Somewhere between its opening silent-film interstitials and the scene where “Stranger Things” actress Maya Hawke vomits emojis into a sink, Gia Coppola’s “Mainstream” assumes misshapen form as a social-media satire attuned less to the fast-moving currents of the influencer economy than to the moral panic it often foments in audiences over 25. That’s a shame,…

An old and disillusioned martial arts instructor bites the dust at the start of the Asian-American martial arts family comedy “The Paper Tigers.” And as Sifu Cheung (Roger Yuan) lays dying, his killer makes a suggestive hand gesture, as if he were somehow in tune with Cheung’s ebbing life force. Now it’s here, now it’s…

This is one of those well-meaning pictures apt to make certain viewers grind their teeth. I’m sorry to report that I am one such viewer. Directed by Marshall Burnette from his own story, fleshed out into a screenplay by Jason Williamson, “Silo” begins with some sumptuous shots of sunrise in the American heartland (and no,…

Superstardom privileges some with a lifestyle so ostentatious it removes them from reality. But these beneficiaries also have a digital megaphone that holds more power than that of world leaders, with millions of admirers hanging on every word, demanding entertainers take a stand on matters of social justice or global catastrophe. Meanwhile the public must…

Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jeffrey Wright, Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Ehle, John David Washington, Tim Blake Nelson, Jharrel Jerome, A$AP Rocky, and Nas are among the incredible cast whose talents woefully go to waste in the frustrating courtroom drama “Monster.” This is a movie that’s been sitting around for a while, having premiered at the Sundance Film…

On February 25, 1956, at a closed plenum of the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech about Joseph Stalin, who had died in 1953. Stalin ruled with the proverbial iron fist ever since consolidating power around himself in the wake of Lenin’s death in 1924. Khrushchev, in…