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Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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"Wake Up" is too long, too complicated and gives everyone besides Brolin, O’Connor and Close (who has a blast here) too little to do. But it’s still a kick.
Posted Jan 14, 2026
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Goodbye June
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Here’s one more example of a great cast unable to salvage bad material.
Posted Jan 14, 2026
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Jay Kelly
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Wow, is this thing lazy, self-indulgent and self-satisfied.
Posted Jan 14, 2026
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Hedda
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Hoss is fantastic -- both powerful and nuanced in ways that create a character deeper and more tragic than anything Thompson summons. I found myself wanting to see her take on Hedda Gabler instead.
Posted Dec 06, 2025
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The Woman in Cabin 10
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Just give me a better plot and a believable character in the next inevitable entry in the "Woman" series.
Posted Nov 11, 2025
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The Perfect Neighbor
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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It’s an object lesson in the ways basic civility has eroded.
Posted Nov 11, 2025
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A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Every couple of months, I’ll have what I call a process nightmare, a convoluted dream that requires me to perform certain tasks that I don’t completely understand and fail to complete on a deadline. Those dreams are exhausting. So is A House of Dynamite.
Posted Nov 11, 2025
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Frankenstein
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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While it won’t supplant my personal favorites (The Devil’s and Backbone Pan’s Labyrinth), Frankenstein is a return to form for del Toro... It’s a signature fusion of blood, brains and heart.
Posted Nov 11, 2025
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All of You
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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The unexpected consequence of the movie is that the longer you spend time with Simon and Laura, the less you care whether they get together for keeps.
Posted Oct 03, 2025
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The Thursday Murder Club
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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The mystery, in the first of what will likely be a series of films, isn’t really that interesting. But it draws in fine stage-and-screen actors like David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Naomie Ackie and Daniel Mays.
Posted Oct 03, 2025
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The Map That Leads to You
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Up to its truly stupid ending, Map is enjoyable as a bubbleheaded travelogue through various sun-kissed summer spots of the continent.
Posted Sep 12, 2025
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Night Always Comes
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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The movie’s biggest casting error is front and center. Is anybody less plausible to play a beat-down American named Lynette than the elegant Kirby, who grew up posh in London?
Posted Sep 12, 2025
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Madea's Destination Wedding
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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It’s cheap, sometimes funny, totally forgettable. The usual.
Posted Aug 07, 2025
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The Woman in the Yard
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Neither the thoughtful nor the scary parts of the movie totally succeed. Still, getting a chance to watch Deadwyler do her thing is always a plus.
Posted Aug 07, 2025
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Mountainhead
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Armstrong’s dialogue is shrewd, salty and often hilarious, but your laugh may sound like a death rattle.
Posted Jul 03, 2025
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Echo Valley
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Echo Valley does a decent job of showing you the ravaging effects of addiction on a user’s family... [But] in the end, it’s just a cynical plot point in an implausible flick that plays like a wannabe Mildred Pierce on drugs.
Posted Jul 03, 2025
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STRAW
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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The strengths come less from the script or direction than from its powerhouse star, Taraji P. Henson.
Posted Jul 03, 2025
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The Electric State
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Given all the money and talent thrown at this project, Electric State has no excuse to be so boring.
Posted Apr 04, 2025
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You're Cordially Invited
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Half of Prime Video’s You’re Cordially Invited is a familiar but nicely played comedy about a Southern family wedding, white middle-class variety. The movie’s other half keeps disrupting it with sloppy slapstick.
Posted Mar 08, 2025
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Back in Action
(2025)
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Steve Murray
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Everybody involved deserves better, especially the viewers.
Posted Jan 25, 2025
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The Piano Lesson
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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Like I said, hokum. But it’s hokum that’s carried along by Wilson’s musical, muscular dialogue.
Posted Dec 23, 2024
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Our Little Secret
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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It’s not the screwiest of screwball comedy complications. Instead it’s lame, tame and dated.
Posted Dec 23, 2024
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Stopping the Steal
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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If we lived in a saner nation, I wouldn’t be recommending Steal, a documentary I know you don’t want to watch. I didn’t want to watch it, either -- it shouldn’t have to exist. But here we are.
Posted Oct 31, 2024
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Uglies
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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Uglies is so carelessly made, it feels like an active gesture of contempt toward the readers of Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 source novel and to anyone who watches the small-screen result.
Posted Oct 04, 2024
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His Three Daughters
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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The setup and the actors are so compelling, it’s a shame that writer-director Azazel Jacobs directs his own screenplay in a way that emphasizes the sculpted, scripted, stagy quality of his dialogue.
Posted Oct 04, 2024
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The Animal Kingdom
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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What could have been a silly metaphor about puberty becomes an interesting fable about society’s eternal drive to divide itself into Us vs. Them. More than a treatise, though, "Kingdom" offers some lovely, poetic sequences that can linger in your memory.
Posted Aug 30, 2024
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Knox Goes Away
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Yeah, it’s a bit of a gimmick. But Michael Keaton, directing himself in the title role, turns in a performance and film with tense, quiet virtues.
Posted Aug 30, 2024
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Faye
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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The movie could have been much deeper and smarter, but it’s enough to make you hope for some sort of comeback or at the very least a renewed appreciation of her work.
Posted Aug 02, 2024
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A Family Affair
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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Even Kathy Bates, as the down-to-earth mother of Kidman’s dead husband can’t save A Family Affair from terminal fakeness.
Posted Aug 02, 2024
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Atlas
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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Lopez’s character and the movie itself can’t quite decide if AI is a big bad evil thing or our very best buddy. So it decides to say both things in what seems less a philosophical choice and more the most inoffensive and lucrative one.
Posted Jun 28, 2024
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The Great Lillian Hall
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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Instead of an interesting study of dementia, Elisabeth Seldes Annacone’s script becomes a showcase for mother-daughter recriminations that seem even older than Chekhov’s play.
Posted Jun 28, 2024
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Hit Man
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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It’s likable enough, in a film-noir-lite way, but it’s never as thrilling, funny or romantic as it ought to be.
Posted Jun 28, 2024
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The Idea of You
(2024)
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Steve Murray
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Sure, we know miscommunications and heartache will ensue; it’s a romcom, after all. But it’s a fairly smart, well-acted one that finds its true villain in social media and its divisive, tear-everything-down energy. The movie is a not-so-guilty pleasure.
Posted May 31, 2024
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Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Director Marco Bellocchio renders this story of religious extremism in a handsome production that doesn’t shy away...
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Irena's Vow
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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I wish director Louise Archambault's film were made with more edge or insight, but its earnest uplift makes Vow a solid choice for opening-night film.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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The Goldman Case
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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It’s a film easier to respect than to enjoy.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Shoshana
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Like The Goldman Case and Kidnapped, it’s another fact-based drama that might invite some pre-viewing homework.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Stella: A Life
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Directed by Kilian Riedhof, it’s a movie less to enjoy than to be haunted by.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Where Is Anne Frank
(2021)
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Steve Murray
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The film is an interesting experiment that doesn’t quite cohere.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man and The Pool
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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The Old Man and the Pool is a charming, charmingly brief exploration of the sort of adventures with health hiccups that arise with middle age. If you don’t find it relatable, you’re young or lucky or both.
Posted Feb 14, 2024
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Society of the Snow
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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The movie could have used more surprises of its kind. Otherwise, Society is a movie I respect more than recommend.
Posted Feb 14, 2024
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The Killer
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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It has a massive, house-leveling fight scene, but dramatically it doesn’t really develop a pulse until its final minutes.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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Nyad
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Like the athletes they represent, Bening and Foster are the sort of career pros you just sit back and admire as they nail their scenes.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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May December
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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In the end, May December offers neither the campy juice you get from those ripped-from-the-headlines TV movies it mocks or the depths of a psychological art film like Ingmar Bergman’s Persona.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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El Conde
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Though it has moments of dark wit (a flying sequence in the second half has a wild poetry to it), El Conde reminded me that Larraín’s filmography is wobbly. His films tend to be more interesting in their concept than in the watching.
Posted Oct 03, 2023
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Being Mary Tyler Moore
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Being Mary Tyler Moore reminds us of the subversive, sunny power of the woman who could turn the world on with her smile but was battling personal demons herself.
Posted Jul 14, 2023
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Reality
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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Satter does a decent job of establishing and maintaining a low-level hum of anxiety as Reality slowly realizes the quiet, deep danger she’s in...
Posted Jul 14, 2023
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Peter Pan & Wendy
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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The movie is an argument for leaving all the old stories alone if we’re not willing to embrace their weirdness and wrongness. Otherwise, we kill a lot of the odd magic that attracted us to begin with.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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Hannah Gadsby: Something Special
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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After bearing personal trauma in the 2018 breakout, Gadsby proves to still be funny, with crack timing.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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Judy Blume Forever
(2023)
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Steve Murray
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It’s a lovely, informative movie.
Posted May 01, 2023
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