Cinema

A frenetic, visually breathtaking animated sequel that equals its predecessor by caring about the characters as much as the spectacle. — When Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse blasted onto our screens in 2018, it stretched the boundaries of mainstream cinema in terms of animation, metatextual send-up, and what was narratively possible in a superhero film with its bold multiverse plot. Since then, other multiverse movies have cluttered our screens, to the point…

Introduction Anyone familiar with “The Sopranos” might recall the now-deceased James Gandolfini’s famous proclamation about Gary Cooper in the role of Tony Soprano: “The strong, silent type. That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelings. He just did what he had to do!” From Tony Soprano’s own…

Surrounding Patrick’s Fabricated Persona For the period and place, Patrick Bateman seems pretty typical. He is an attractive, well-dressed yuppie (a young urban and middle-class young professional in a high-paying job) from the 1980s. He spoke in a pretentious manner. It was not surprising for someone who looked like him in the real world…

I think I became a martyr myself when I saw this film, involuntarily turning away from the screen and squeezing my eyes shut against the particularly inventive scenes of violence. Hand on heart, I would call it one of the most traumatic films of my life, on a par with…

★★★☆☆ A powerful dramatic showcase for its talented stars, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale brazenly disregards your feelings with an unflinching but highly flawed examination of trauma and addiction. — Entombed in a 300-pound fat suit, Brandon Fraser plays Charlie, a reclusive forty-something-year-old English tutor whose grief-driven binge-eating has left him morbidly obese and close to death. With his health failing and time running out, Charlie — against the advice of his conflicted best friend and carer, Liz (Hong Chau…