Owen Gleiberman

Zac Efron, left, portrays serial killer Ted Bundy and Lily Collins plays Bundy's girlfriend in Netflix's "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile."

‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’ review: Zac Efron captures charisma of Ted Bundy

May 2, 2019 at 5:18 p.m.

Serial killers are the ultimate compartmentalized criminals — the fear and horror they represent isn't just there in the gruesomeness of their violence, but in the way they pass among...

‘Teen Spirit’ review: Elle Fanning plays a dull pop wannabe, but she can sing

April 21, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.

"Teen Spirit" comes on like a very now movie about pop music and those who inject it like an adrenalized sugar-high dream. (I'm one of them.) Violet (Elle Fanning), a...

Victoria Hill, left, and Haley Lu Richardson in "The Chaperone," a fictionalized period drama about an episode in the life of soon-to-be screen star Louise Brooks (Richardson), as she starts a new life in New York City.

‘The Chaperone’ review: Haley Lu Richardson captures spirit of Louise Brooks

April 12, 2019 at 1:00 p.m.

When you watch the silent-screen star Louise Brooks in one of the films that made her a legend, most spectacularly the glittering femme-fatale drama "Pandora's Box" (1929), it's shocking to...

‘Unplanned’ review: Case against abortion is absolutist and extreme

April 4, 2019 at 2:55 p.m.

“Unplanned” isn’t a good movie, but it’s effective propaganda — or, at least, it is if you belong to the group it’s targeting: those who believe that abortion in America,...

‘Climax’ review: Gaspar Noe’s dance film devolves into meaningless horror

March 8, 2019 at 1:42 p.m.

Gaspar Noé is a filmmaker who literally wants to show you hell on earth. He wants to lead you into the pit, to make the ultimate shocking spectacle of our...

‘A Madea Family Funeral’ review: Tyler Perry’s pulp conviction

March 1, 2019 at 3:47 p.m.

"A Madea Family Funeral" is the eleventh Tyler Perry film to showcase Perry in the role of the fire-breathing battle-axe-in-flowered-print-dresses inner-city drag matriarch Madea. Since Perry has said that it...

‘Pandas’ review: So much cute, so much endangered for these roly-poly bears

January 24, 2019 at 5:27 p.m.

Pandas are God's oversize teddy bears, big and roly-poly in a so-cuddly-it's-funny, designed-by-nature-for-Gund way. Their whole two-toned look — the snowy heads set off by adorable dabs of black —...

‘Being Frank’ review: The pop star who almost was

January 24, 2019 at 4:54 p.m.

In "Frank," the minor oddball indie-rock fable from 2014, the title character was literally a head case: a pathological bizarro, played by Michael Fassbender , who spent the entire film...

‘Escape Room’ review: Six trapped characters in search of an exit and an audience who cares

January 31, 2019 at 6:18 p.m.

In one of the more effectively preposterous death-trap suspense scenes of "Escape Room," half a dozen terrified strangers, who have signed on to compete in a game of experiential survival,...

Actors Gary Busey, Theresa Russell, Tony Curtis, Michael Emil, and director Nicolas Roeg answer newsmen during a press conference for "Insignificance" at the 38th Cannes International Film Festival, held in the festival palace for their film in competition, in Cannes May 11 1985.

An appreciation of Nicolas Roeg: A director who fragmented the world, then put it back together

December 12, 2018 at 6:56 a.m.

The 1970s were the heyday of what was still known, with Victorian understatement, as the love scene: those writhing arenas of nude intimacy, which moviegoers experienced with a touch of...

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