A Shakespeare adaptation without all that Shakespeare stuff, David Michôd's "The King" goes once more unto the breach only to come up short. "The King," written by Michôd and Joel...

The words "inspired by real events" are some of the first you see on screen in "Lucy in the Sky ." But that loose tie to reality becomes more of a noose than a help for the story that director Noah...

Will Smith is usually an asset for a movie. He's the kind of true movie star whose charisma can elevate even the most mediocre material. You'd think then that it would be a good thing to have not just...

An air of menace and a cloud of controversy accompany the arrival of Todd Phillips’ “Joker” like a thick perfume. That, in itself, could be something to celebrate. Danger isn’t...

Bong Joon-ho's film "Parasite" starts in a dingy, half-basement apartment with a family of four barely able to scratch out a life. There must be no place to go but up, right? Yes and no. There's...

“Don’t get that storyteller look,” film director Salvador Mallo’s elderly mother admonishes him at one point in “Pain and Glory.” It’s hard not to chuckle,...

Meryl Streep is describing "the Darwinism of the moment" and not just because her latest film, the Steven Soderbergh-directed Panama Papers satire "The Laundromat," opens with cavemen. She's...

Renée Zellweger is so undeniably perfect as Judy Garland that it almost makes up for the shortcomings of the film around it. "Judy " is itself a fine and imperfect look at some of Garland's...

There may be no such thing as bad publicity, but the spotlight on "Joker" is testing the limits of that old cliche. The origin story about the classic Batman villain has inspired pieces both in...

For the amount of cursing, vulgarity and nudity in "Dolemite Is My Name ," it might come as a surprise that it's actually a rather sweet and heartfelt film. "Dolemite" is not here to shock and...