Fantasies and morality tales make uneasy bedfellows, as evidenced in the varyingly exultant and frustrating “The Pursuit of Love.” Adapted by Emily Mortimer from the famed same-named 1945 novel by Nancy Mitford, the three-episode miniseries is set in that sliver of time between World War I and World War II, and follows two cousins whose…

Many will see James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” as a funhouse mirror inversion of the writer/director’s work with “Guardians of the Galaxy.” After all, it’s another collection of underdog heroes who overcome all odds to defeat an interstellar enemy. “Guardians for Adults” wouldn’t be entirely incorrect. However, the main influence on this clever action comedy…

Writer/director Edson Oda’s “Nine Days” premiered at Sundance 2020, and audiences in Park City fell in love with this ambitious, moving tale. And then it went where so many movies had to in 2020, a holding pattern, waiting for the world to recover from a pandemic enough to go back to theaters. It is finally…

In the pantheon of Disney movies based on Disney theme park rides, “Jungle Cruise” is pretty good—leagues better than dreck like “Haunted Mansion,” though not quite as satisfying as the original “Pirates of the Caribbean.”  The most pleasant surprise is that director Jaume Collet-Serra (“The Shallows“) and a credited team of five, count ’em, writers have…

Paris-dwelling American film critic Lisa Nesselson just attended her 33rd Cannes Film Festival. Which means she has spent 11 months of her life in the city of Cannes, mostly inside in the dark. We asked her to reflect on how Cannes 2021 hewed to or departed from tradition after the 2020 festival was cancelled. With…

Light snow, misty fog, and falling ash blend in the opening scenes of David Lowery’s magnificent “The Green Knight,” setting a surreal tone for what’s to come. You can feel the chill and smell the air. Immediately, you feel outside yourself, far from daily concerns, set for an experience that’s unlike anything else in nearby theaters. That…