Movie review by Greg Carlson Documentarian Penny Lane adds another entertaining movie to her filmography with an inside look at the recent rise of the Satanic Temple. As a movie experience, “Hail Satan?” often lives deliciously. The film might even turn out to be a prime recruitment video for the organization co-founded in 2013 by […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson While his Fred Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” arguably captured more attention than any nonfiction feature released in 2018, Morgan Neville’s other big project, “They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead,” deserves careful examination by anyone who loves movie history. A companion piece to the posthumous release of Orson […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Shirkers” is title to both an uncompleted Singapore-based road movie starring Sandi Tan that was shot in the summer of 1992 and the autobiographical nonfiction examination of that lost film. With the benefit of time, Tan looks back on her own experiences, constructing a reflective bildungsroman with the requisite excitement, […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Another stunning work of perfectly placed ellipses and calculated restraint, Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” is a film filled with images as iconic and austere as its blunt title. A haunting experience of history by suggestion, the movie traces a tragic romance across years and landscapes, relying as heavily on Lukasz […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Compared to the Betsy West and Julie Cohen documentary “RBG,” Mimi Leder’s period biographical slice “On the Basis of Sex” is nowhere near as notorious as one might hope, but the hagiographic reverence for Ruth Bader Ginsburg is tempered by enough heart and humor to overcome some of the film’s […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The sensational Claire Denis adds another wonderful work to her impressive filmography with “Let the Sunshine In.” An ode to many things, including restless hearts, the frustrations of romantic freedom versus security, the impossibility and ridiculousness of the fantasy sold by the Hollywood romantic comedy, the anxieties of middle age, […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Helming her feature film debut, veteran theatre director Josie Rourke mounts a handsome but forgettable “Mary Queen of Scots” (no comma) with Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. Like so many fictions rooted in the political intrigue of royalty, this latest model quickly reveals the same old preoccupation with matters of […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Based on the 1956 novel by Antonio di Benedetto, Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel’s “Zama” invites the viewer to experience the humiliations of the title character, a doomed late 18th century Americano colonizer desperate for a transfer that we know immediately will never be authorized. Perfectly captured in a performance by […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Veteran filmmaker Jennifer Fox’s “The Tale” addresses child rape in as straightforward and clear-eyed a manner as any film ever made on the painful subject. Fox’s background in nonfiction storytelling informs the movie’s magnetic investigative structure, which arranges and rearranges details both large and small as the adult Jennifer Fox […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” director Marielle Heller beautifully translates another personal autobiography to excellent results. “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is based on the confessional 2008 memoir of literary forger Lee Israel, and Heller’s movie pulls off the impressive feat of bringing visual urgency to the typically uncinematic […]