Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers Is a Holiday Triumph
Alexander Payne’s new film The Holdovers, starring Paul Giamatti, is the kind of wonderful comedy-drama we used to take for granted. Today it feels like a cinematic miracle.
317 Articles by: Eileen Jones
Eileen Jones is a film critic at Jacobin, host of the Filmsuck podcast, and author of Filmsuck, USA.
The Killer Is David Fincher at His Most Bland
David Fincher’s new movie The Killer is supposedly a metacommentary on hit-man films — and possibly on the director himself. Or that could just be an excuse for how boring it is.
Nathan Fielder and Bennie Safdie’s The Curse Adds a Dash of Horror to Cringe Comedy
The new series The Curse, starring Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone as rich, clueless gentrifiers, follows a married couple filming an HGTV reality show. It’s a low-key cringe comedy that makes everyday selfishness and awkwardness feel like a horror movie.
John Le Carré Is Still an Enigma in Errol Morris’s New Documentary
Celebrated spy novelist John Le Carré is the subject of Errol Morris’s new documentary The Pigeon Tunnel. While it claims to reveal secrets about his famously strange life, you get the sense Le Carré told as much as he ever meant to and no more.
The New Movie Fingernails Might Make You Want to Rip Out Your Own
The new Apple TV+ sci-fi romance drama Fingernails has a preachy message about how love is inherently risky. With no emotional payoff, its inane and implausible plot points add up to a plodding, pompous film.
Priscilla Is Yet Another Sad Princess Tale From Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola’s new film, Priscilla, finds Elvis’s young bride bored and lonely in her life of luxury. But like Coppola’s other films in this subgenre, it’s all about the costumes and accoutrements.
A Brief and Unflattering History of General Motors on Film
With the UAW’s historic strike wins this week, we look back at the history of US auto manufacturing in movies — with a focus on films that show how the auto industry has tried to shaft workers over the decades.
Killers of the Flower Moon Is the Subdued and Serious Side of Scorsese
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is an admirable, thoughtful film. But it lacks the wild, old Marty energy that brought us so many Scorsese classics.
Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher Is Bingeable Halloween Viewing
Netflix’s resident horror auteur is back with his take on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. You’ll have a good time — even if some of the nods to “sociopolitical relevance” might send your eyes rolling.
The Lost Matriarchs of Hollywood
American cinema was once full of formidable, charismatic older women. What happened to them?
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar Is Another Day at the Office for Wes Anderson
In The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, the first of four Roald Dahl mini adaptations, I was hoping for something like Fantastic Mr. Fox — but it’s the same old Wes Anderson. Still, he claims it took “years to decide how to shoot the story.”
Dumb Money, the New Movie About the 2021 GameStop Short Squeeze, Is Very Funny
Director Craig Gillespie’s new film Dumb Money transforms the 2021 GameStop short squeeze into a rousing comedy about everyday Americans turning the tables against the financial elite. It’s the best “COVID movie” so far.
In El Conde, Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet Is a Literal Vampire
El Conde is a fantastic satirical movie in which the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet stars in black and white as a ravenous vampire. Yes, you read that right.
Agatha Christie Deserves Better Than Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice
An Agatha Christie murder mystery has once again been made a mess by director Kenneth Branagh, this time with A Haunting in Venice.
The Changeling Desperately Wants to Be a Very Important and Very Scary Show
LaKeith Stanfield is great in Apple TV+’s new horror-fantasy series The Changeling, based on the best-selling novel. The show itself, though, is a convoluted mess.
Telemarketers Is a Fantastically Wild, Scam-Filled Gem
The new HBO docuseries Telemarketers is a wonderfully weird trip through a scammer call center that swindled money for police and lined the pockets of a clutch of entrepreneurial creeps. You should watch it right away.
Rowland Brown’s Brutal Portraits of the Life of Crime
The gritty 1930s crime dramas of Rowland Brown offer contemporary movie watchers something they won’t easily get elsewhere: an adult ability to look directly at an infinitely corrupt world without flinching.
Strange Planet’s Socially Awkward Blue Aliens Are Now on TV
Making the leap from four-paneled comic to animated series, Nathan W. Pyle’s Apple TV+ show Strange Planet drowns its unique and subtle charms with far too much plot, character, and story. It’s unfortunately boring as hell.
The Joyous Blast of Pee-wee Herman Will Be Deeply Missed
Paul Reubens and his brilliant character Pee-wee Herman offered viewers a kind of weird, joyful, hilarious television and film that we aren’t lucky enough to get very often.
It’s Kind of Amazing That Barbie Manages to Be as Good as It Is
With a clever opening sequence and an excellent cast, Barbie manages to overcome cumbersome plotting and feminist pieties to provide a delightful spectacle of funny moments that add up to something pretty good.