When did the desire to produce films that center around insufferable artistic geniuses begin? Just last year, Paul Thomas Anderson gave us “Phantom Thread”, but the trend could be traced back as far as “Lust for Life” in 1956. This year, Stanley Tucci presents this familiar narrative in a film called “Final Portrait”. — The film takes place in a mid-1960s version of Paris that feels like a small town — the characters meander through a handful of locations, run into the same people everywhere they go. Graveyards are common thoroughfare and each store’s sign is charmingly hand-painted. At the forefront, are two men…

“True value comes in the smallest imperfection,” a surly Russian politician says, voice accented and weighted with top-shelf liquor. He hungrily eyes the lengthy scar on the exposed shin of a dark-haired, lingerie-clad young woman. But what’s omitted in this seemingly beautiful phrase is that imperfections, in excess, can lead…

Now in its second season, “Fuck, That’s Delicious” provides a distinctive take on travel and food programs that simultaneously alienates those it’s not made for, while drawing in the niche that it’s (quite unmistakably) intended for. — What started off in mid-2014 as a web series on Vice’s food-focused Youtube channel Munchies, became its own program in 2016 when it was transferred to the company’s premium cable network, Viceland. In each episode of “Fuck, That’s Delicious”, we travel through the United States on a narrative that’s as…

How do you make an hour-and-a-half long movie about an incident that only lasted a few minutes? Clint Eastwood finds out in his adaptation of the 2015 Thalys Train Attack, “The 15:17 to Paris”. — O n August 21st, 2015, aboard a train that was travelling from Amsterdam to Paris, three American men thwarted a Moroccan man’s attempt to hold its passengers at gunpoint. The perpetrator, Ayoub El Khazzani, 25, was armed with over 300 rounds of ammunition, and claimed robbery was his intent, not…

Can the content of our dreams really inform what makes up our deepest desires? When your dreams cease to be your own, does that indicate a connection between yourself and who you’re sharing this experience with, or is it just a coincidental fluke? — Hungary’s “On Body and Soul” explores and presents us with possible answers to both curiosities, while also foraging welcome contemplation on others.

Steven Spielberg’s latest film was produced in just over nine months, a fact that should neither be celebrated nor used as an excuse for its flaws. — From the moment that Spielberg set eyes on the script, he became determined to make and release the film before the first year of the Trump’s presidency concluded. The theme of it, after all, is freedom of the press. At least, that’s what he thinks it is.

Evoking a similarity to the ignorant mass of people who wholeheartedly believe in “not all cops”, it can be argued that screenwriter-director Scott Cooper believes in “not all cowboys”. — Above all, “Hostiles” is a film about redemption: not only of what it costs, but what lengths we’ll go to achieve it. Whether or not that redemption is fully realized or earned however, is something screenwriter, director, and producer Scott Cooper (“Black Mass”, “Crazy Heart”) has left almost entirely unsaid…

Lauded by critics and fans alike, the series is based on the graphic novel of the same name and follows two misunderstood teenagers as they pillage and dance their way through South England. — It’s true: dining-and-dashing from local establishments, shoplifting, accidental murder, and suicide, backed by angst-ridden dialogue, don’t seem to be the makings of something revolutionary. But from the time Alyssa (Jessica Barden) and James (Alex Lawther) exchange stiff pleasantries across their high school lunchroom, we know this relationship will be different.