Daily coverage of Criticism by Vulture

Criticism

  1. theater review
    The Risks and Rewards of Theater About Right NowThe Visitor rips itself apart, and Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord will sew you back together.
    By Helen Shaw
  2. movie review
    Spencer Is a Portrait of a Princess Too Sane to Play the Royals’ GameKristen Stewart may not resemble the real Diana, Princess of Wales, but she does an incredible job of capturing the woman’s charisma and her sadness.
    By Alison Willmore
  3. tv review
    Dr. Brain Gets Trapped in Its HeadApple TV+’s first South Korean series is at its best when it gets weird and owns its nightmarish horror spectacle.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  4. book review
    In Rax King’s Book Tacky, Lowbrow Is High PraiseA new essay collection celebrating trash culture is less certain about why some things are considered tacky at all.
    By Hillary Kelly
  5. theater review
    Three Generations’ Inner Lives Come Out in Morning SunAnd you really ought to see Edie Falco, Blair Brown, and Marin Ireland as they do.
    By Helen Shaw
  6. tv review
    Dexter Is Out for Redemption With New BloodBoth our stabby anti-hero and the “special event series” that catches up with him are looking to make up for past sins.
    By Jen Chaney
  7. theater review
    Back at the Scene of the Crimes: Revisiting Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992Anna Deavere Smith’s Rodney King testimonies return, restaged for this moment.
    By Helen Shaw
  8. movie review
    The Souvenir Part II Is All Truth and Dead EndsThere’s a sealed-off quality to the second of Joanna Hogg’s memoirs, a sense that it’s possible to authentically portray only oneself.
    By Alison Willmore
  9. movie review
    Last Night in Soho Is a Mostly Intoxicating AffairStarring Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie, Edgar Wright’s freewheeling, pop-drenched homage to Swinging London is buoyant and brutal.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  10. book review
    Kwon Yeo-sun’s ‘Lemon’ Is a Murder Mystery That Refuses to Be SolvedThe novel by Kwon Yeo-sun tracks the aftermath of a teen girl’s murder, with three very unreliable narrators.
    By Arianna Rebolini
  11. theater review
    The Time Is Now, Finally, for Caroline, or ChangeTony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s musical was ahead of its audience in 2003.
    By Helen Shaw
  12. movie review
    Cousteau and Me‘Becoming Cousteau’ charts the legendary explorer’s life, but it strikes a note of despair.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  13. theater review
    The Mother Just Wants What’s Best For YouHave some Brecht, with Wooster sauce.
    By Helen Shaw
  14. tv review
    Love Life’s New Season Is a CharmerThe HBO Max rom-com levels up in its second season thanks in large part to William Jackson Harper’s leading-man charisma.
    By Jen Chaney
  15. theater review
    Fairycakes Never Takes FlightA play employing every theatrical sprite is pinned down by its leaden meter.
    By Helen Shaw
  16. tv review
    Insecure Remains Magical and Messy in Its Final SeasonThe series draws to a close with a characteristically effervescent yet uneven exploration of the dynamics of 30-something life.
    By Angelica Jade Bastién
  17. tv review
    Invasion Made Me Root for the AliensIn the Apple TV+ series, characters across the globe bumble around in their own misery, resentful that aliens keep interrupting their tragic lives.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  18. movie review
    The French Dispatch Is the Most Wes Anderson Movie Wes Anderson Has Ever MadeThe ensemble anthology is airless, overly whimsical, and utterly delightful — sorry!
    By Alison Willmore
  19. movie review
    Dune Doesn’t Care If You Like ItDenis Villeneuve’s gloriously unfriendly take on Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic wants to feel as alien as possible.
    By Alison Willmore
  20. album review
    Young Thug’s Punk Rebirth Isn’t Quite ThatNeither was Lil Wayne’s.
    By Craig Jenkins
  21. theater review
    Dana H. Is Harrowing and UnmissableA big Broadway house doesn’t diminish any of its power.
    By Helen Shaw
  22. movie review
    The Last Duel Is a Bro-Down Epic With a Metal HeartIt’s not so much a history lesson as it is a savage, beautiful catharsis.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  23. book review
    Fear and Loathing in ‘Asian America’In The Loneliest Americans, Jay Caspian Kang tries but fails to restore meaning to an empty term.
    By Madeline Leung Coleman
  24. song review
    There Is Still Nothing Like New AdeleEven if “Easy on Me” resembles, on its surface, something old and familiar.
    By Craig Jenkins
  25. movie review
    Halloween Kills Is Afraid of ItselfIt wants to be a gonzo send-up and a social-message movie at the same time. It winds up being neither.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  26. movie review
    Bergman Island Is a Giddy Exploration of the Gap Between Art and ArtistMia Hansen-Løve’s new film takes place on the Swedish island that was famously home to Ingmar Bergman, but it makes room for ABBA as well.
    By Alison Willmore
  27. tv review
    You Is the Best It’s Ever BeenSeason three of Netflix’s dark, stalker-narrated murder drama shifts into an exciting new gear.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  28. theater review
    The Lehman Trilogy (Almost) Delivers on Its InvestmentPeerless stagecraft and a once-in-a-lifetime cast.
    By Helen Shaw
  29. tv review
    Dopesick’s Ambitious Scope Dulls Its ImpactThe Hulu limited series about the how and why of America’s opioid crisis is frequently moving but bites off more than it can reasonably chew.
    By Jen Chaney
  30. theater review
    Multidimensional Blackness in Thoughts of a Colored ManIt’s “explicitly about making visible what’s usually kept private.”
    By Helen Shaw
  31. movie review
    Ghostbusters: Afterlife Is a Reanimated CorpseBut hey, people love zombies.
    By Alison Willmore
  32. tv review
    Succession Returns, Nastier Than EverSeason three means all-out war in the Roy family. What a treat.
    By Jen Chaney
  33. theater review
    Is This a Room Asks Questions America Can’t AnswerThe play about Reality Winner moves uptown.
    By Helen Shaw
  34. theater review
    Chicken & Biscuits Serves Up Sustenance at a Church FuneralWith a side of syrup.
    By Helen Shaw
  35. tv review
    Squid Game’s Apocalypse Is NowThe blockbuster South Korean series is at its best when it’s at its bleakest — which says a lot about its current global cultural dominance.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  36. movie review
    Lamb Is a Dark Fairy Tale With a Great Concept and Not Much to SayThe new A24 movie has a way with wordlessness — for better and worse.
    By Alison Willmore
  37. theater review
    The Many Voices of a One-Man Show: Lackawanna BluesRuben Santiago-Hudson’s evocation of his steel-town youth.
    By Helen Shaw
  38. podcast review
    Suspect Might Be the Best True-Crime Podcast of the YearIt’s far from revolutionary, but there’s something to be said about being the most polished version of a standard.
    By Nicholas Quah
  39. murmurations
    The Lost Symbol Is the Most Fun You Can Have Watching Complete NonsenseHot Robert Langdon is on the case!
    By Jackson McHenry
  40. work in progress
    Work In Progress Is Living Up to Its TitleAbby McEnany explains how season two of the great Showtime dramedy was reformulated to capture the swirling emotional confusion of 2020.
    By Jen Chaney
  41. theater review
    Pop Renaissance! Six: The Musical Fans Lose Their Heads Over Broadway OpeningDeferred, beleaguered, survived.
    By Helen Shaw
  42. theater reviews
    Figuring Out Failure in the First Person: The Nosebleed and HindsightIn these two plays, things aren’t going great.
    By Helen Shaw
  43. movies
    Titane Isn’t Just an Extravaganza of Body Horror and Automotive SexJulia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winner is a fascinating, confounding work about the longing for control over one’s own flesh.
    By Alison Willmore
  44. movie review
    If You Like Westerns, You’ll Want to See Old HenryTim Blake Nelson reminds us that he’s one of the best we’ve got.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  45. tv review
    Maid Is a Stressful, Refreshingly Honest Portrait of PovertyMargaret Qualley gives a tremendous performance as a young mom cleaning houses and trying to break away from an abusive partner.
    By Jen Chaney
  46. movie review
    Who Let Venom: Let There Be Carnage In on the Joke?In trying to do more of what made the first Venom work, the new super(anti)hero movie ruins things.
    By Alison Willmore
  47. movie review
    The Many Saints of Newark Can’t Bring Back The SopranosThe Sopranos prequel is interesting to consider as a companion piece to the series, less so as a movie in its own right.
    By Jen Chaney
  48. book review
    A So-So Franzen Novel Is Still Better Than Most Books. That Said …In Crossroads, too many boring characters are boring in the same way.
    By Molly Young
  49. tv review
    Documenting Britney SpearsThree timely documentaries are capitalizing on the #FreeBritney interest, but is it appropriate to dig for more dirt at such a fraught turning point?
    By Jen Chaney
  50. movie review
    No Time to Die Is Fun, But Only When It Dares to BeDaniel Craig’s last outing as James Bond has plenty of action spectacle, but it can get mired in self-seriousness. Big surprise.
    By Bilge Ebiri
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