Daily coverage of Criticism by Vulture

Criticism

  1. movie review
    Disney Doesn’t Know What to Do With Strange WorldIf only this environmentally focused adventure featuring a queer Black teenager were as audacious as its themes.
    By Alison Willmore
  2. movie review
    All the Beauty and the Bloodshed Is an Incendiary Portrait of Art and ActivismNan Goldin takes on the Sackler family in this sweeping documentary.
    By Alison Willmore
  3. finales
    Andor Radicalized the Hero’s JourneyTony Gilroy’s prequel series took the world of Star Wars seriously, and in the process found new life within an old text.
    By Nicholas Quah
  4. theater review
    A Christmas Carol, Heavy on the NightmaresJefferson Mays plays 50 characters, starting with Marley and Scrooge.
    By Jackson McHenry
  5. movie review
    The Inspection Is Both Incomplete and Full of PromiseA young gay man enlists in the Marines and endures brutal hazing in this autobiographical film from Elegance Bratton.
    By Alison Willmore
  6. movie review
    Disenchanted Can’t Conjure the Magic of the OriginalThe title tells you how you’re going to feel after you watch it.
    By Jen Chaney
  7. movie review
    Bones and All Is Curiously BloodlessEven though, as a cannibal road-movie romance, it technically has a lot of blood in it.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  8. movie review
    The Menu Is Deliciously MeanRalph Fiennes is a celebrity chef from hell in a film that feels like an unhinged sibling to The Bear.
    By Alison Willmore
  9. theater review
    In & Juliet, Verona Goes Pop!Power pop as empowerment, Renaissance Division.
    By Jackson McHenry
  10. close read
    The Crown Did Diana DirtySeason five’s diminishment of the “people’s princess” as petulant and reckless feels like nefarious intent hidden behind fictional license.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  11. theater review
    Downstate, at the Limits of EmpathyIn Bruce Norris’s play about registered sex offenders, the characters are humanized but not quite forgiven.
    By Jackson McHenry
  12. book review
    Mum’s the Word: Elizabeth Remains a Cipher in New Biography The Queen: Her LifeAuthor Andrew Morton doesn’t even try to pin his subject down, offering instead Wikipedia-deep chronologies and press-release prose.
    By Hillary Kelly
  13. movie review
    The Son Is So Bad, You May Question Whether You Actually Liked The FatherThe new film from The Father director Florian Zeller, starring Hugh Jackman as a parent unsure of what to do about his child’s depression, is a mess.
    By Alison Willmore
  14. finales
    The Good Fight Carries OnAfter six seasons spent toying with escapism, the frequently surreal legal drama ends with its feet on the ground.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  15. theater review
    Kimberly Akimbo Skates Uptown, Anagrams IntactThe joyous and quirky show, starring Victoria Clark, glides onto Broadway.
    By Jackson McHenry
  16. close read
    Serena’s Journey Has Become the Heart of The Handmaid’s TaleSeason five raises a loaded question: Is it possible for oppressors to see the error of their ways?
    By Jen Chaney
  17. movie review
    Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Doesn’t Have the AnswersHow can any one film manage the expectations put on Ryan Coogler’s sequel and make space for grief? It can’t.
    By Angelica Jade Bastién
  18. tv review
    The Crown Wades Into a Royal MessThe choppy but absorbing fifth season of Netflix’s monarchical saga feels divorced from what came before.
    By Jen Chaney
  19. album review
    Our LossDrake’s new album, billed as a collaboration with 21 Savage, renews his interest in bars but also excitable, chauvinistic cruelty.
    By Craig Jenkins
  20. movie review
    Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Should Have Been WeirderBut credit to Daniel Radcliffe for committing to the bit.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  21. theater review
    Surreal Humor and Medical Metaphor in You Will Get SickLinda Lavin and Daniel K. Isaac are onstage in a very peculiar caregiver-and-patient relationship.
    By Jackson McHenry
  22. movie review
    Something in the Dirt Gets Paranoid in Los AngelesDirectors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s latest feels more familiar than the duo’s other work, but its enthusiasm goes a long way.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  23. movie review
    Netflix’s Enola Holmes 2 Thrives on Millie Bobby Brown’s CharmThe young actress powers this whole franchise through the force of her charisma.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  24. theater review
    Onstage, It’s Almost Almost Famous You’ll meet them all again on the long journey to the middle.
    By Jackson McHenry
  25. book review
    In Surrender, Bono Embraces His ContradictionsThe U2 frontman does not shy away from blunt self-reflection in his poetic and very Bono memoir.
    By Jen Chaney
  26. theater review
    A Man of No Importance, Larger in MiniatureJim Parsons leads the revival of the Ahrens-Flaherty-McNally musical.
    By Jackson McHenry
  27. song review
    Rihanna’s Return Is a Careful Balancing Act“Lift Me Up” is closer to a prayer than a proper comeback single.
    By Craig Jenkins
  28. tv review
    The White Lotus Retracts Its FangsMike White’s HBO series remains well appointed and well acted in season two, but a creeping timidity undermines its satire.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  29. movie review
    For a Movie About Patriarchal Violence, Holy Spider Sure Murders a Lot of WomenThe new film from Border director Ali Abbasi is a serial-killer story that tries, unsuccessfully, to be more.
    By Alison Willmore
  30. movie review
    In Armageddon Time, James Gray Looks at His Life and Doesn’t Like What He SeesJeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway play the director’s parents in this beautiful and damning coming-of-age tale.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  31. art
    A Painting for a World in CollapseWhat The Raft of the Medusa reveals about contemporary political art.
    By Jerry Saltz
  32. theater review
    A One-Dimensional Robert Moses in Straight Line CrazyRalph Fiennes stars in this talky, static retelling of Moses’s misdeeds.
    By Jackson McHenry
  33. album review
    Midnights’ Moonlit LessonsTaylor Swift’s tenth album reveals a simpler fantasy: the desire to be truly free.
    By Craig Jenkins
  34. movie review
    In Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook Pulls BackMaybe a little too much.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  35. rip
    Peter Schjeldahl, Art Critic for The New Yorker, Dead at 80Schjeldahl, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019, wrote the towering personal essay “The Art of Dying.”
    By Jason P. Frank
  36. movie review
    Black Adam Is Entertaining RubbishThe Rock plays the DC superhero with such a stony face that we forget how charming this actor can be otherwise.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  37. movie review
    The Gorgeous Melancholy of AftersunPaul Mescal plays a dad who takes his kid on a holiday he can’t afford in this moody drama about memory.
    By Alison Willmore
  38. theater review
    A Little Life, Off the Page, Is All In on PainIvo van Hove’s four-hour Dutch adaptation comes to BAM.
    By Jackson McHenry
  39. theater review
    20 Years On, Topdog/Underdog Still Shows Who’s Losing the GameTwo compelling performers keep it alive.
    By Rob Weinert-Kendt
  40. fire & blood
    What’s Going on With House of the Dragon’s Mysaria?Her fate in the season’s penultimate episode is as confusing as everything else about this character.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  41. album review
    Lil Baby Knows Exactly What You Want From HimOn It’s Only Me, the rap star is successful enough to take chances but understands his appeal too well to stray from the script.
    By Craig Jenkins
  42. movie review
    Till Is a Painstakingly Careful Drama About a Racist AtrocityChinonye Chukwu’s film about the murder of Emmett Till is both cautious about and hemmed in by the terrible event at its center.
    By Alison Willmore
  43. tv review
    Surrender to the Batshittery That Is The WatcherThis gleefully over-the-top limited series doesn’t always make sense, but it also embraces the fact that it doesn’t always make sense.
    By Jen Chaney
  44. movie review
    Well, Halloween Ends Is a Pleasant SurpriseAt long last, this most recent run of Halloween movies has its Season of the Witch.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  45. movie review
    Are the Characters in Stars at Noon Unbearable or Just Unbearably Hot?Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn are expats unable to keep their hands off of each other in the unsettling Stars at Noon from Claire Denis.
    By Alison Willmore
  46. close read
    To Understand Athena, Watch The Battle of AlgiersWhat the films have to say about the long-lasting impact of colonial structures is as illuminating as it is rare.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  47. theater review
    The Piano Lesson Returns With Generations of Memory Laid OnSamuel L. Jackson and Danielle Brooks show off their stage mastery in this August Wilson revival.
    By Jackson McHenry
  48. close read
    The Fantasy-Prequel ProblemHouse of the Dragon and The Rings of Power have been presented as shining new jewels in the streaming pantheon. They also belie a lack of imagination.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  49. let the right one in
    We’ve Drunk This Blood BeforeTwo vampire remakes are currently competing for TV audiences’ attention. Surprisingly, they both have teeth.
    By Jen Chaney and Roxana Hadadi
  50. fire and blood
    Is Queen Alicent Acting in Bad Faith?The presence of a certain seven-pointed star adds an intriguing new wrinkle to House of the Dragon’s Targaryen-Hightower power struggle.
    By Roxana Hadadi
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