“Newport & the Great Folk Dream” is a rapturous documentary — elegant and transporting, full of scratchy lyrical black-and-white images and performances that have a timeless power. The movie tells the...
In “Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” the preeminent pop star of our time introduces the 12 tracks on her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Seated...
There are few genres I like less than the snarky violent action comedy. I didn’t care for it much in the ’80s (though “48 HRS.” is splendid popcorn), I liked it...
There’s no one way to measure when a movie enters the cultural bloodstream — I mean, when it does so as powerfully as a shot of heroin. But when it happens,...
In the old days, when a movie drama had a topical urgency, we would say that it was “ripped from the headlines.” But that phrase is now beyond quaint. Today we’re...
The director Rod Lurie has had an eclectic career that often tilts toward the dark side — he has made films about the nitty-gritty of politics (“Nothing But the Truth,” “The...
The comedy revolution referred to by the title of Nick Davis’s sharp and effusive documentary “You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution…” is the one...
Afterlife movies tend to be amiable in a goofy way, one that ends up tamping down the stakes. Once you’ve arrived in the afterlife, you aren’t going anywhere, and you’re not...
