Daily coverage of Criticism by Vulture

Criticism

  1. theater review
    Oh, Mary! Is Excellently UncivilCole Escola’s Mary Todd Lincoln farce transfers uptown, preserving the union between absurdity and hilarity.
    By Sara Holdren
  2. album review
    Zach Bryan Hits His LimitOn The Great American Bar Scene, the accidental superstar’s formula remains potent but predictable.
    By Craig Jenkins
  3. album review
    A Hip-Hop ‘What If …’James Blake and Lil Yachty’s new album is as astounding as it is annoying.
    By Craig Jenkins
  4. movie review
    The New Beverly Hills Cop Is a Predictable Retread, and I Don’t CareYou can (justifiably) complain about its flaws, or you can relax and groove on its recycled rhythms.
    By Jen Chaney
  5. close read
    Notorious B.I.G Portrait
    The Biggie We Never SawA new film from dream hampton provides a fresh angle on a rapper whose image has been scanned and refashioned ad nauseam.
    By Abe Beame
  6. movie review
    Fancy Dance Expands the Lily Gladstone Heartbreak CanonErica Tremblay’s portrait of Indigenous womanhood is as idyllic as it is bristling.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  7. book review
    Taffy Brodesser-Akner Overcooks ItA wealthy Jewish family gets the Succession treatment in the writer’s hectic second novel.
    By Emma Alpern
  8. song review
    2024 BET Awards - Show
    Nobody Wants This From Will SmithHow do we stop his post-Slap charm campaign from smothering us?
    By Craig Jenkins
  9. theater review
    From ERS's Ulysses.
    ERS’s Ulysses Is a Little Stately, a Little PlumpThink you’re escaping and run into yourself.
    By Sara Holdren
  10. reviews are in
    Let’s Talk About The Bear’s ‘To Be Continued …’ EndingWas the review good or bad or what??
    By Jen Chaney
  11. movie review
    Catherine Breillat Is Back, BabyThe transgressive French filmmaker is in fine, fucked-up form with Last Summer, about a middle-age lawyer who starts sleeping with her stepson.
    By Alison Willmore
  12. movie review
    Welcome to the New Quiet Place, Same As the Old Quiet PlaceThe prequel A Quiet Place: Day One is being sold as an expansion of the horror franchise, but in many ways it’s merely a reiteration.
    By A.A. Dowd
  13. off-menu
    Whither the Sandwiches?I have beef with The Bear’s window into the other side of the business.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  14. movie review
    I Never Want to See This Movie AgainThe Devil’s Bath, a twisted horror drama from the directors of Goodnight Mommy, is both deeply captivating and deeply upsetting.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  15. close read
    Against ‘Women’s Writing’Rachel Cusk’s gender fundamentalism fully surfaces in her latest novel, Parade.
    By Andrea Long Chu
  16. theater review
    The Speaker and the Upstart Talk It Out: N/AIt’s Pelosi vs. AOC onstage, and Holland Taylor, as Nancy, gets all the zingers.
    By Jackson McHenry
  17. movie review
    Dakota Johnson Is Actually Great in DaddioSean Penn is better than he’s been in years in Christy Hall’s old-fashioned strangers-in-a-cab drama. But Johnson nearly acts him off the screen.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  18. tv review
    The Bear Is TrappedCarmy can’t move ahead when he’s haunted by his past, and neither can season three.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  19. movie review
    Céline Dion Is Still Aiming for PerfectionHer new documentary refuses to be a portrait of a diva in decline.
    By Madeline Leung Coleman
  20. movie review
    Mia Goth Will Almost Convince You MaXXXine Has Something to SayFor that, the girl deserves an Oscar.
    By Alison Willmore
  21. album review
    Camila Cabello’s June GloomC’XOXO is a jarring pivot with cursed timing. It’s also her best album to date.
    By Craig Jenkins
  22. close read
    Luke Combs’s Growing PainsThe singer has swung so far into “mature music” that he’s forgotten what makes his songs fun.
    By Justin Curto
  23. theater review
    Kathleen Tolan, Connie Schulman, and Lizbeth Mackay in Clubbed Thumb's 2024 production of FIND ME HERE.
    Three-Sister Harmony in Find Me HerePlus an array of short-run summer shows to watch for if they return.
    By Sara Holdren
  24. sibling rivalry
    House of the Dragon’s Identical-Face-Off Deserves a Second LookThe Cargyll twins slash their way across the thin line between tragedy and comedy.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  25. movie review
    A Movie About Being Cool Shouldn’t Be This UptightHow is The Bikeriders, a movie in which Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and Tom Hardy are a biker love triangle, so emotionally constipated?
    By Alison Willmore
  26. movie review
    Janet Planet Will Grow on YouAnnie Baker’s coming-of-age film features a career-best performance from Julianne Nicholson as a crunchy single mom living in Western Massachusetts.
    By Alison Willmore
  27. cannes 2024
    Sicko Yorgos Is BackYorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness delights and luxuriates in absurdity and abasement. He’s fully back in his sandbox.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  28. movie review
    You’ll Never Forget the Things You See in Green BorderAgnieszka Holland’s award-winning epic refugee drama is a riveting, devastating piece of work.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  29. movie review
    Thelma Gives 94-Year-Old June Squibb the Role of a LifetimeJosh Margolin’s Sundance comedy, about an elderly woman on a quest to find the crooks who scammed her, never feels lazy, cheap, or cruel.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  30. theater review
    The Drag-Ball Cats Is GoodWell, now, how about that!
    By Sara Holdren
  31. theater review
    Looking Back at Bad Men: Dark Noon and Pre-Existing ConditionColonialism and abuse, addressed onstage.
    By Sara Holdren
  32. unhappy endings
    Justice for CressidaBridgerton used her as a stepping stone for Penelope’s self-discovery, then tossed her aside.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  33. theater review
    Return of the Musical Rumble: The OutsidersDoes the Tony Award-winning stage adaptation stay gold?
    By Sara Holdren
  34. theater review
    Lindsay Mendez, Jonathan Groff, and Daniel Radcliffe in Merrily We Roll Along.
    Here’s to Them. Who’s Like Them? Damn Few.Turns out what Merrily We Roll Along needs most is three actors who can really bring it home, and here they are.
    By Sara Holdren
  35. a son for a son
    House of the Dragon’s Blood and Cheese Moment Should Have Been NastierWithout the source material’s Sophie’s Choice torment, it’s just another scene of violence in a show full of scenes of violence.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  36. theater review
    Stereophonic Moves to Broadway, and Thunder HappensThe Tony Award-winning play is a love song, bittersweet and wounded and ferociously loyal, to the act of making art.
    By Sara Holdren
  37. fire and blood
    House of the Dragon Soars to New HeightsOh, we’re dancing now.
    By Nicholas Quah
  38. vulture recommends
    Ultraman: Rising Is What We Call a Parents’ MovieUltraman: Rising’s canniest trick is the way it sustains narrative momentum while staying true to the realities of new parenthood.
    By Eric Vilas-Boas
  39. movie review
    A Regal, Repugnant Jude Law Almost Saves FirebrandHe seems to be the only one on the right wavelength for this heated, fictionalized take on Katherine Parr, the last wife of King Henry VIII.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  40. movie review
    Read Only the First Paragraph of This Ghostlight ReviewSometimes, a movie is too delicate and beautiful to know too much about it going in.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  41. art review
    Jenny Holzer’s Word SaladHer takeover of the Guggenheim reads like intellectual clickbait for the extended Trump era.
    By Jerry Saltz
  42. post-carriage comedown
    Bridgerton Just Can’t Pull Off a ClimaxBut it almost doesn’t matter when the foreplay is this good.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  43. theater review
    Time Out of Mind: The Welkin and HilmaTwo plays that mess with your sense of now.
    By Sara Holdren
  44. theater review
    The Encores! Titanic Gives Its Level BestNo hydraulic tilt lifts on this return voyage.
    By Jackson McHenry
  45. theater review
    Coach Coach Goes to Camp CampDoes Bailey Williams’s wellness-industry satire self-actualize?
    By Sara Holdren
  46. movie review
    These Bad Boys Sequels Need More Gonzo Action SpectacleIn Ride or Die, Martin Lawrence does a nice job vigorously slapping Will Smith a few times. But where are the over-the-top set pieces?
    By Bilge Ebiri
  47. movie review
    The Watchers Squanders Its Creepy PremiseM. Night Shyamalan’s daughter makes her directorial debut with a horror movie about reality TV and the strange creatures that watch it.
    By Alison Willmore
  48. movie review
    If Glen Powell’s Not Already a Star, This Movie Will Make Him OneRichard Linklater’s Hit Man is a genuinely fresh and surprisingly gentle addition to the assassin genre.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  49. lesbian space witches!
    The Acolyte Is Not the Star Wars You Were Looking ForAnd that’s a very good thing.
    By Roxana Hadadi and Jackson McHenry
  50. theater review
    There and Back Again, in Home, Breaking the Story, and What Became of UsThree onstage journeys between realms.
    By Jackson McHenry
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