Daily coverage of Criticism by Vulture

Criticism

  1. movie review
    Knock at the Cabin Is M. Night Shyamalan’s Best Film Since The VillageAnchored by an incredible Dave Bautista performance, it’s a triumphant return to the sincerity and confidence of the director’s early work.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  2. album review
    Lil Yachty’s Great Gig in the SkyThe rapper’s surprising new psych-rock album delights in sensory overload.
    By Craig Jenkins
  3. close read
    The Empty Sentiment of The Last of UsIn imitating the rhythms of prestige TV, the video-game adaptation loses its emotional center.
    By Jackson McHenry
  4. movie review
    Filmmaking at the Speed of Life in One Fine MorningIn Mia Hansen-Løve’s latest, emotions emerge organically from the unfussy drama onscreen.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  5. movie review
    The Numbing Spectacle of Infinity PoolWhat I did on my summer vacation (watched myself get executed).
    By Alison Willmore
  6. tv review
    Shrinking Desperately Wants You to Like ItThe new Apple TV+ comedy starring Jason Segel and Harrison Ford is as needy as its protagonist.
    By Jen Chaney
  7. album review
    Sam Smith Toes the Line on GloriaThe singer’s new album is sharp, occasionally cringe-y, and full of heartfelt schmaltz.
    By Craig Jenkins
  8. tv review
    Poker Face Shows Its HandRian Johnson’s murder anti-mystery is direct, sturdy, and radically uninterested in catching viewers by surprise.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  9. spoilers
    The Last of Us Humanizes a Monstrous Turning PointThe changes the series makes to a pivotal moment from the game give it even grander existential stakes.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  10. theater review
    The Appointment Is a Fetal Fantasia on National ThemesWhere the unborn sing, dance, and do crowd work.
    By Jackson McHenry
  11. movie review
    Skinamarink Isn’t Like Other Horror MoviesKyle Edward Ball’s viral indie sensation has an analog aesthetic but was very much born from the internet.
    By Alison Willmore
  12. close read
    The Makanai’s Twin AppetitesHirokazu Kore-eda’s live-action manga adaptation serves up cozy nourishment with a side of feminist ambition.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  13. close read
    Break Point’s Noble LosersSports stories have long tended to focus on the greats. What about just being in the struggle?
    By Nicholas Quah
  14. close read
    The Last of Us Levels Up Its OpeningIn its first 25 minutes, the HBO adaptation achieves an energy the game longed to emulate.
    By Nicholas Quah
  15. movie review
    It’s Time to See The Conformist AgainBertolucci’s masterpiece is back in a glorious new 4K restoration.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  16. theater review
    When Online Drama Begets Stage DramaSeven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner and Your Sexts Are Shit will have you wondering, yet again, about being extremely online.
    By Jackson McHenry
  17. movie review
    Plane GoodPlane is a movie for your lizard brain — the part of you that craves basic sensations. The part that expresses itself in grunts.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  18. movie review
    ‘Our Fear Empowers Others. No Bears.’Jafar Panahi’s latest film is one of his most powerful.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  19. tv review
    The Golden Globes Got Drunk on a Tuesday, and It Was Great Live TVFor the 2023 ceremony, the HFPA left self-importance to the less embattled awards shows and leaned into farce.
    By Jen Chaney
  20. tv review
    The Last of Us Will Invade Your PsycheThe HBO video-game adaptation is a reminder of how effective postapocalyptic storytelling can be no matter how well trod the territory.
    By Jen Chaney
  21. close read
    What’s Happening to Nonfiction Sports Storytelling?Welcome to Wrexham is God-tier branded content disguised as documentary. It’s also a portent of what’s to come.
    By Nicholas Quah
  22. movie review
    The Pale Blue Eye Is Grisly, Grim, and Surprisingly MovingChristian Bale and Harry Melling are pretty terrific in Scott Cooper’s atmospheric murder mystery.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  23. movie review
    M3gan Is Good Enough for JanuaryThis horror comedy may have gone viral thanks to its Olsen-faced murder machine, but it’s Allison Williams who makes it watchable.
    By Alison Willmore
  24. art
    William Eggleston’s Atmospheric DisturbancesHis photographs from the 1970s are a clairvoyant glimpse of the future.
    By Jerry Saltz
  25. close reads
    Holy Spider’s Ending Uncovers a Tangled Web of MisogynyHoly Spider is at its most precise and upsetting in the film’s final scene.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  26. movie review
    The Knives Out Sequel Is Bigger and Better Than the OriginalRian Johnson’s Glass Onion is more precisely designed, sitting with its characters rather than immediately showing off their decay.
    By Alison Willmore
  27. book review
    What Their Psychiatrists Won’t Tell YouIn Rachel Aviv’s book Strangers to Ourselves, personal narratives of mental illness take primacy over institutions’.
    By Jane Hu
  28. movie review
    Living Communes with the Past to Honor a Kurosawa Classic“What if Ikiru, but British?” doesn’t sound like it should work, but it totally does.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  29. close read
    Fleishman Is in Trouble Does What the Book Couldn’t DoThe episode “Me-Time,” adapted by Taffy Brodesser-Akner from her own novel, is a prime example of the potency of stories told onscreen.
    By Jen Chaney
  30. movie review
    There’s History in Babylon, But Where’s the Thrill?Damien Chazelle is too worried about the extinction of film to make one capable of truly titillating.
    By Angelica Jade Bastién
  31. theater review
    Two Kings, Not Much Pleasure: The CollaborationWarhol and Basquiat, painted by numbers.
    By Jackson McHenry
  32. podcast review
    The Evaporated Takes Us Into a Sociological MysteryTokyo Vice’s Jake Adelstein explores the Japanese phenomenon of disappearing yourself.
    By Nicholas Quah
  33. theater review
    King Lear, But Rent Controlled: Between Riverside and CrazyA very New York tale of eviction and inheritance.
    By Jackson McHenry
  34. theater review
    Putting the Unsaid at the Center: The Far Country and Des MoinesLloyd Suh and Denis Johnson, in very different ways, try to let the audience fill in the blank spaces.
    By Jackson McHenry
  35. movie review
    Avatar: The Way of Water Is James Cameron’s Most Personal FilmIt’s also, as you might suspect, spectacular.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  36. theater review
    What’s to Discuss, Old Friends? Merrily We Roll Along Is Back.Maria Friedman’s revival, starring Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe, makes the grade.
    By Jackson McHenry
  37. album review
    SZA Wants It AllSOS processes loss and success and pain and desire from the middle of millions of ogling eyes.
    By Craig Jenkins
  38. close read
    The Real Cost of The White LotusThe best things — really all things — in life? They definitely are not free.
    By Jen Chaney
  39. finales
    The White Lotus’s Watery EndThe season finale plunges into the unknowable depths of Mike White’s favorite symbol.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  40. theater review
    Well, Nobody’s Perfect: Some Like It Hot on BroadwayAn adaptation that has everything going for it except heat.
    By Jackson McHenry
  41. movie review
    Empire of Light Is Somber, Static, and ShallowStarring Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, and Colin Firth, Sam Mendes’s film about mental illness and racism in early ’80s England is wan and lifeless.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  42. theater review
    Adrienne Kennedy Goes Big: Ohio State Murders on BroadwayAudra McDonald performing Adrienne Kennedy is almost everything a production needs. Almost.
    By Jackson McHenry
  43. tv review
    South Side Enters Its Golden AgeIn its fantastically funny third season, the Chicago-set comedy exudes a sense of unparalleled confidence.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  44. theater review
    I Am, I Said (I Guess): A Beautiful NoiseIf you can experience a dopamine hit from singing along to “Sweet Caroline” anywhere in America, why is this even happening in the Broadhurst?
    By Jackson McHenry
  45. tv review
    Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain Make George & Tammy SingThe stars take what could have been a run-of-the-mill music biopic and infuse it with passion.
    By Jen Chaney
  46. theater review
    Ain’t No Mo’ Takes a Jubilantly Unrespectable Flight to BroadwayJordan E. Cooper’s satire doesn’t button up in a bigger venue.
    By Jackson McHenry
  47. close read
    Luthen Rael Embodies Andor’s Gray SideIn his similarities to Star Wars’ biggest villain, Stellan Skarsgård’s character challenges what we expect and accept from the franchise’s good guys.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  48. book review
    Kathy Acker Wanted EverythingEat Your Mind, a new biography of the writer and punk feminist icon, is both maddening and compulsively readable.
    By Sarah Chihaya
  49. theater review
    KPOP Offers a Not-Actually-All-Access PassA musical about making it big feels neutered by its own backstage process.
    By Jackson McHenry
  50. movie review
    Devotion Tells a Quieter Kind of War StoryJonathan Majors and Glen Powell shine in J.D. Dillard’s Korean War Movie
    By Bilge Ebiri
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