‘Mary Poppins Returns’ Is Practically Passable, in Every Way
Even with few truly catchy numbers and a cumbersome plot, Mary Poppins Returns has enough bright-eyed optimism to almost escape the shadow of the toe-tapping original.
comedy
Queen Anne Costume Drama ‘The Favourite’ Dazzles with Humor, Tragedy, Weirdness
Director Yorgos Lanthimos provides plenty of his trademark absurdity, but The Favourite is his most accessible, painfully human film to date.
The One About the One About ‘Friends’
Kelsey Miller's I'll Be There for You, on the production and cultural legacy of Friends, is a must-read for fans and anyone interested in understanding TV culture over the past 20 years.
The Coen Brothers Tackle Short Story in Film Again with ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ‘
Not their first foray into bringing the short story form to cinema, the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs affirms, sadly, that in this regard, cinema is the lesser storytelling form.
‘Green Book’ Delivers Its Message About Racism with a Spoon Full of Sugar
Peter Farrelly's first foray into drama, Green Book, is simplistic in its message for examining racism, but maybe that simplicity serves as the sugar coating the pill that many current Americans need to swallow.
Slouching Toward Redemption: Ernst Lubitsch’s ‘Heaven Can Wait’
There's a rotten core at the center of Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait. No matter how engaging I find Haskell and Sariss's enchantment with the film, I cannot accede to their critical adulation of it and of Henry.
The Coen Brothers’ ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ Is American Myth in Vignette
In the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, there's something altogether new about having revisionist western ideas filtered through their rich sense of character, black comedy, and their penetrating awareness of humanity's fatal imperfections.
HBO’s ‘Camping’ Doesn’t Know What It Wants to Be
Camping is halfway through its first season. Are Girls, Lena Dunham or Jennifer Garner superfans the only ones still watching?
Jim Carrey’s ‘Kidding’ Tries Its Best to Figure Everything Out
Showtime's Kidding, starring Jim Carrey, asks viewers, "What if Mr. Rogers was coming unglued and didn't have all the answers to his or anyone else's problems?"
New Atheism’s Gender Problems
Can critical humorists help combat the sexism inherent to both religious and secular organizations?
The Dialectic of the Freak: On John Waters’ ‘Female Trouble’
In John Waters' work, poor taste is a manner of refinement that attains a strange air of considered sophistication and knowing advertency.
A ‘Saturday Night Live’ Take on Jack Webb’s ‘Dragnet’ Franchise
Shout! Factory brings back the Saturday Night Live parody of the original Dragnet.