard, is the damnedest thing. You know what's going to happen before you go into the theater. Even worse, it's only a few minutes in when you get that…

Clint Eastwood’s movie about Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who landed his plane on the Hudson River in January 2009 and saved all 155 aboard, is the damnedest thing. You know what's going to happen before you go into the theater. Even worse, it's only a few minutes in when you get that…

Fifty years ago, on September 8, 1966, Star Trek premiered on NBC. It struggled through 79 meh-rated episodes before it was cancelled. No one knew it would prove to be the most influential piece of American popular culture of the past half-century.

There’s a new bank-robber movie that's good enough to survive what may be the worst title in recent memory: Hell or High Water, a name that evokes precisely nothing about the picture even though it refers to a throwaway line spoken in its third act. At least, back in the day, when Hollywood came up…

The nifty suspense thriller Nerve captures lightning in a bottle as it tells a cautionary tale about the role of social media in the lives of America’s teenagers. And though it was made to appeal to teenagers, I think Nerve will have the greatest emotional resonance with the parents of teens and…

Fifty years ago, on September 8, 1966, Star Trek premiered on NBC. It struggled through 79 meh-rated episodes before it was cancelled. No one knew it would prove to be the most influential piece of American popular culture of the past half-century.

With the United Kingdom thrown into chaos after last month's Brexit vote—the pound plunged, Scotland suggested secession, the elites lost it—it's reassuring to learn there's one thing you can count on: Eddy and Patsy are still showing us that "politically correct" can be not just a way of speaking…

What if the left threw a high-tech lynching and no one came? It happened this spring, although you probably didn’t notice. On April 16, HBO aired Confirmation, a docudrama version of Justice Clarence Thomas's 1991 Senate confirmation hearings​—​more specifically, of Anita Hill's sexual harassment…

A  chamber comedy set among New York City academics, Maggie's Plan is so slight on the surface and so seemingly unambitious that its remarkable qualities sneak up on you. The "plan" of the title only begins to emerge after the first hour—and it is part of the considerable achievement of the…

The last time America felt this bad about itself was the 1970s, and perhaps the only enduringly positive result of that time was how that rotten mood led to some genuinely great moviemaking. One could say the same today about television, and indeed the dark, anxious, impending-doom-like spirit of…

Whit Stillman’s peerless comedies of the 1990s—Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco—feature Americans who are living in their time but are not really of their time. They are all young people, but they are not interested in the things young people were interested in when the movies were…

People love Captain America: Civil War, the latest Marvel comic-book movie. I mean, they love it. Say a word against it and their eyes narrow; by doing so, you have revealed to them your hatred of fun, and for this you must die. Well, maybe not die. Rather, they are sure you exist in a living death…

Sing Street is laden with melodramatic elements: a marriage disintegrating against the background of a national economic crisis, a vicious priest who beats up a boy, a wayward teenage girl with an institutionalized mother and a sexually abusive father, even a reckless emigration on a leaky…

One More Time, a small-scale drama set in the Hamptons now playing on demand in your living room, is a beautiful mess. The infectiously watchable Christopher Walken plays a 70-year-old singing star named Paul Lombard desperate to stage a comeback. A spectacular Amber Heard plays his 31-year-old…

How often can you say you’ve seen a movie that takes on a key moral and philosophical issue raised by the war on terror and does right by it? Maybe Zero Dark Thirty—although that initially garlanded and subsequently defamed picture, which does not kowtow to the screechy assurances of the…

Twenty years ago, in Dazed and Confused, the largely unknown writer-director Richard Linklater offered up an indelible portrait of America in the 1970s in the guise of a conventional R-rated teen movie. Now, in 2016, the garlanded Linklater has brought us a conventional R-rated teen movie in the…

‘It is well that war is so terrible," Robert E. Lee once said, "or we should grow too fond of it." The quote makes almost no sense to us today, after a century of battlefield horrors and the awareness of the psychic and spiritual costs of war on those who fight it. But for soldiers in the premodern…

The stunning success of the giggly, extremely violent, and incredibly foul-mouthed comic book movie Deadpool—it earned $152 million in a single weekend when its studio expected half that—is nothing less than a pivot point in the history of popular culture. It marks the moment when the Hollywood…

There are jokes, there are inside jokes, and then there is the new movie from the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, who are without question the most impressive and interesting American filmmakers of our time.

My friend the movie producer is a major fan of Mad Max: Fury Road. He says it’s the best film he thinks he's seen in five years. This is interesting, because it's not the kind of movie he makes; he produces "indies," meaning films with relatively modest budgets that center on character rather than…

The Revenant is beautifully photographed. Really. It’s beautiful. I mean, you've never seen such beauty. We're talking nature here, people. Rivers. Mountains. Snow. Even an avalanche. Some fog, both early morning and late afternoon. Also, it's supposed to be set in 1823, so the idea is we're seeing…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on his recent review of the soon-to-be-released Benghazi movie 13 Hours.

Two years ago, the writer-director Quentin Tarantino announced his next picture would be a Western called The Hateful Eight. He sent his script to a few people, and it was leaked. Tarantino announced that he would not be making The Hateful Eight after all because he was so furious. Then he reversed…

"This is a true story." Those words appear onscreen to open 13 Hours, the major motion picture about Benghazi, in theaters on January 15. And with them, director Michael Bay announced that he is taking sides in the long-running debate over the attacks there on September 11, 2012.

There’s no upside for me in reviewing Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If I say anything interesting about its plot, I'll be criticized for publishing spoilers. If I say anything critical, I'll be accused of raining on everybody's parade. If I praise it, I'll be attacked for excessive kindness and…

There is a video on the World Wrestling Entertainment's website called "Donald Trump's Greatest WWE Moments," which invites you to "Watch Donald Trump put his money where his mouth is in some of his most memorable WWE appearances." The video lasts for three minutes. In it, you can watch Trump slam…

Ryan Coogler, who conceived and directed the new hit film Creed, is up to something very tricky with this effort to update the Rocky films to the 21st century. Creed is not a Cinderella story about a working-class chump who gets an unexpected shot at glory, as the original Rocky was. Instead, it's…

Colm Tóibín did something interesting and unusual when he wrote his novel Brooklyn, which was published in 2009. He chose to tell an immigration story about an Irish girl just out of her teens who has no particular desire to go to America, no particular drive once she arrives in America, and no…

I went to see Spotlight out of a sense of dreary duty. The movie is being touted as an Oscar possibility and has received rapturous reviews, neither of which is any guarantee of quality or enjoyment. Quite the opposite, in fact: Last year’s Oscar winner, Birdman, was similarly praised; I found it…

You readers flatter me. You send me emails and letters asking me to review certain movies you’ve seen because you want to know what I have to say about them. At times these missives make me feel guilty, because I know I’m going to let you down. Because it’s often the case that you want to hear my…

Five years ago in these pages, I called The Social Network  “a two-hour exploration of a single question: Is Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, an assh—?” Now Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter of The Social Network, has just written a movie called Steve Jobs. It is a two-hour exploration of a…

When was the last time a movie was just, you know, lovable? Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe—all the more so because its lovability was so unexpected, coming as it did from the Marvel comic book movie factory. The same is true of The Martian, a movie so spectacularly winsome it’s almost beyond…

If you are a person of a certain age—by which I mean a person who receives unsolicited mailings from AARP—and you don’t mind old-fashioned dirty talk, you will likely find yourself utterly entranced by a wonderful new documentary called Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead. That’s especially true if you…

Black Mass is the latest cinematic portrayal of the life and career of James “Whitey” Bulger, the gangster who ran roughshod over Boston for nearly 20 years with the odd assistance of an F B I agent whose secret informant he was. Nine years ago, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed merged the plotline of…

Meryl Streep is so extraordinary she can do anything​—​anything, that is, except play an ordinary person. She’s only tried to do so twice in her 35-year career as a leading lady, and in both cases she was called upon to embody an unsatisfied suburban wife, first in 1984’s Falling in Love and almost…

Just as Philip Larkin sighed that the sexual revolution “came too late for me,” I had already aged out of rap as it emerged with enormous force in the 1980s. I was then in my twenties and, listening to it, I felt for the first time the same sort of generational disdain that adults of the 1950s had…

The Gift​—​a compact picture written and directed by the Australian actor Joel Edgerton​—​is the best American thriller in 20 years or more. On its own limited terms, The Gift is an almost perfect piece of work; in an extraordinarily controlled debut behind the camera, Edgerton doesn’t make a false…

Mission: Impossible–Rogue Nation makes no sense. Even more striking, this fifth installment in the Tom Cruise movie series based on the 1960s television show doesn’t even try to make sense. 

In the uplifting, if somewhat confusing, film Tomorrowland, George Clooney plays a brilliant scientist who suffers from a broken heart. Long ago and far way, he fell in love with a girl named Athena when they were children. Athena was smart and spunky and seemed genuinely to like George Clooney as…

With Trainwreck, the comedy impresario Judd Apatow has once again made a movie about an irresponsible adult-child who is compelled to grow up by the end of the film. This was the plotline of both The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, the two box-office sensations that made Apatow’s career, and it…

Every now and then, on Twitter or Facebook, I find myself referring to something I really enjoyed as “genius” or “a work of genius” or “pure genius.” Why do I do this? After all, I don’t actually think Richard Benjamin’s performance as an unhinged Jewish Van Helsing in the 1979 Dracula parody Love…

The new Pixar film about an 11-year-old girl’s moment of crisis and change is called Inside Out, and it’s a perfect title—maybe too perfect for its own good. Everything the movie shows going on inside Riley’s head is glorious. And that’s most of what we see, so Inside Out deserves to be called the…

Jurassic World is a movie about itself. It tells a story about the difficulty of making special effects exciting when it seems like audiences have already seen it all. In the movie, the titular theme park has been built on the same island that hosted the old Jurassic Park back in the day when…

As a comic actress, Melissa McCarthy resembles a first-rate baseball pitcher—because, unlike many of her brethren, who have a singular shtick and stick with it, she has both a curve and a fastball. 

William Butler Yeats might have described an old person as a “paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick,” but then Yeats didn’t live to see the 72-year-old actress Blythe Danner bloom like a bird of paradise in the first starring role she’s had on screen in her 43-year career. I’ll See You in My…

One Friday evening in 1980, I journeyed to the far West Side of Chicago to a drive-in on Cicero Avenue and attended what may have been the strangest double feature in the history of the world. The top of the bill was The Gong Show Movie, a film written by, directed by, and starring Chuck Barris,…

Offering an opinion of Avengers: Age of Ultron is like reviewing Chex Mix. According to what stand-ard should one judge this mixture of breakfast cereal and pretzels and croutons and salt? Even if you find it bland or uninteresting you’ll probably have a few handfuls anyway. And if you love it, you…

There are several key shots in movies—the visual strategies directors and cinematographers and editors use to establish scene, mood, movement, and dramatic tension, guiding the viewer’s eye to important information. 

Run All Night is unquestionably the best of the seemingly endless series of thrillers Liam Neeson has made since 2008’s Taken made him a most unlikely action star at the age of 56. And yet, rather than being celebrated for rising above the others, Run All Night has been received so poorly by…

There should be movies like Focus every week. It’s a stylish and amusing film with glamorous actors, memorable supporting players, lush settings, and lots of twists and turns. Will Smith plays a successful con artist who chisels people all over the world. He’s amused when a two-bit newbie played by…

When I tell you that, in my opinion, the three novels now known as the Fifty Shades Trilogy are the worst books I have ever read all the way through, I am not telling you anything interesting. To criticize E. L. James’s publishing version of winning the Irish Sweepstakes is to attack a cultural…

When I tell you that, in my opinion, the three novels now known as the Fifty Shades Trilogy are the worst books I have ever read all the way through, I am not telling you anything interesting. To criticize E. L. James’s publishing version of winning the Irish Sweepstakes is to attack a cultural…

I don’t remember when I have been more deeply affected by a film than I was by The Last Five Years, a jewel box of a movie-musical that is unquestionably the best of its kind since Chicago was released in 2003. It is at once a tiny slip of a thing and an emotional blockbuster. Over the course of a…

The director of the new Russian movie Leviathan now lives in Canada. This was a wise decision on Andrey Zvyagintsev’s part—because even though Leviathan received grants from the Russian government and was officially selected to represent the country in this year’s Oscar race, at some point in the…

The overwhelming American Sniper is cast in shadow from start to finish by two real-world tragedies, one very broad and one very precise. The first is the irresolution of the Iraq war, the conflict to which the film’s titular character—Navy SEAL Christopher Kyle—was deployed four times. The second…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with contributing editor John Podhoretz on his review of American Sniper.

The Imitation Game is the fanciest ABC Afterschool Special ever made: It takes the inspiring, mystifying, and upsetting life story of a great genius and turns it into a didactic and banal lesson about how people who are “different” are also very, very special.