Movies

The path to the best-picture Oscar almost always winds its way through the screenplay categories, so Thursday’s feature-film nominations from the Writers Guild of America could clarify the top contenders of this awards season. But the list does come with some caveats. The organization has narrow requirements for eligibility that exclude films not written under … Read more

In the Danish drama “A Taste of Hunger” infidelity and unyielding ambition threaten to derail the relationship between a married couple of restaurateurs. The kitchen at the heart of the Danish drama “A Taste of Hunger” has none of the warmth of home cooking or jovial dinner parties. Cold blue lights bear down on the … Read more

Jenna Ortega has a star-making turn in “The Fallout,” a high school drama that explores a teenager’s emotional turmoil following a school shooting. The film conjured up by that sentence may sound maudlin, preachy or, frankly, unoriginal, but what this debut feature from Megan Park gets right is how painfully awkward and strange the effects … Read more

As for foreign films that are imported to China, some disappear from local streaming platforms without explanation. In many other cases, Ma said, it is common for local distributors to tone down movies through relatively minor cuts. For example, the Chinese version of “Logan,” a 2017 blockbuster in the X-Men series starring Hugh Jackman, has … Read more

Arriving more than a decade after “La Soga,” a strikingly violent 2010 thriller about a hit man, Luisito (code name: La Soga), that was a rare thing – a film from the Dominican Republic that received distribution in the United States – “La Soga Salvation” is the quintessential sequel-nobody-asked-for. It’s a significant downgrade from the … Read more

Acapulco’s picturesque beauty and grimy desperation converges in writer-director Michel Franco’s psychological thriller “Sundown.” Franco teams up again here with Tim Roth who plays Neil Bennett, an heir to a United Kingdom meatpacking fortune on vacation with his sister di lui, Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and family. The cinematographer Yves Cape delivers a steady stream of … Read more

The inverted musical numbers scattered throughout “Definition Please” illustrate her point: Whenever a conventionally attractive man enters a scene, the camera cuts to a close-up, slow-motion shot, colorized in blue, backed by upbeat romantic music. No explanation is given about the Bollywood trope of musical numbers inserted into films (often objectifying women) – but none … Read more